Doing it Badly Still Beats Not Doing it

I stubbornly ignored the requests for years. It didn't work.

For years, people had been getting in touch asking for coaching. And for years, I had not taken the whole idea seriously.

Then one Tuesday morning, a woman emailed me with an urgent relationship problem. At the end of it she said she wanted to talk on the phone and asked my hourly rate. I didn’t have one. I was afraid to talk to her.

But something in me wanted to actually help, so I wrote back with my best advice and ignored her question about the rate entirely.

She responded right away, thanked me, and then asked again. This time it sounded more like a demand. “I will pay you over Paypal. Can you talk to me today at 1pm PST?”

Before I could talk myself out of it, I named a rate and sent my Paypal address. Minutes later the money was in my account. She called at 1pm sharp.

During that hour I went completely unconscious and started saying things that had never occurred to me before. When it was over, she told me she’d had several aha moments and wanted to talk again the following week.

After we hung up, I realized the whole call had been bliss.

And then I went right back to resisting the whole process. I would put something vague on my website and not publish it anywhere visible.

I’d attract a client, then quit and start saying no to everything. I would spend months learning all about coaching and then not do any coaching. The cycle repeated for years.

Eventually I admitted to a friend that I wanted to consistently work with people without shutting down or freaking out. I don’t remember what she said, but saying it out loud made something clear: I had to actually do a lot more coaching to earn the right to stop freaking myself out.

At the time, if someone had sincerely proclaimed me a master coach, I still wouldn’t have felt confident. The only thing that was ever going to produce mastery was consistently showing up and doing it.

Mastery is not produced by insecure thinking about yourself failing at the skill, or by learning more about the skill.

My time has always been much better spent doing something than learning about doing something. Feeling awkward has always been part of the cost. But when I have taken the risk and simply done the thing, the experience eclipses anything I’ve ever gotten from intense study or idle googling.

Speedy action wins over perfect knowledge every time.

Elizabeth Stone, Transformative Coach

---

To feel more loved and connected anytime you want, check out The Love Magnet Meditation.

I originally made it so I could attract romantic love, but it became something so much more useful.

---

---

Real quick…

If you’re feeling stuck, take The Mirror Assessment— A simple five minute diagnostic that reflects the pattern currently hijacking your attention so you can stop pouring energy into the wrong fix.

Don’t waste your time and energy fixing a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter. It’s 100% free.

---