Are You Missing Out?

Have you ever missed out on something because you didn’t act or make a decision in time?

Do you ever find yourself:

• Overwhelmed with too many choices or information;
• Enticed by any form of distraction (how many times can you reorganise that cutlery drawer, check your email or watch just one more TikTok); or
• Paralysed by fear of making the wrong decision…

You get the picture.

If this sounds familiar, you are not alone.

So what is driving this habit of inaction or procrastination?

As with any behaviour – your emotions. More specifically, when the fear of perceived failure, outweighs the motivation for success.

Simply put – risk outweighs reward.

Importantly, it also feels ‘safer’ to not do something and fail, rather than to do something deliberate and fail.

Indeed, an action can be directly attributed to you, whereas no action could be ‘blamed’ on something else – lack of time, money, opportunity etc. This reinforces our sense of self being reliable, capable, strong etc and ultimately able to survive.

And therein lies the golden nugget.

In the main, we are no longer living in times of survival.

Indeed, all the ingredients are available for us to thrive when we have the courage to override our survival brain and step forward more intentionally.

So next time you notice your risk antennae twitching, prompting a habit of inaction and procrastination, metaphorically turn those antennae off, stick ‘no action’ on your list of choices and make a conscious choice. 

Here are a few simple rules as a reminder: