Yesterday, I picked my brother from the airport who was a few days in London for some interactive courses. He was very happy and has some amazing stories to tell. The best part? Paid tickets and and the rest was covered almost by the organization there. It may sound awesome for some people. That's because it is...
But, before he went there, he was very anxious and I feared that he may refused to go at the last moment. That because actually happened the first time. He canceled his a paid trip at the last hour to Holland, prettified about being alone, not finding friends and not capable of doing all this .
Seeing my brother in that stress and now he wanna participate again in an other country, it reminds many people that I met and myself. When an opportunity presents itself to us in a form that it is hard to us to see it, we make all kind of assumptions that it is not enough for us or we are not enough for that.
You do not understand what am I saying? We make many assumptions in our daily life. It is then when you see a girl that you like and the next second you assume she has a boyfriend or now you do not have enough courage and the next time you will have more or ... or what ever your mind comes up with. We tend to make assumptions to protect ourselves and feel safe. It is that part of our brain of managing risk and it keeps us alive. That's good system. But, growing in a overprotect it environment by our parents and schools, we tend to preserve ourselves. That's not so good.
That's why I made a rule for myself, the One Year Rule.
If I am struggling to make a decision to act on it or to stay inactive, I will think: If I stay inactive my life would be mostly comfortable and safe with same experience and same people. If a decide to act the result would be unknown. It could be very worse or very good or at the beginning would be awful and to the end is an achievement. Many people are stuck there and stay inactive because of fear. You met these people, they usually say "If I done this I would have that girl", " If I knew I would risk it" and "I should done this cause now I would feel much better for myself"
So with this rule you can decide if you are into something, you are going to decide if it was good or bad after one year you started. Why? We are very emotional and a little fearful at the moment but in the long term we are getting more logic about us. Even if it is bad experience you learned something and usually you use it as funny story which things there messed you up.
When everybody around are not encouraging and you want to do it, then do it and after one year you will know if you did right.
Next time you are onto something and don't know what to do, think that "One year from now how am I going feel about myself doing it right now?"
Photo by Dalton Touchberry