Nothing good happens after 2am.
She may have told you that when you asked to stay out late as a teenager. It’s when trouble has a likelier chance of finding you.
It can happen while you’re safe at home in bed too.
When you wake up in the middle of the night and your mind starts to churn with fear and worry, trouble has found you. That internal voice – I named mine Bill – has lots to say and none of it is good.
Bill got louder and more insistent as I set off to try new things. To start a new business. To leave behind my long career.
Bill likes things as they are. It’s ‘safe’. He holds tight to what he has because as bad as things might be, the comfort he feels with the familiar is far more palatable than risking it to make a better life with the unknown. The closer you get to that curtain of fear you have between you and where you want to go, the crazier he gets. And the longer you listen, the deeper down the rabbit hole you go.
Thinking about all that could go wrong. Instead of what could go right.
Telling yourself you are being selfish because you have it better than so many others. When you improving your life doesn’t take away that opportunity from anyone else.
So you need to identify that voice when you hear it in your head. And know that it isn’t telling the truth. Picture instead what your life will look like with the change you are considering. Think of all you have to gain with a pivot. Focus on that. The end game. Or a perk of the end game. (For me, it was having the flexibility to work from a cabin in New England every summer.) And then, work backwards and lay out steps to get there.
Bill never goes away. You just need to attune yourself to the quieter inner voice that is the confident YOU. Set goals, make a plan, find someone to help you be accountable and move through the fear curtain.
And finally get a good night sleep.