How To Stop Doing What You Know And Start Doing What You Want

You wouldn’t be the first to fall into this trap and I promise you, you won’t be the last. We do what we know, we do what we’re good at and we do what we ‘should’, but that doesn’t mean it’s what we want.

Maybe we ended up where we are because of some exam result that said we were good at maths or family who thought we needed a ‘proper’ profession, or maybe we couldn’t decide what to do, so just ended up doing what we’re doing now and along the way, became good at it.

More often than not, we are where we are because we put so many hurdles between ourselves and what we really want. We start by thinking that we’re not good enough, that we don’t have enough experience or that we could *never* make a living from it (this was a particular favourite of mine personally) … then as we progress with what we ‘should’ (ha, ha) be doing, we start to tell ourselves things like: I’ve got too many responsibilities, ‘ ‘now’ is not the right time (we soon learn there is never such a thing), I’m too old, I’ve invested far too much into this career to do something else now …

However, unless ‘sensible’ means locking yourself up in a prison of your own making, for your entire career, this is the least sensible thing you can do. You will end up looking back at your life thinking I “coulda, woulda, shoulda …” … This my friend, is the last thing I want for you or myself.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “sh*t, that’s me!”, it’s time to make a change.

Firstly, you don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water, quite the opposite. Virtually every skill, experience and expertise you have gained to date can be brought to bear by doing what you actually *want*. Sure, they may look different, but I bet the skillset you have now is 90% transferable to what you want to do.

What’s been holding you back? You. Yep, that’s right. You.

So, get out of your own way …

What is it that you really want to do? I mean, what you *really* want to do. Write it down.

Now write down the top 3 reasons why you *think* you can’t do this. Remember, write this down don’t just think about it in your head!

Look at each of those reasons and write down 3 things that you could do to overcome this. Now put a big thick cross through each of those excuses; yep, excuses, not reasons.

Whatever you could do to overcome your hurdles, don’t just leave them sitting there, take action. Now. Pick one of the 3 ideas you’ve had and 1 of the ‘reasons’ you thought you couldn’t overcome and do something to action on it. Make a call? Send an email? Sign up for a course? Start planning to rent your spare room out? Whatever it is, do it now.

Next step, courage. Lots of it. Your instinct will try to keep you in your comfort zone doing exactly what you’re doing now. You’ve got to fight it and the best way to do that is to make a start. Anywhere. Anything.

How do I know? Because I spent years doing the work I knew, instead of doing the work that I wanted to do and I’ve only recently managed to make the shift. I know what it takes and I just wish I had done it sooner. Now is the best time to start.

I promise you won’t regret it.