When you’re feeling “not ready” to put your work out there…

How do you know if you are feeling not ready to do something or if you're procrastinating? So that's something that a client of mine asked, and I thought it was such a good question. Because the truth about the creative process for just about every creator that I've spoken to, myself included, is that we usually feel ready to create. Nor do we usually feel ready to put our creativity out there for the world to look at, to judge, to evaluate, to comment on, to engage with, or to sometimes just get silence back. I. Every time. I'll give you an example. Before I pressed record on this video, I wasn't feeling ready. I felt like I probably could think about this for another hour before I'm ready to know what to say in the beginning, to say in the middle, how to end the video. I almost never feel ready when I start recording a video, but now I've recorded more than a thousand. And you know, not every video has gone viral and changed everyone's life, but now maybe 5 to 10% of those videos have done quite well. And it has changed some people's, you know, at least change their day or change their hour. And it has brought me plenty of clients. And I wish the same thing for you now. Same thing when I'm writing. When I'm writing, I give myself an hour to draft a blog post. And by the time I start writing, I'm like, I probably could research this topic for another few weeks, maybe a few months. But I write anyway because I know, I now know after creating and experiencing this process of not readiness, I've experienced it so much that I know, guess what? It's just my own mind fooling me. And after coaching hundreds of business owners myself, most of the people that I coach are highly educated. They have some kind of advanced degree or some advanced certification in their work. So most of my clients have more education than me, formal education. And so they're just. And not just because of formal education. They're just brilliant people. They have really great minds, great hearts. That's all my clients. And if the smarter you are, I find that the more brilliant your mind is in fooling you into thinking that you're not ready. So when I'm writing an article, I know the very feeling. Oh, yeah, I know I could probably research this, think about this, journal on this, sit with this for another hour, several hours before I can write, before I'm ready to finish writing, whatever. I know that. But I give myself an hour to write an article. I also give myself half an hour the Next day to go back to the draft, edit it before I publish it. But still, that hour of the drafting is the majority of the writing videos. I say, oh, my God, it's time to start making the video. I don't feel ready. I can go take a nap. I could go and have a walk. I could go and do other things first and maybe I'll feel ready later. I press record. Here I am. And I make these videos live, too, which is very, very helpful for me. When I make a live video, it helps me overcome procrastination and perfectionism because I have one take. This is it. This is the one take that you're seeing. So. And oh, books. I have published four books, and every book I am embarrassed by. Yeah, it's true. Every book. I don't feel ready to write it. Well, I really. My books are combinations of collections of my blog posts. So it's really. Writing the blog post is more of a creative challenge than writing the book itself. But still, I collect the blog post together, I edit it and then I publish. But I don't. I feel like maybe I should write more in this book. Maybe I should edit more. Every single book embarrasses me, but I publish it anyway. And the reviews are generally good. I mean, it's almost all good. Now, I'm sure some people didn't like the book and didn't review it poorly, but that's true of any book, isn't that right? So there is a wonderful quote that I'm kind of being inspired for saying some of these things. And the quote is, if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. I'll say that again. If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. And this quote is from Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn. Yeah, the founder of LinkedIn. And I've been part of LinkedIn since the early days, and it was very different back then. Now it's way better and it's way more popular. But I was there in the early days and it was already pretty good. But I'm sure they were, quote, unquote, embarrassed by that version because they knew it could. They had the vision of how much better it could be. Same thing with my books. I have a vision of how much better it could be. But I launch anyway because otherwise I know I'll just keep procrastinating. So I need the experience of going through that process of launching so that I actually learn, so that the Next edition, which I'm already planning, the second edition of my books. It's coming out in the next couple years. It's going to be better and every edition is going to be better a little bit. Little bit. Same thing with my online courses. I'm embarrassed by every one of them, okay, to be honest with you, but. I know. But every year I've gotten slightly better. If you think my courses are bad now was even worse before. No, I think most of you who bought my courses think it's pretty good. But it gets better every single year, right? Same thing with my videos. Well, I don't know. Maybe my videos are getting worse. At least the background is getting better. My virtual backgrounds are looking better than just my office space. I don't know what you think about it. The thing I'll end it with is this. This whole process of, of doing even when we don't feel ready is the creative process that all creators experience. And as somebody who has again written over a thousand articles and made a thousand videos, self published four books, launched over a dozen courses, I can tell you that hesitation, that fear that I'm not ready feeling never goes away. So if you're wondering whether you're not ready or whether you're procrastinating, let me be, let me give a vote to say that it's probably your brilliant mind fooling you that you're not ready. And that feeling of not ready never goes away. I'm sorry to say it never goes away. The creator, the creator who's prolific just notices that feeling goes, ah. I take that feeling of not ready as a signal to take action. And so this whole thing, in my opinion, this is sort of the ending topic here. The whole thing is really a personal development experience. That's what I think it really is. It's really an experience and a practice of transforming fear into love. Noticing the nervousness or the not readiness and turning that into excitement, turning that into curiosity, turning that into adventure and exploration and transforming hesitation into action. Oh, I notice hesitation. That's my signal to take action. Press, publish, press, record. Start typing. Even if I don't know really know what to type, just start typing. Just type whatever, whatever comes out, whatever. Random free writing if I want to. Transforming fearful hesitation into loving action and also transforming after you publish, transforming embarrassment into surrender. That's also what I've had to learn because I'm embarrassed all the time about my output. I know my output can be so much more professional looking. My videos can be so much more script well scripted, edited, Professional. I could have started better. I could have started this video better. And I'm sure I can end this video better later after I finish recording. Like, oh, I should have said that. It happens all the time. So transforming embarrassment into just surrender. Okay, it's already out there. I'm not going to delete it. It's just put it out there article. The book has already been published. Lots of people have bought it. Surrender. Surrender to the creative process. Surrender to. For me, I surrender to God knowing that, hey, God is always going to take care of me. I don't have a trust fund, but God will always take care of me. Because God is always lovingly putting me on a path of development, knows better than I do. And so just calling me spirit is calling me. Just transform fearful hesitation into creative action. Because I learn through action. I learn through experiences. That's how we all learn. We don't learn by watching videos and by reading articles and by reading books and taking courses. That's very limited learning. We actually learn embodied in the body, through our experiences, through taking action. So I hope this inspires you next time you sense, am I feeling not ready or is this procrastination? If you are asking that question, congratulations, you have the awareness to ask the question. And now you're aware that, oh, it's my brilliant mind fooling me into thinking I'm not ready. I should take action right now. All right, I hope this is helpful. Thank you for watching. My name is George Kao, Authentic business Coach. I love talking about building a business from the heart and with spirit, with integrity. If you like this video, you'll probably enjoy my other ones as well. So. And I look forward to. What do you think about this? How are you going to take this video and use it in your next creative project? And do you have any questions for me? Go ahead and comment below. And since I'm making this as a live video, I'm just gonna take a moment right now and see if there are any comments. Right now I want to thank those who are joining me for this live video and I will see you in the next one. All right, be well. Take care.