A drill, procrastination, and doing it scared

Before last Thursday, I’d only used a drill once.
 
It happened ten years ago. The hole ended up bigger than anticipated and while it wasn’t disastrous, it didn’t make me particularly confident in my ability to use a drill again.
 
I avoided the drill for a decade…and then it came up again.

I bought a new mirror for my guest bathroom in May and a drill was definitely going to be needed to hang it up.

After I got the mirror, I put it in guest bedroom next to the bathroom....and left it there.

For weeks.
 
Every time I’d pass by the bedroom, I’d think, “This weekend is going to be the weekend. I’m going to hang the mirror and get the bathroom done.”
 
But I was afraid of putting irreversible incorrect holes in my walls. I was afraid they’d be too big or crooked or I would just completely mess the whole thing up.
 
So I wouldn’t do it.
 
This continued, week after week, until last Thursday, when it wasn’t really a choice anymore.

A friend was staying with me over the weekend and I figured she'd probably want a mirror in her bathroom!
 
So, 36 hours before her arrival, I got out the drill, measured the holes with my level so they would hopefully be straight, took a deep breath, pulled the trigger, and pressed the drill into the wall.
 
No disaster.
 
I did it three more times.
 
Also no disaster.
 
A few minutes later, after hammering in the wall mounts and screwing the brackets to the wall (which required a YouTube video after I realized I didn’t actually know how to hammer in a wall mount), the mirror that had been sitting in my guest bedroom for months was on the wall.
 
And it looks AWESOME.
 
Even more, every time I walk by the bathroom now I feel relief.
 
The weight of not having done the hard thing that I knew I needed to do is gone.
 

👉 Have you ever done that? Put something off because you were unsure? And then realized it wasn’t nearly as bad as you thought when you finally just took a deep breath and did it scared?
 
Maybe that’s using a drill. Maybe it’s a tough conversation. Maybe it applying for a job. Or quitting your job. Maybe it’s finally sharing the idea you’ve been thinking about for months.
 
Confidence is great. If you have it, that’s awesome.
 
But sometimes the confidence isn’t there. Instead, there are nerves and fear and your heart jumping up into your throat.
 
In those situations, you take a deep breath and do it scared.
 
You choose courage over confidence and share the idea, apply for the job, or turn on the drill and put the freaking hole in the wall!
 
You’ll probably do it imperfectly. Your voice might shake. You might not say the exact words you wanted to say. You might need to reverse course and fix an error.
 
But you did it.
 
Some of the best things in life require us to do things we’re not confident about at all, but they are 100% worth doing.
 
So choose courage over confidence, take a breath, and do it scared.
 
 
P.S. Imposter syndrome is one of the big barriers that can get in the way of you taking action, especially in your career – and almost everyone experiences it. If you want to learn more about bringing a session on imposter syndrome to your organization, reply to this email or check out the speaking page on my website for more information. It’s a great topic for employee resource groups or conferences, both in-person and virtually!