I realized something was gnawing at me. You know, way back in the recesses of the brain. A tension, a stress.
What was it? I wondered.
I tried to listen to it more closely. I had to get beneath all the other worldly events swirling around my wife and I, as we were doing errands on a Saturday.
Yikes, the tension was there on a Saturday!
As I quieted down inside so I could stalk it, I noticed it felt a little like fear … but had its own unique feel. As I surfed the sensations in my body, I noticed there were also traces of anxiety, a dash of agitation, a pinch of stress.
I kept coming back to re-feel that certain quality of tension I was feeling in my neck and shoulders, creeping down into my gut. Then it came to me: I was feeling the tension that comes with taking a risk.
I was feeling the tension that comes with the risk of moving forward with my “big idea.” In my case, the big idea was moving forward with a book and a business called the “flash promise.”
But I realized that feeling the tension of moving any project into the world was not unique to me.
ANYONE putting out a new idea, business, project, cause, fundraiser, venture, blog post, book, speech, eBook, website, program, product, or coaching WILL FACE THIS REALITY: IT’S A RISK.
The voices in your head will go something like this:
- Is it good enough?
- Maybe it won’t be accepted
- Will people like it?
- I should research it more
- Maybe it going to fail
- No one will get it
- I’m probably crazy to believe in this
- Who am I to put this out there?
Yes, this is the old primitive, less evolved part of the brain playing its usual cards: alert! alert! Danger here! Stay alive! Survive! Don’t be banned from your tribe!
But here’s the tricky thing about this tension: you should not just blow off all of this as an ego-based “fear.”
It is not effective to just label all this risk and tension as “negative” … and try to “move on.”
The reason this is not effective is because there IS risk involved in any big idea.
Let me say it again: The sense of risk is real. There really is risk. This is not just fear.
If you really get inside this tension, you realize you have to learn to LIVE WITH IT.
The more that you get “bigger” by taking your big idea out into the marketplace (where it can be accepted or rejected, bought or ignored), the more you have to learn to live with this tension.
You have to learn to live with this dull ache, this background stress, this truth that your big idea could fail. People may not get it. Your target audience may not like it.
Conscious entrepreneurs! Transformational coaches, speakers, authors! Purpose-driven women! Listen carefully inside yourself:
Find out if some of what you have been calling stress, anxiety, or fear is really this creative tension of putting your work out there.
Such clarity can be liberating itself.
But what if this creative tension is just the fire you need to forge your idea?
Read the second article in this series on Risk & Tension.
How have you mis-labeled this background tension … or how have you tried to make it go away? Please comment: