I am in the middle of a big project. I always get anxious when I am starting something new. I hate not knowing how it is going to turn out, when it is going to be completed, or if it will be well received. I tell my clients that the key to living well with anxiety is being able to tolerate uncertainty and the accompanying distress while moving forward anyway.
Today I realized another truth. I try to skip over all of the tedious and often cumbersome hard work that goes along with creating a new project. I don't want to do the research and I don't want to talk to lots of people to get the best information on how to move forward because I don't want to sit in this uncertainty and angst any longer than I have to. As a result, I prevent myself from laying the foundation for these projects. As I understand, foundations are what give a building strength to survive over long periods of time. I hadn't considered this before. I wonder how many anxious people try to get to the end of a project quickly by not laying the foundation. If this resonates with you, I challenge us to do the hard work first, accept the frustration and anxiety that will inevitably accompany these steps, and create a project that will last.
