confession: i don’t know what I’m doing

Photo Credit: aftab via Flickr.

I’ve spent the last couple of months getting myself & my business together.

I worked on my Right-Brain Business Plan.
I cleared out my Inbox.
I cleaned up my office.
I created my own getting stuff done system (to organize my ToDo list & actually get stuff done).
I set business goals, priorities, and milestones.
I figured out my High Value Activities and Core Business Activities.
I created spreadsheets to track money, metrics, and other fun stuff like that.
I have read, listened to, and watched lots of experts talk about getting your business off the ground.

And then I put myself on an information diet so that I could take some action.

I’ve got everything pointing in the right direction and all my ducks in a row.

And yet I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.

Sometimes it feels like everyone else has it figured out, so… why don’t I?

Sometimes it feels like I’m running out of faith (and time). I mean, where are my results? When is it my turn?

And sometimes I feel overwhelmed. Wouldn’t it be easier to just go back to a 9-5 job instead of running your own business?

And when I listen to these gremlins, I feel like crap.

I start to want to give up. I think that it would be easier to go back to my old job.

Maybe I’ve been fooling myself thinking I could make it on my own.

It’s enough to make a girl want to throw a pity party.

But don’t cry for me, Argentina. Not yet anyway.

It’s a battle sometimes, but I have learned to push my gremlins aside. Or to keep going even though they are griping in my ears… if you ignore them long enough, eventually they’ll shut up (at least for a little while).

So on days like today when I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it, I choose to show up anyway.

Even though the gremlins are telling me I’m not a writer and no one is reading my blog anyway, I am writing.

And I think that’s the point.

When we wallow in our feelings of inadequacy or doubt or whatever it is that keeps us down, the gremlins win.

When the gremlins win, we lose.

I hate losing. Don’t you?

So the only real choice is to keep going. Even if it would be easier not to.

Your turn: what’s your gremlin telling you today?

P.S. If you want some tough love on the subject of “showing up anyway”, I highly recommend Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield (as well as his other books: The War of Art and Do the Work).