Recently, I have been characterized as a hesitator. Intrigued, I asked why?

Well, it comes down to not thinking you’re ready for something until you have become competent in a certain skill or acquired a particular knowledge.

Practically this means, you come up with idea of an App, but you don’t feel you have the necessary programming, UX, data analysis skills to begin developing your idea further.

So you embark on a UX course, and three months down the line, you give up on the course because you forgot why you were doing it in the first place, and your business idea is long forgotten, and you have another failure to launch to cross off.

Now let’s look at me and this blog as an example.

Yes, I have taken steps to write over the past few years, but I have remained anonymous and never took active steps to promote it, solicit feedback to develop a consistent theme, because I feel I am not ready enough.

There are times where I do establish clear goals, and whether it is run a marathon or complete my PhD, they have a common theme, in that the target is tangible, so once the goal is set, I resolve to follow the process and improve incrementally until I achieve my goal.

I am successful when my reward system is aligned with the steps necessary to achieve the goal and not the goal itself.

Therefore, fuzzy goals can provoke a lot of hesitancy, because when you think of starting a business, or developing your writing it takes a lot of iteration to put yourself on the correct track both in terms of goal and trajectory.

And so, when the path isn’t clear, I flip flop and most times I will end up giving up on an idea when the next brighter idea comes along.

The shiny object syndrome comes up because while the older idea has been vetted and the all the uncertainties along with my own limitations are understood, the new idea holds only the promise of new possibilities.

In addition, when I look back at my failures, there is a big danger that comparison can lead to giving up and moving on.

This happened to me when getting back in shape. I compared my performance to what I was previously capable of. And so, I had many false starts, managing to run for a week or two and then getting discouraged because I was so far from my former self.

It is in these moments, when you are about to give-up, or flip across to a new idea, where you need to be aware of the excuses you give yourself. It will often reveal blind spots.

For me it has always been ‘I am too busy’, I use my work ethic as an excuse for not getting fitter, or being afraid to take a promotion, pursue a relationship, or work on things in my personal life that I am neglecting.

The blind spot was not that I am often too busy, but the excuse was hiding that I was afraid to take the necessary steps I need to genuinely improve and not pushing myself as hard as I could in these areas.

This article has been about analyzing why we fail to follow through on some of the things we most want for ourselves. Whether that is just an inherent feeling that you want to try something different, or something more concrete and tangible.

The truth is you are never going to be ready to start something new. But you are always ready to engage with taking some steps to head towards that goal, no matter how fuzzy or unclear. But those steps will be full of wonder and doubt.

And it is those doubts that are often our undoing.

I have listed some of my doubts and the excuses I give myself to hide those doubts and you will have yours.

I hope now that I am aware of mine, I can begin to address them as they come up and be more patient with myself as I continue to engage with the goals that I set.

Becoming aware of those nagging fears, allows you to put conscious effort into pushing through them, pushing yourself a little further to truly explore your own limits.

Accept where you are, recognize your limits and set meaningful incremental steps to push through and get that little step closer to your dreams.