On the whole, I would consider myself an independent and competent person. I can figure out and take care of most things by myself – definitely with the help of The Google at times, but I generally don’t have to pay someone else to do things for me. I have been this way for as long as I can remember. Therefore, I find it odd that every now and then when I am faced with something that I’ve never done before, my initial reaction is to freak out and think I can’t do it. My heart quickens a bit, I get that deer in headlights look and my inner monologue turns into this:
“But, I can’t do that, I’ve never done that before, I shouldn’t be doing that, who am I to think that I can do that? I need to find somebody else to do it, I’ll pay them, or bribe them, or maybe I’ll just ask really nice. Who do I know that knows how to do this, or where does somebody go to pay someone to do this? How much would that cost, can I even afford to pay somebody to do this for me? Somebody needs to do this other than me. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHY IS MY LIFE SO HARD?!?!”
Okay, so that might be a little over-exaggerated, but I do freak out, and when that happens I shut down and just stare at whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing. This tactic is very effective, you should try it sometime. My next step is to walk away and ignore it for a while. Then I come back and poke it with a stick, you know to see if it’s still there needing attention. It always is. So I ignore it some more. Come back and this time go through the motions like I’m going to figure things out. Then I give up, run away and eat chocolate. Sometimes there’s wine too. More ignoring. Finally, I pull on my big-girl panties, sit down and vow that I’m not getting up until I figure out whatever it is that needs figuring out.
Guess what? I figure it out every time. Sometimes it takes some research, or a call to a friend/expert/helpline, but I get it figured out. And every damn time I look back at my ridiculous behavior and all of the time that I wasted and shake my head. Why didn’t I simply sit down and finish the task from the very beginning? This is what I have been thinking about all day as it is apparently a “big-girl panties” kind of day. I finished two such tasks this morning and vowed to complete a third this weekend. I’ve realized that when I have this kind of freak out/reaction it is because the task falls into one of two categories.
- It’s something that I don’t know very much about and I’m terrified that I’ll do it wrong and not be able to fix it, have to go to somebody else for help and then they’ll laugh at me for being an idiot.
- This is the category that the two tasks today fell under as they had to do with the formation of my LLC, and the thought of sending in forms to the government that are incorrect makes me break out into a flop sweat.
- It’s something that has always been done for me, therefore I’ve never had to learn how and quite frankly. I don’t wanna!
- This is the category of the task that I vowed to take care of this weekend. I have two hard drives that I need to install in my computer, and when I lived in Colorado, any and all things that had to do with computers were handled by my dad. Seriously even software updates.
After chewing on this all day, I’ve come to one logical conclusion. I need to get the hell over myself and stop wasting my time. That is all I’m doing, wasting time. Not to mention, I seriously doubt somebody from the government is going to come to my door to return my incorrectly filled out form, so they can point and laugh in my face. Doesn’t seem very plausible. Returned to me with a penalty for filing incorrectly or late – yes. Laughing in my face – no. Therefore, there is no need to freak out. Now to figure out how to actually do this in real life. Does anyone else freak out about stuff like this, or it is just me?
