The Ultimate Guide To Showing Up To Yourself in Life & Business: Give yourself permission and don’t let fear win

This Women's Month, 1st for Women teamed up with speaker, trainer and author, Lori Milner, to bring you The Ultimate Guide To Showing Up To Yourself in Life & Business.  Want to build new habits and actually sustain them?  Want to manage your inner critic, free of anxiety and fear?  Lori has the answers.

Last week we discussed not waiting to feel like it and using fear as a compass.  If you haven’t read this blog post, you can do so here.

In our final blog post on how to show up to yourself in life and business, we discuss: giving yourself permission

“You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.”- Meredith Willson

Lori always wanted to write a book, but she had no idea where to begin. She reached out to a well-known journalist she had worked with for some advice as she had published several books successfully.

They met for coffee, and she shared her experience on how Lori could get started. Lori also asked her what voice recorder she uses for her interviews because she knew she wanted to incorporate stories and insights from leading South African women.

Lori left this meeting elated and felt so inspired to get going on the project.

However, she convinced herself that she could not possibly begin until this recorder arrives. Three weeks go by, and it finally reaches Lori’s front door.

Lori takes the package inside, unwraps it and stares at it for a while. She then slips it very gently into a drawer and invents the next reason why she can’t possibly start writing this book.

In that moment, Lori realised three powerful things:

• Her excuses meant her fear was winning
• No one was coming to give her permission to begin
• Fundamentally, she had not given herself permission to call herself a writer or shift her identity to the kind of person who can do things like this.

What is your recorder equivalent?

Don’t tell yourself you need to read a stack of books or get a piece of paper to permit you to take action on your dreams. Beware of telling yourself you need a partner to give you a false sense of security.

Don’t let the fear win.

Give yourself permission to start even if you have no idea what the result is going to be.

All you can do is show up and act despite the fear and self-doubt.

In conclusion, choose one area of your life and commit to one new habit or goal in your personal and professional life. It could be a hobby or learning the skill of public speaking.

Remind yourself of the steps forward:

Let go of perfection

Focus on the process, not the outcome

Celebrate your win

Aim for progress

Don’t wait to feel like it

Use fear as your compass

Give yourself permission

Each micro win not only gets results but also teaches you something far more critical: to trust yourself.  The ultimate skill is the habit of showing up consistently and keeping the promises you make to yourself. This develops true self-confidence and resilience, and it is with these tools, you are unstoppable.