What's Stopping You?

What’s stopping you getting started with something you want to do? Are you sure you really, really want to do it? There’s always a good reason not to do things – especially the things you don’t really want to do. This week I’ve had to force myself through several things I didn’t want to do, my brain was telling me I had good reasons not to do them but they weren’t reasons at all, they were EXCUSES!

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Clicks And Leads is a “tongue in cheek” digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

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Hi everyone, Nicola here. Hope you’re all well.

So, what’s been happening this week? I’ve been booking flights to Australia. It’s a terrifying thing, I can tell you. I’ve had to book a flight from England to Australia and Australia back to England. I’ve had to book flights from Athens to England and then from England back to Kalamata because we’re in the period where, when I’m away, it’s the period where they change over and you can actually get direct flights to the local airport.

I don’t know why I find it so terrifying, booking flights, I think it’s something about the commitment of it all and the thought of being in the air for all that time, I’ve got to say. I’m not very good at long-term committing in advance, I much prefer to do things on the spur of the moment so typically, I’ve left this to the very last minute.

Luckily, I didn’t have too much extra to pay, there was very cheap flights available with Air China but they were something like 32 or 38 hours long, meaning a very long stop-over somewhere like Bangkok. And I didn’t really fancy that so I decided to opt for paying the extra couple hundred quid and having a 21 and 23 hour flight instead, so while I’m not looking forward to it, I think I’ve made the best of it.

It’s with a decent airline and it’s laying over in Dubai which, you know, is really quite a pleasant airport. So yeah, I made myself do it the other day. It was quite hard, psychologically, to make myself do it but I just got on with it and finally, I’ve got all the confirmations and everything.

I also had a little bit of a thing where you had to wait, I wanted to pay on my debit card but I didn’t want to do that because if, you know, my airline went bust just before Christmas so I thought I’d better hang on and do it on my credit card instead, so that’s what I did.

Apparently, you’re covered. Still trying to get my money back from the one that went bust, though. Anyway, let’s get on with the show, shall we?

So, you may notice this week I’m a little bit red in the face. That’s because I have just had a rather hot shower. That’s because it gets a little bit cold in these houses in the winter, unless you’ve got the fire on, which I haven’t, I don’t tend to do during the day.

So, hot shower followed by getting dressed, followed by blow drying hair because I’m talking to you guys, equals red face. So I was thinking to myself, oh, I better hang on till my face goes down a bit and then I thought no, don’t do that because I’m already late with this vzine and I need to get it to Phoebe so she can do the editing.

And she won’t be happy if I give it to her late and then expect it done on a quick turnaround. So, even though I’m bright red and that’s not the ideal scenario, I thought no, I’ve got to just press on, because if I don’t get started, I won’t get done and I need to go out soon.

So I was thinking about this in conjunction with the whole thing about booking my airline flights and hanging on as long as possible to do that. It’s a combination of being reluctant to commit myself, trying to wait for the most ideal set of circumstances, but then the pressing deadline comes and you have to get the thing done, whatever it is.

So I actually work really well to deadlines, I find that if anything is going to be done, it’s going to be done to a deadline round here, unless it’s something that I’m deeply, deeply passionate about.

So, if you’re struggling to get something done or to get started with anything, it’s got to be something that either you’re passionate enough about that you actually cannot stop yourself starting, or it’s got to be something that’s deadline-driven so you’ve got to do it and you know you’ve got to do it by a certain time.

So, is there anything that you’re working on at the moment that you’re really avoiding doing? Are you waiting for the most ideal set of circumstances, perhaps, or are you waiting for the stars to align in some magical way?

I used to work with a coach called Mark Forster and he used to say a phrase, and he was a productivity expert, so he used to say something that went along the lines of, I’ll just get the fine out.

So, for example, one of the things that was causing me to delay doing this vzine, is because my tripod’s broken, and I was trying to wait to see if I could get another tripod or I was trying to wait to see if I could remember to get some string down the bottom of the road so that I could fix my tripod and I was scared that if I used my tripod without fixing it, then it might fall over and my camera would break and that would be really heartbreaking.

If you watch the beginning episodes of the vzine, you will see how hard I had to work to get the camera in the first place that worked for me to do the vzine. So yeah, it’s been a tricky one. So I was just prevaricating and prevaricating about my red face and the fact the tripod didn’t work.

Then I suddenly thought, I cannot care about the red face and I can use something else instead of a bit of string and I went hunting for something and I found an old iPhone charger cable. So that is what’s holding my tripod together today, and that’s how I’m able to come to you, albeit with a red face.

So if there’s anything you’re prevaricating about, is there any way that you can work around the situation? Is there any way that you can think about the thing that’s holding you up and see if there’s a cobbled together answer, because even a cobbled together answer is better than no answer at all.

And getting started anyhow, even with a red face, is better than not starting at all. So, what’s on the blog and the podcast this week?

Well, on the blog, it’s mainly all about deep-dive learning, which I think I covered in the vzine last week and also, it’s about how to learn anything new really, really fast because I have been doing that recently.

I’ve been immersing myself in something and I cover how to do that on the blog, in the one-minute videos and I also cover it on last week’s vzine which is number 88.

So the other thing, on the podcast this week, we’ve got one of our occasional interviews. We don’t interview strangers on the podcast, we only interview people who are listeners and who are members of our Facebook group. And this week, it’s the turn of Anita Davenport, who I met many, many years ago when I had a hotel back in Worthing, and that’s how I met Judith too, back in ooh, that’d be 2003, 2004, that kind of thing.

And Anita is now very active in network marketing. Now Judith and I have always fancied the idea of network marketing, I’ve even given it a go on occasions, but I’ve never found a company that suited me or an upline that was there for me or anything, you know, those kinds of things.

But Anita is very keen on it, she says it’s the ultimate business if you like to coach and mentor people. So if you’re interested in network marketing, go and have a listen to what Anita has to say because she’s making a very good job of it, apparently. That’s only at the podcast, episode 214 and you can get to it by going to ownitthepodcast.com/214 or of course, look for it on my blog.

Hope you’re enjoying everything I’m putting out, I love to hear your comments, please tell me if there’s anything you’d like me to cover on one of these vzines.

Feedback is crucial, it just makes you feel like you’re not talking to an empty camera lens every week, so love to see your comments. See you later.

Creative Direction & Video Editing
Phoebe Soremekun

Intro Music
Pool Cosby

Incidental Music
The Messenger – Silent Partner (No Copyright Music)
[Non-Copyrighted Music] Chill Jazzy Lofi Hip Hop (Royalty Free) Jazz Hop Music
Chill & Relaxing Lo-Fi Hip-Hop Instrumental – Warm Nights // No Copyright Music

Drone footage of The Mani
Georgios Ser-Aouas

Drone Footage of Shoreham by Sea
Scott Wright Photography

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What’s Stopping You?

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