Ross and I were discussing the subject heading for this weekly thought.

Should it be “I’m perplexed, I’m confused, I’m puzzled”?

When we looked up the Macquarie Dictionary, the old fashioned book format, the words seemed to be interchangeable.

So here’s why I’m perplexed.

I recently created some facebook ads and offered a Complimentary Private Career Planning Consultation to seconds-in-command or aspiring seconds-in-command to help them understand where they are in their journey and where they want to go. In other words, for the “Go To People” in your organisation.

A number of people completed the facebook form which asked for first name, email, phone number and country/region.  The country/region was so I could ensure I got the timezone right when I reached out to book their consultation.

The details entered were legitimate. I spoke to one lady who was driving at the time and whom asked me to send her an SMS message to work out some times.

I honoured her request. No response.

Similar results happened with the other leads.

Why would you go to the trouble of entering your contact details to “ghost” the person who is offering to help when they contact you?

I don’t get this. I really don’t.

Some people may be sceptical (cynical, disbelieving, doubtful) and that’s okay.  Don’t fill in the form.

But to go to the trouble of filling in the form and then not follow through for the consultation, that perplexes me.

Human behaviour and human psychology absolutely fascinate me.

My challenge now is to coach myself and not allow myself to start making up stories as to why people do that and then make it about myself and how I’m not good enough etc. or worse, reinforce old limiting beliefs that are not true.

As an example, I can tell myself, they are busy. They’ll come back when they’re ready or they’ve decided they don’t want to be a second-in-command now.  Filling in the form was actually helpful for them because it made them stop and think and ask themselves if that’s what they truly want.

My point is, we tell ourselves stories to make sense of what happens.  Rather than slip into our old habits of making up negative stories, we can choose the stories we tell ourselves, so choose useful stories. Choose empowering stories.

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Do you ever hear yourself saying “it’s hard to start” or something similar?

Do you find sometimes you need a bit of inspiration?

That once you get started, the rest is easy?

Me too.

I recently completed the Confidence on Camera challenge with Authentic Education.

The first 21 days we recorded ourselves and posted to a “safe” group.

For the final week we were challenged to post publicly.

This was a big thing for me because I hadn’t posted videos on Facebook for years.

I had been hiding.

So I put my big girl pants on and faced the challenge.

I shared why I had been hiding and how it was now time to re-emerge.

Once I completed the initial post, I found it easy to record and upload more posts over the coming days.

One of my colleagues happened to mention that he had seen the posts.

I was a little nervous about the feedback he was about to give and to my surprise he told me his reaction was “Damn, Shirley’s gone and done it. She’s just put herself out there and just did it.”

His reaction was curious to me, until he explained that the fact that I had put myself out there, actually inspired him to take action as well.

Wowza. Of course my mission is to inspire, educate and support you to be, do and have what you want, however I never expected that anyone would be inspired by the fact that I just did it.

He also continued to say that “It’s hard to start, but that once you get started it becomes easy”.

It certainly does. Overcoming the procrastination and stories we might be telling ourselves is the hardest part. Once you take action, all that mental anguish stops.

I hope this week’s thought inspires you to take some action towards what you want.

Just start!

Just take one small action.

Let me know what it is.

P.S. Invite your friends to get the Weekly Thought delivered directly to their inbox.

Go to https://shirleydalton.com/Weekly-Thoughts.