69: Leap Into Action: Clarity Comes in the Doing

And so it had me wondering, what are the things that we are all standing at the edge at peeking in or peering over the edge at, when really what we need to do is just begin taking action. I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked by right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast. There's a thought that I've been thinking about for the last week, and I've thought about it so much that I wanted to talk about it a little bit here today on the podcast. I think it will be just a little bit of a short episode. It's unscripted and so I just want to share with you where I'm at with this. I had this thought about how often I hear so many of us talk about how difficult it is to maintain consistency in our actions. And oftentimes this comes about by talking about things like overwhelm or feeling like we're procrastinating or sometimes having so many ideas we're, you know, paralyzed because we don't know which one we want to move forward on next. And I recently just kind of dove head first into a project that I had been feeling this way about for a while as well. And just on the other side of that resistance, everything broke free. Meaning everything opened up for me. And as soon as I began just simply began doing the project, it just started to flow and it felt easy and exciting. And so it had me wondering what are the things that we are all standing at the edge at, peeking in or peering over the edge at, when really what we need to do is just begin taking action. So many times we stand at the edge of a big project or a big dream or something that feels difficult and we feel all of these feelings when really we need to just kind of get in there and figure it out along the way in other words. I think we really just need to be willing to get our hands dirty and just have a willingness to figure it out. Sometimes we just have to figure stuff out, and I think we really would prefer to have it all buttoned up before we begin. Or sometimes we feel like we want to know exactly what it's going to look like or what the process is or what the steps are. And actually we just have to get in there and figure it out. This does mean that we're going to waste some time along the way because, you know, we'll waste some time figuring it out and maybe doing some things that aren't exactly necessary along the way. But action is better than inaction any day. In fact, I would very much say that clarity comes from the doing. Clarity doesn't arrive from us kind of peering in on the project that we want to get started on. Clarity comes after we begin taking action. So it had me thinking about the things that I really procrastinated on. I really put off for a long time because they felt big and scary and difficult. They felt hard. That's all there is to it. They just felt hard. And so this very podcast is the best example. I felt like it was going to be difficult and so I put it off for a long time. A well over a year, which is kind of embarrassing. And what else? I would say a fabric collection. But before that, learning Adobe Illustrator felt really hard. And so I just didn't even start for a long time. Likewise, learning a new app or new technology. Like I'm thinking about Procreate for the iPad so many times I see people kind of peering in from the outside like, I don't understand how you use that program. Well, sometimes you just gotta get in there already. You're gonna mess up and watch some YouTube videos and maybe take a class and you're gonna probably read the manual. But sometimes you just gotta get in there and get started on the business side of things. I would say Facebook ads felt really difficult, and I put off learning how to do those for a long time. Same with email marketing and growing my email list, designing my website and figuring out how to build a page, recording a course or even outlining it felt difficult. I put it off for a couple of years before I finally did it. And then I would say hiring a team. But what I will say is that over the years I've gotten better and better at more quickly just taking action. And the best way to describe this, I think, is that I'm really consistent in working out, but I haven't always been. I used to kind of go six months on, six months off, and finally I just decided that it was something I did rather than negotiate with myself or debate over it. It was just something that I did. And so I wake up, I put my workout clothes on, I put my workout shoes on, and I drive to the gym. And I don't debate about any of that. And so, you know, it would be awkward if I got there and then decided, no, no, I'm not going to work out today. No, it just is what I do. I don't debate over it. I just do it. And so I've gotten a little bit better at simply starting. Sometimes when something feels so difficult, I can recognize that feeling so quickly that I will even start. I'll get excited about starting because I'll realize it must be something really big and exciting. Similarly, I heard Tony Robbins say the first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is cold plunge. He. He said that he does this as a way to remind himself that his body does what his mind tells him to do. And now that's a little bit of a drastic example. But I think that this oftentimes comes right down to the same philosophy. Just starting on something that feels difficult is our body doing what we tell our mind it's going to do. Right? Sometimes we just have to get out of our own way and be willing to do the difficult thing, get our hands dirty and know that we'll figure it out along the way. So my question that I leave with you today is what are you standing on the edge at? What are you standing at when you need to just go ahead and take the leap and jump right in? I would love to hear what it is for you. In fact, why don't you head over to Instagram, where I'm hanging out today, and tell me. I'll make a post you can share with me there and we'll figure it out together. My friends, I'll be back in just a few days with another episode for you. Create the beauty that you want to see Come alive in the world and remember there's room for you.