Let’s talk about starting your own thing.
Whether it’s a personal brand, startup, or even making an unconventional career path…
There’s always that magical moment.
One where all the odds are stacked against you.
And nothing exists yet.
Nothing but the beginnings of an idea, a feeling in your gut.
That feeling represents a new path, your own path, calling to you.
But the odds are stacked against you.
Most companies fail. Most big career changes don’t come off.
So what makes it possible for you to act bravely, and launch something that’s your own, regardless of the odds?
The answer is, at some point, every person who’s made their own path had a magic moment where they said to themselves…
“fuck it, I’ll do it anyway”.
With that quick phrase, so much changes within you…
You let go of what’s holding you back, of who you are now.
You stop focussing on your doubts, and begin to listen to your intuition.
You don’t ‘play it safe’, but open yourself up to the unknown.
And in doing so, you allow yourself to become all that you can be.
This is absolutely pivotal, because in our world we’ve become too focussed on things that don’t exist yet. We worry about the future; what people will think of us if it goes wrong, how much money we might lose, how much we’d fall behind our friends.
So we often take what seems like the safer path.
Staying in a respectable career, sticking with the relationship we have, holding back from voicing what we stand for.
But there’s a price to pay for that safer path.
That price is never knowing who you could have been, the impact you could have made — if you’d listened to yourself; if you’d taken more moments to do what matters to you.
Instead, start saying “fuck it, I’ll do it anyway” more in life — because it’s the only way to create a life worth telling stories about.
How you can get to that moment
First, whenever you feel excited about doing something meaningful, take it seriously. Feel the full force of how it’d be to take the path you want, and succeed. Take a step away from screens and distractions to truly visualise how glorious life would be if you made that idea happen, and it came off.
Let yourself get carried away.
Second, stare your fears in the face.
When the inevitable doubts and worries come later on, welcome them. Feel them fully, and visualise all that’d happen if you follow your own path… and it all goes wrong.
Then write down those things. By shining a light on your fears, they can be confronted and overcome. And you’ll also find that, if the worst happens, it isn’t so bad after-all.
Third, find a way to believe in your bones that life is short.
Near-death experiences help with this best, but you can’t consciously create one of those.
Stoic philosophy can help with this too. If you can rewire your mindset to embrace the unknown, those moments of fuck it will flow from you effortlessly. You can begin with this short youtube video on it, or read the book “The Obstacle Is The Way”.
Finally, put yourself with the right people.
Don’t make the journey to a fuck it moment harder than it has to be.
Take every opportunity to pitch, because those people around you are also putting themselves out there. Join improv classes, because with every skit everyone around you is launching themselves into the unknown.
We adopt the thought patterns of those around us, whether we like it or not. So use it to your advantage.
Closing remarks
You need more fuck-it moments in your life; we all do in modern society.
Only by having that magical moment will you be able to launch something that’s truly yours for the first time. It’s the difference between a life of regrets, and the life worth telling stories about.
So, listen to your intuition, put your ideas out there, and become the best version of who you can be.