Fear of Work
Many people get excited about their ideas, but when it comes time to put that new idea into action their excitement turns into excuses because it’s going to require an awful lot of extra effort and hard work to turn their idea into a reality.
This article continues the break down of dealing with the fears that prevent people from taking action on ideas. Today’s topic is Fear of Work.
Like the proverbial armchair quarterback, it takes no skill or talent to talk about the action and effort that other people should be taking. It takes a lot more bravery to turn that discerning commentary on ones self.
How hard are you willing to work in order to put your ideas into action?
I think most people fear the hard work because they don’t really know exactly how much work it will take or how long they’ll have to put in that work for their idea to become a reality. There’s certainly no guarantee of how long and how hard you’ll have to work before you’re “done” — but I can guarantee that if you never start, you’ll never finish.
The best method I use for trying to determine the amount of time and labor an idea may take to put into action is to begin listing every item you’ll have to do in order to turn the dream into reality.
Chances are that your initial list of items you need to work on will be too general.
Your item will say “Write book” instead of “write a great opening line”, “Write first paragraph”, and “Finish first chapter”. Take those too-general list items and break them down into two or three smaller tasks and you’ll have a better feel for the effort you’ll need to invest.
Specific actions are always better than general activity.
Once you have a written list, right next to each item jot down an estimated time it will take to complete the task. You may fine that you have a lot tasks that are only 15 minutes long — that feels manageable, right? You can do that!
Now that you have an accurate description of the tasks that need accomplished and an estimated time frame to complete them, you’re ready to block out the time on your calendar to actually do the work. Put it on your schedule, and then when it’s time to do the work — do. the. work.
People fear the unknown.
It’s likely why you feared doing the work on your project — you really didn’t know what that work was comprised of — but now that you know every item on the list and how long each task should take, there’s really nothing left to be afraid of, is there?
