
By Jessica Edgson
If you by any chance read my previous piece on Biznews, you’ll know that I recently resigned from my job with absolutely no plan in place. And if you didn’t read it… well, that’s pretty much the story. That piece was published around a month ago, and I must say, I’ve managed to keep the nauseatingly positive attitude up and my natural cynical outlook at an all-time low… until now.
You see, I’ve spent the past month and a half since my resignation keeping busy and focusing on the job I’ll be leaving at the end of May. It’s not that I’ve been avoiding all thoughts of my impending unemployment (sorry, self-employment), but rather that I’ve been lulling myself into a false sense of security by ignoring the very big chance that I may just fail.
Then I got sick. Nothing serious, just a case of the old Bronchitis, but I was sentenced to bed rest. And that gave me time to think, which inevitably led to a rather morbid game of “what if” – a game that no one wins, ever. One thing led to another and by day two of limited human interaction, I finally pushed the metaphorical panic button. Or rather, should I say, the metaphorical panic button pushed me… off a cliff and into a sea of self-doubt and insecurity.
In next to no time, “What if I can’t do this?” turned into, “I can’t do this.” I mean, what the hell do I know about freelancing? How do I find clients? What if I don’t find clients? I’m a writer… but do I know anything at all about anything else? I’ve got the experience and skills to do the work, but how do I find the work? Do I even want to freelance? That’s not the end goal, is it? Wait, what is the end goal? Where do I want to be in ten years? Where do I want to be next year? The “plan” was to freelance until I find and obtain a job I really want. The “plan” was to freelance and give myself the space to figure things out. But what if I just end up unemployed and failing in absolutely every area of my life? What if I’m not a very good writer, and everyone around me is just too afraid to tell me?
And that, dear reader, is the enemy of productivity. That, dear reader, is what happens when we give panic the time and space to prosper. My last piece was all about escaping the suffocating dullness of the Comfort Zone, while this one is more of a cautionary tale to keep in mind while breaking out. Panic is the security system set up at the perimeter of every Comfort Zone. It’s there to set off a high-pitched alarm, warning you that you’re leaving a place of security and entering unchartered territory where anything (or everything) could go wrong. But you’ve got to carry on. You’ve got to get through the panic. You’ve got to make your escape.
So, what do I do? I tell myself there is no going back. I have to move forward. There is no room for panic. Mostly, I have to ban the negativity and not let the cynicism fester. Basically, I have to abandon my trademark “The glass could be half empty, might have a crack in it, and what if it wasn’t washed properly and I get herpes?” attitude that I’ve been using as a defense mechanism for the past 26 years.
Now is not the time to panic. Now is the time to get things done. Baby steps or giant leaps, that’s up to you. In the beginning, it almost doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you feel like you’re doing something. You pretty much just have to keep moving so the freeze of panic can’t take over. In fact, that’s exactly why I’m writing this, to shake off the panic. And you know what? It’s working.