This past Saturday, I attended a chapter meeting of the National Speaker’s Association. As usual, there were very dynamic presenters who provided us with lots of very rich information on how to be a more successful speaker. During one of the breaks, I was talking to another attendee who remarked that these programs were great, but they were also a curse. On the one hand, seeing these amazing, successful speakers can be very motivating. You may walk away thinking: “Wow, this is what’s possible! Now I can go out and do that, too!” On the other hand, you can walk away feeling overwhelmed and demoralized. “Oh my, see how great that speaker is. Look at their amazing Website. Look at all that they have to offer. I am so far away from that. How will I ever get there?”
I realized that I was going back and forth between both of these feelings. Rather than pushing away the overwhelm, I let myself feel it, so I could dig a little deeper to see what was behind it. What I found was a feeling of “not being as good as” these stellar speakers who seem to have it all figured out. And when I thought about taking action on some of the steps presented, what emerged was a fear of failing, not being good enough, and making mistakes. Aha! These are definitely familiar fears to me – they may sound familiar to you, too.
As I was leaving the meeting, someone asked me whether I was going to go ahead and create a green screen at home to produce professional looking videos with varied backgrounds, as one of the speakers had suggested. I know by now that the best way for me to get out of overwhelm and fear is to take very small, but actionable steps. So I replied that the best first step for me would be to just start creating a short video with no effects – a one minute video.
It’s ok to experience and feel overwhelm – we all do at some point or another. What’s not productive is staying there. So what I like to do to get out of it is to take action. Preferably, taking a very small, but doable step toward what I want to do. I now have my next step – what is yours? =)