Step 24 - Become comfortable with being uncomfortable

Have I mentioned in previous steps that it is important for you to become comfortable being uncomfortable? No? well then, lets look at that!

We all have a place and a level that we are comfortable operating in and to become and remain successful we need to shift up a gear or two to:

a/perform tasks we are not comfortable with - speaking in public/ making difficult decisions/making sales calls for example

b/ perform tasks we do not have the skills for

c/ accept that being in business is like being on a financial roller-coaster. There will be times when you make losses that are hugely worrying and you may also make great profits that you are not used to. (Think about all the lottery winners who after a few years are back to where they started. They didn’t know how to manage their money and often felt so uncomfortable in their new social strata that they squandered the money to get back into their comfort zone).

So how do you make yourself comfortable with being uncomfortable? The answer like anything is that practise makes perfect and you need to put yourself out there and engage in activities that frighten you!  For example:

Offer to give a talk about your subject
Do a bungy jump
Make 10 sales calls
Go and talk to a stranger in the street
Go on holiday on your own
Sing in public
Give a load of money to charity

Whatever it is that frightens you- do it! Your confidence and belief in yourself will grow enormously and so will your capacity for having a successful business.

Remember when you do something that is new that the person who never made a mistake probably never made anything! Be kind to your self if you didn’t do so well. It’s the putting yourself out there that matters, not the result. Also remember that repetition is the mother of skill, to get to do something well, we have to do it over and over again.

I am suggesting that you do things that really pull you out of your comfort zone and stretch you and help you grow. There are some things in life however that we are simply not good at. We don’t have a natural aptitude for it, we don’t enjoy it and we struggle to grasp it. For me it’s excel spreadsheets! Boring! No matter how often I am shown how to create formulas- do I remember? No!

That’s because my natural aptitude is for creating. I am an ideas person. Fine detail, I can do but I have to really concentrate.

It is really useful for you to know what your personality profile is and to build your business with support from people who complement you. It is a temptation to work with people who are like us, but this makes the business unbalanced. We need a variety of skills and aptitudes.

To find out what yours is you can take a test. My preference is for a profiling test called Wealth Dynamics, created by my business mentor Roger Hamilton.

You can take the test here:

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