But It’s Too Soon To Make That Move (or is it?)

You're trying your best to do it right.

To follow the instructions. To listen to the direction. To not stand out too much and not stand out too little. You want to move forward. You want to make a difference.

But there are just so many options. So many variables.

What if I do this and this happens?

What if I do that and that happens?

What will they think?

What do the experts say about what I need to do, or who I need to be, or how this looks, or whether that's right?

And instead of propelling you forward, all of it stops you dead in your tracks.

You water everything down.

And then you do nothing at all.

I know this place. I've stood here.

When I knew it was time to launch the prototype of my Creative Leadership Spaces, I had every reason to wait. I needed a bigger following first. I needed my book finished. I needed to know it would work before I invited anyone in.

It sounded like responsible planning.

It was Fred.

Fred is the name I give to that fear voice. The one who sounds so much like wisdom. The one who calls paralysis careful, and calls inaction strategic, and has a very reasonable explanation for why today is still not the day.

Fred is exceptionally good at one thing: making you forget that someone is waiting for you.

There’s Someone On The Other Side - Waiting

Here's what I've come to believe, after years of sitting with women in this exact place.

The fear of getting it wrong is not really about getting it wrong.

It's about what getting it wrong would mean. That you're not credible. That nobody will believe in what you do. That if you try and it doesn't land, you're back to square one with egg on your face and nothing to show for it.

So you keep gathering more information.

You keep refining the strategy.

You keep waiting for the version of yourself that is ready enough, polished enough, certain enough to finally say the thing.

And while you're waiting, you forget something.

There is someone out there waiting to hear from you.

Not the perfect version of you. Not the fully-arrived, every-variable-accounted-for version.

You. Right now. With the thing you already know, said in the way only you can say it.

She doesn't need it to be perfect. She needs it to be true.

And even if it doesn't hit the nail on the head exactly the way you'd want it to. Even if the strategy isn't quite right yet, or the words come out a little sideways.

She will feel that you understand what she's carrying.

She will feel less alone.

And that is not nothing.

That is everything.

Kelly Schuknecht, my last guest on my Courage Story podcast, spent a decade being the person who made other people's visions real. The executor. The one behind the CEO.

When she was laid off, her first instinct was to find the next person to stand behind.

That lasted one day.

So, she looked at the company name she'd already registered. The website she'd had built a year before she needed it. The dream she'd been circling in her journals.

And she stopped applying for jobs.

She joined a community of people already doing what she wanted to do, raised her hand the first time someone needed help, and turned that one moment into a package, then clients, then a team, then a book, then a speaking platform.

The company that let her go had already been shown her idea. They said no.

She built it anyway.

Not because she had certainty. Because she had one Tiny Brave Step.

Tentative Works

As the creator of the Tiny Brave Steps methodology, I've watched this pattern in more women than I can count. The ones who get unstuck aren't the ones who finally find the perfect answer. 

They're the ones who take one honest, imperfect step in the direction of what matters to them, and let that step teach them something.

Every step creates real-world information that no amount of waiting-room thinking ever could.

I was scared to death to put out the offer for a paid workshop. My free Creative Spaces group was filled with women who were there to learn, to grow, to accomplish.

But beneath that accomplishment, there was a searching. A reaching for the next level of certainty. There were habits that were robbing them of what could be.

I knew I could help.

So, I started talking about it. In my group. To individuals. And then I  set a date for a workshop.

Three women responded instantly. Instantly! You could have knocked me over with a feather. I had 7 or so in that workshop and we had a fabulous time together - even though it was far from perfectly polished.

It was simply real. And sincere. And I was helping.

That led to my “Tiny Brave Way” space where women meet bi-weekly and are growing and becoming more and more Brave Enough.

Become Brave Enough…

The identity shift I want for you isn't from afraid to fearless.

It's from "I need to know I’m doing it right before I can move" to "I trust myself to respond to whatever happens after I move."

Those are two entirely different women.

The first one is waiting for a guarantee that is never coming.

The second one has decided who she is going to be.

And somewhere out there, the woman who needed to hear what you have to say is still waiting.

She doesn't need you to be perfect.

She needs you to move.

Your Tiny Brave Steps

Think of the one thing you've been sitting on. Not the biggest version of it. One small version. 

One honest sentence you've been waiting to say, one offer you've been waiting to make, one step you've been waiting to feel ready for.

90-second step.

Ask yourself: who is waiting to hear this from me? 

How could this help them in their struggle?

5 minute Step:

Set a date.

Put it somewhere you'll see it tomorrow.

If you want to go further, take it to the Tiny Brave Steps Generator at www.tinybravesteps.com. Copy this prompt in:

"I've been waiting to say something or share something, but I keep talking myself out of it because I'm afraid it won't be perfect or won't land right. Help me find a way to get past this. And one small, honest step I could take today, for the person who's waiting to hear it."

She's out there.

And you're the only one who can say your thing.