Audacious Introverts: choose action over comfort

I’ve wanted to learn Italian since I was 5.

Back then, my dad played old records of the Italian pop classics and immersed himself in a language self-learning audio program.

I was fascinated. Not just by the music, but most of all, I adored the language.

Yet, for 24 years, I didn’t take the leap to learn the language. Life always gets in the way just another way of saying: it was never my priority.

From one day to the next, everything changed. I finally signed up for the A1 Italian course at my local language school.

I was in my element.

No more lame excuses but a regular weekly appointment with my Italian learning group.

I can’t believe how long it took me to take action.

But in hindsight, it made sense.

Some unexpected event pushed me to take action (the unexpected event being COVID-19 and learning Italian online my only interactive hobby).

Why am I telling you this?

Because you probably have something you’ve been putting off, too. Archived into a folder named future.

Does life just happen to you?

Life kept happening to me in more instances than I can count (still does sometimes).

Dreams?

• Not urgent enough to be proactive about them

• Just not the right time

• I’ll wait to have it perfectly figured out.

That’s the thing about perfect moments: they just never exist.

In fact, YOU choose the perfect moment. Period.

Not making a choice is comfortable

When you don’t make a change

• Nobody will judge you for the choice you are avoiding

• You don’t need to have uncomfortable conversations

• There is a clear, predictable path forward

Every day that you don’t actively choose, you give away that power:

someone else will chose your schedule
someone else will chose your projects
someone else will chose your price

But what would your day look like if you adopted a bias towards action?

This is the best summary that I could find:

Audacious action 101:

1. Start imperfect and evolve.

2. People will judge you on day 1, but will they still judge you on day 365?

3. Create your own accountability system. Self motivated? Super, get started. Need outside accountability? Find an accountability buddy. Make your plans public. Hire a coach. Know what works for you.

Choose audacious action over comfort,

Laura