Psychological Super Powers: How to Do Something New When You're Scared

Have you ever had something where your first reaction is, "Oh, that's something new. I don't want to try it. I'm too scared. I already have a lot of fear about something." So today's example, I'm going to be talking about starting a business and how I made that happen.

This is one of those things that a lot of people say, "If I start a successful business, I'm going to have to quit my job tomorrow." Our brain just goes there, so the psychological super power we'll be talking about is how to do something new when you're feeling scared. I'll share part of my story to help you with trying something new yourself, today.

Become comfortable with uncertainty

My example is that three years ago, I didn't even know what a coach was. I think a student mentioned it to me, and I thought, "What? What are you talking about?" Then later, my sister told me about her corporate coach at work, and all these pieces started to come together, that coaching was an option, something that was very different from being a practitioner or a therapist, which had been something I'd never been interested in.

All these pieces started to emerge for me. Now, I have a coaching practice and I have a steady stream of clients. Two years ago, I wouldn't have even guessed that this would be something that would be so enjoyable for me and something I continue to do.

Any time we're starting something new, our brain stops us and says, "This is uncertain. I am not comfortable with uncertainty. I want you to walk away from this option and this opportunity." For starting a business, becoming comfortable with uncertainty is one of the first crucial pieces that we need to think about.

Say yes to as many things as possible

In the beginning, I want you to think about being opportunistic and just trying as many things as possible. What are you interested in? What can you do to develop a business? Is it coaching? Is it something else? If you can say yes to as many things as possible in the beginning, then things can start to fall into place for you.

For me, when I was finishing my coaching training and I was looking for that first client, I was trying all these different things.

I didn't know what was going to work out. When I let go of the expectation and just tried everything, there was my first client, waiting for me.

Be open to productive failure

The second thing that can really help is being open to failure. If you're an over-achiever like myself, being open to failure sounds like a red alert, something to avoid.

There's actually two types of failure. There's defensive failure and productive failure. Defensive failure, we don't really learn anything from it. We don't really have any insights. Productive failure, we fail at something and then we're able to see what the lesson was and pick back up with next steps, to continue progress.

When I talk about my journey from becoming a coach and I didn't have any clients, I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know how to start a business, and then I tell you that I have a thriving coaching practice now, right? That all the steps in between, I can tell you one path about how I succeeded, and what steps I took to be successful, but what we don't usually share are all the ways I failed along the way, too. Trying to make that productive failure is really crucial.

Set small goals

The third thing is actually about thinking about your goals, but not in the way you think. When we're doing something new, it's actually really easy to get overwhelmed with, "What should I be doing in a year? What should I be doing in five years?" Often, we don't know, right? When something's new, we're not sure where it's going to take us.

Can you think of, "What are some steps I can do to start a business or start a side hustle today? This week? What do I want to do in the next month? What's actually feasible with my schedule?" Then think about 90 days. What does 90 days look like for the next three months?

For me, with my own business, I know what the next three months look like and I have goals for the year, because I'm further along. I'm a couple years into the process now. I can't tell you where this will take me in five years, right? I'll probably look back on this video and say, "Oh yeah, that's where I was with this." When you're new, don't get overwhelmed with where you're going to be in two years, because again, I certainly couldn't have told you where I'd be -- Here today.

All that being said, we have a worksheet to help you walk through your steps. Just download it below and that'll get you started. I'd love to talk about this with you further, especially if you have any questions. I actually made this video because so many people reach out to me privately, because they ask about, "How did you get started," and, "What were the first steps?" So, happy to talk about it with you!