This week we are talking about taking action and developing your personal branding mindset. This is the motivation you may need to get moving on that big dream.
I believe that there are a lot of you out there, including me in my past life and even today, that have some limits. There are some things that are stopping you from taking action on the things that you really want in your life. I know that sounds like a little “Woo woo,” but let’s go there today.
IS YOUR CURRENT MINDSET PARALYZING YOU?
I wanted to start by sharing a little story. I am an admitted over-analytical thinker, the analysis paralysis guy. Any decision in my life, in my family’s life, in my business, I have the capability of analyzing it to the smallest degree.
I think about every possible outcome. I do the extra research to a fault, to the point of analysis paralysis and not making decisions that could benefit from being made more quickly. Am I the only one guilty of this? I don’t think so.
There are a lot of us out there where this is just our personality type. In a lot of cases, that could benefit us. That could be a real advantage, having the time to think things through.
However, there are times where action, having a push to make a decision, and moving in a direction are going to be the best course for an individual.
I know for me when I get the idea, something that I’m excited about, I often bury that under trying to analyze what the right direction is. Am I doing this right? Do I need to think about it? Is there a step I need to do first?
DON’T BE AFRAID TO TAKE ACTION FIRST
What I would encourage you guys to do is to figure out if there are things in your life that you should be taking action on first.
You can look at the risk there but just decide, “Can I take a step in the direction towards something that I want today that’s going to help me tomorrow? Is it something that isn’t really going to hurt me if it’s the wrong step?” You can always go backward for a lot of decisions that you’re making out there.
I bring that up since maybe there’s a framework out there for us to think about. For me, I know when I was thinking about leaving corporate and starting a business, I had lots of plans. I had bought lots of website URLs.
In some cases I even started designing a website, trying to put into word what it was that I thought I could do to help people, what the business would be called, what it would look like, and what my services were.
INTERNALIZING EVERYTHING STIFLES ACTION MINDSET
However, it was all in my mind. I was trying to put it out there on paper, but really it was just this over agonizing thought process. It wasn’t really until I started just going out there and taking action that I started to find myself a little bit. The first part of that action was really using my voice more.
It was really getting my thoughts out of my head and onto a podcast, onto a blog, or onto a video that helped me start to really understand what my perspectives were, what the things were that I like to talk about, coach, and mentor on.
I had to go through the process of using my voice and getting those things out of my head first. If all I tried to do first was think about what the things were I wanted to talk about, it would never have happened. I really had to just push the button, hit start, and get recording those ideas that I had in my head for me to actually make any movement.
RELATED: Build your personal brand with the Content Marketing Starter Guide.
HAVING AN ACTION MINDSET WILL GIVE YOU CLARITY
Through that process of taking action and doing something every week, I actually started to find clarity in the things that I wanted to really accomplish. That’s the framework that I’d outline for you guys. You have “thinking”, you have “feeling”, and you have “doing”.
A lot of us go in that first order. First, we think about something until we have a really clear idea and we’ve checked all the boxes (especially if you’re analytical). Then we start to feel good about it. We have perspective. We can commit to it, put some emotions behind it, and get excited about it. That’s the feeling part.
Then we start doing something about it. By the time we take action though, we might have delayed a long time in that thinking process. It may have been months for some of us before we ever took action.
ARE YOU AFRAID OF SETBACKS?
What that ends up doing is it puts a lot of pressure on that action. If you hit one little failure, you might take two steps backward. You get back to the thinking again. You’re now over-analyzing and it might take you months again before you have enough courage to take any action
Guess what else happened? The emotion part of it, the feelings part of it are now negative going into it because you had a failure. You’re worried that that’s going to happen again. Now when you’re in the thinking process, you’re factoring those feelings in.
Now the analysis takes twice as long because you’re overthinking it and over-feeling it instead of just taking another action.
SWITCH YOUR PERSONAL BRANDING MINDSET
What I’d invite you to do is to reverse that process. Start with taking action, the doing first, then the feeling, and then the thinking. In other words, get out there. Take some small steps to put your energy into something that you are looking to build, that you’re looking to do.
At the very least put your energy into an opinion, a perspective, or an idea you have in your head. Take action to get it out, to express it in some way.
I think that’s the best way to take action. Find a way to express the things that you’re trying to accomplish, to physically get them out of you. That action could be anything small. It could be writing something down, recording something, networking.
It could be talking to other people. The first thing to do is to take some action that would move you in the right direction. For some of you that might be getting around other people that may have been doing the thing that you’re trying to do.
Get around other business owners, get around other entrepreneurs, talk to them about your ideas. Find a mentor, talk to the mentors and the coaches about your idea. That action a) is going to bring you knowledge, but b) is going to start the process of you moving towards the things that you like.
ACTION MINDSET KEEPS YOU MOVING FORWARD
When you start taking actions like that first, whether it’s a failure or just a stumble or a success, you are action-oriented first. With every step, you just know that you’re just going to be taking another step after this one. Every step then creates an emotion. Every step, right or wrong, creates added experience.
Whether it’s confidence or it’s something learned from that step, that’s going to add to your confidence long-term. It’s going to add to your experience and your knowledge base long-term.
All those feelings of being committed to an idea, expressing it, and the positivity of just knowing that you’ve been taking steps are going to embolden you and give you confidence.
Then, after you’ve taken some action and you’ve got some emotion tied into those because you’ve been taking those right steps, then I invite you to think about what those steps have been and start to process what you want to do next.
What is the next step? What is the next right thing that you could be doing to create more action? Not even to limit risks, but to take more action in your life. Go down that chart: doing, feeling, thinking how can you go in that order and reverse the process, especially for my analytical types out there. I think you’ll be better for it.
REACH OUT FOR HELP AND GROW!
This happened to me when I was creating my podcast. I was overthinking it to start with. It really took getting another person on my team, getting a coach out there to help me just start to take action day by day.
I wasn’t even allowed to overthink it because I had someone helping guide me along. If you’re there and you need someone to help you, whether it’s a podcast or content creation, or just move you along on your business journey, hit me up. I’m happy to be there for you and be someone to bounce your ideas off of in terms of accountability or coaching.
If you want to, you can always reach out to me at brandsonbrands.com/coach. I’m happy to work with you guys, especially anyone who’s looking to build the business around their experience, a personal brand.
I know it’s a funny term, but anything where you want to take your experience in your industry and turn it into a coaching business or turn it into something that is based on your reputation, I’m happy to help you with that. I’m happy to at least have the conversation to help you take action first and move you one step further towards your goal.
I hope that is inspiring today. I hope to see more of you out there using your voice, taking action, and moving towards the life that you hope to build for yourself.
CONNECT WITH BRANDON
Instagram: @brandonbirkmeyer
Facebook: Brandon Birkmeyer
MORE ADVICE AND INTERVIEWS
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Talk soon!