Rob Dial argues that asking "why now?" instead of "why not?" shifts you from obstacles to action. He says the perfectionist label often masks fear of failure or judgment. Write down your reasons for starting now, because done beats perfect.
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Welcome to today's episode of the MWF Motivation Podcast. Today I'm going to be talking about two questions. Why not versus why now? And before I dive in, I want you to know that the power of your questions in your life, the questions that you ask yourself, whether you realize it or not, will dictate the answers that you will get, will dictate the life that. That you have now. That being said, we're constantly asking ourselves questions in our head all day long, whether we realize it or not. Why am I so. A lot of people, they just, like, completely break themselves down. I've been in that position before. Why am I so stupid? Why can't I get it right? Why does nobody love me? Why do I keep failing? Why am I so afraid of this? Why am I so afraid of success? What is my problem? Why do I always do this to myself? Why does this always happen to me? We're subconsciously and sometimes consciously asking ourselves these questions all the time. The questions of why not? Why am I not good enough? Why am I not finished? Why is this not perfect? And a lot of times we call ourselves perfectionists. We find reasons why this is not why we can't get it done, or why it's not done yet, or why it's not perfect yet. We haven't taken. You know why we haven't taken action? Because it's not the perfect time. We're waiting for things to be perfect. We're waiting for the perfect time. We're waiting for the perfect chance. We're waiting for the perfect person to come into our life. All of these things. And I wanted to ask you a question. I want you to answer it as honestly as you possibly can. Are you a perfectionist? Do you see yourself as a perfectionist? Answer the question yes or no. Are you a perfectionist? Or do you sometimes identify yourself as a perfectionist? Okay, now that you've answered that yes or no, answer this question. Are you really a perfectionist or are you using perfectionism as a front for your real fear? Are you using perfectionism as a front for being afraid of failing or of being afraid of judged? Being afraid of what others will say? Afraid of what others will do? Afraid of succeeding? So are you a perfectionist in reality, or is it just a front for a fear that's in the back of your mind? Ask yourself that question. Because most people say they're perfectionists, but nobody's really actually a perfectionist. What they're doing is they're just not finishing because they don't want to show their painting to somebody, or they don't want to speak in front of people, whatever it might be, because they're afraid of what might happen, afraid of getting judged, afraid of what others will say, all of these different things. They're usually not a perfectionist. Perfectionism is actually hindering their success. Quote, unquote. Perfectionism. I'll say most of the time you'll find out that you're not a perfectionist. You're just using it as you're acting like that's the reason being a perfectionist is the reason why you're not getting it done. So how do we get past that? How do we get past the front of being a perfectionist when in reality we're really all full of it? We're not perfectionists because that's just a bunch of bs. Well, the first thing is we need to change our questions. And the second thing is that we need to write this down. Done is better than perfect. Getting something done is better than getting something done perfectly. I can't tell you how many times I've recorded episodes of my podcast and then 10 minutes later been like, oh, why in the hell did I forget to leave this out? Like, I forgot to put that in there. It'd be so much better if I put it in. But then I say to myself, it's done. Done is better than perfect. So what do we do? We change the questions that we ask ourselves. Right? We change the questions from the why not questions to the why now questions. The quality of your life depends on the quality of the questions that you ask yourself. So instead of the why not questions that you were asking yourself that we went over at the beginning of the episode, we need to switch it to the why now questions. Questions like, why is now the best time to start? Why am I ready right now? Why am I completely capable enough to get this done now? Why are the right people in my life right now? Why do I have the right skills right now? Why now? Why now? Why now? Why now? Why should I start right now? And you ask yourself these questions and you'll start getting answers to these questions because you're not focusing on why not. You're focusing on why now. If you ask yourself the why not questions, you'll find all of the reasons of why you should not start right now. No matter how prepared you are, no matter how good you are at whatever it is that you want to do, you'll always come up with some BS answer of why you should not start right now, now. So when you Switch your questions to why now? Questions. You start seeing all of the positives in life, all of the positive reasons to start right now, all of the opportunities that are in front of you that you have not been focusing on. It's like if you have a really good camera, you'll notice that a really good camera will allow you to ask yourself these questions, to take the first step, and to actually be in charge of keeping the steps rolling as well. So from this episode, what I want you to take is that just by shifting your focus a little bit, just by turning the knob a little bit, if you ask yourself why now? Instead of why not, it's just a tiny shift. The only difference between why not and why now? Is you're turning the T into a W. That's it. They're so close to being the exact same thing. But if you can turn that knob on the focus and focus on all of the reasons why now, you'll blur out all of the reasons why not why you should wait. And so what I want you to get from this is write down why now? Why should I start now? Why am I ready now? Why am I capable enough now? Why do I have the right skills? Why do I have the right people in my why do I have the right people in my life right now? And if you start asking yourself the right questions, you'll start having your life change. Because the quality of your questions will dictate the quality your life. So with that, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you're interested in any group coaching or one on one coaching, send me an email robwfmotivation.com and I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every episode. Make it your mission today. Make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing.
