How to Stop Inventing Obstacles and Get Out of Your Own Way
By: Shaunta Grimes
Tags: Life Lessons, Work, Freelancing, Self, Life

“For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely certain, that nothing will ever happen to me.”

― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Has this ever happened to you?

You ask someone for advice. A mentor, a teacher — someone you’ve paid. Or maybe a friend who’s done what you want to do before and you’re just poking around for some free tips. Or you pick up a book to try to learn how to do something.

You ask for the advice, and you get it. They give you some tip or tell you something you should do — let’s call that The Thing. They give you The Thing and tell you that if you do it, you’ll get good results.

And then your brain kicks in. Like, it’s just been laying dormant all this time, just waiting for this moment. The instant you receive the help you were looking for, you have half a dozen reasons why it won’t work for you.

You’re different.

Your problem is too complicated for such an easy fix.

There’s just no way that The Thing will ever work under your specific circumstances.

You’ve already tried The Thing and it didn’t work.

Okay, maybe you tried something similar and it’s didn’t work.

All right, all right, you’ve just thought about The Thing real hard, but you’re positive it will not work.

Before they even finish talking, you’re shaking your head and making that little uh-uh noise. Nope, nope, nope. The Thing might work for everyone else, but it’s not going to do anything for you.

Welcom to the Land of Invented Objections.

You’ve got a whole pocket full of reasons why The Thing won’t work for you. And all of them make perfect sense. Of course The Thing is useless for you and only an idiot would spend their time trying to do something that clearly is not going to work.

If you’ve ever been on the other end of this, you probably know the frustration of trying to explain how to do The Thing and having the other person come back at you over and over with reasons why it’s a bad idea.

It makes you just want to throw up your hands and say Good luck, buddy.

Let me tell you a story about one of my own trips to the Land of Invented Objections.

Once upon a time, a mentor whom I’d paid a lot of money to advise me told me that I should start making videos for Ninja Writers. If I wanted to take my business to the next level, I needed to make videos.

My instant, knee-jerk reaction to that suggestion was noooo that won’t work for me. And then a smorgasbord of really good ideas why The Thing my mentor offered me was a really stupid idea.

Writers are readers, no one wants to watch me in a video.

I’m super non-techy and figuring out the how part would take way too much time away from the things that were already working for me.

I don’t even like watching videos, why would I make them?

I’m really bad at public speaking. I won’t be able to do it, anyway.

Literally no one wants to look at a middle-aged woman— that’s such common knowledge that it’s pretty much a meme — so the videos wouldn’t be successful anyway. Maybe if I was a Millennial man (like the dude telling me to make videos) or at least pretty, but yeah, no.

I don’t want to and I’ve got a rebel soul, so you can’t make me.

None of those responses were based in reality. I’d never made videos, so I genuinely had no idea how anyone would respond to them, whether or not I could figure out the tech stuff, or if I’d enjoy making them or not.

I assumed I didn’t want to — because I don’t like seeing myself, because the whole idea made me uncomfortable, because I was happier hiding behind my keyboard.

I invented obstacles. And they were good ones, too. Believable obstacles that kept me from even considering video for years. Even though someone I trusted, who has several giant steps ahead of me, and who had already had a lot of success was telling me that they’d be a good idea.

How do you know if an obstacle is real or invented?

So, I really am tech challenged. I really am not comfortable in front of a camera. I really do choke when I have to just talk to no one. I really don’t like to watch videos when a text resource would do just as well.

Making slick, produced videos involving me talking sincerely into a camera would be . . . let’s just say difficult, because I don’t like the word impossible.

So, how do I know that those obstacles are invented vs. real?

Here are some questions that come in handy.

Am I making an assumption?

Have I really tried this before and failed, or have I just thought about it enough that it feels like I’m tried?

What am I really afraid of?

So in this case, I was definitely making an assumption that was based on only the very barest experience with making videos. I am introverted and being on camera and just talking into the ether really does make me uncomfortable though — but it’s the idea of those things, more than the reality of them, that bothers me.

I was also assuming that my audience of writers didn’t want video.

I have not ever really tried to make videos before. I’ve dabbled a tiny bit and decided, based on that, that I couldn’t. Which translated into this won’t work for me. But I had not ever really tried, given myself the chance to fail as I learn, and worked through the learning curve.

What I’m really afraid of is looking like an idiot. I don’t want to be someone who’s doing The Thing just because all the cool Millennial kids are and wind up looking like someone’s weird ass mom trying to too hard to be hip. And, deep down, I’m afraid that other people don’t want to look at me just as much as I don’t want to look at myself.

If I’d had real objections, I would have really tried videos in the past and had them not gain the result I wanted them to. Maybe no one paid attention to them. Maybe I just never got over the tech issues. But my objections would be based on trial and error — real life — not assumptions.

Does that mean you have to do everything anyone tells you to?

Well, no. Of course not.

It means that if you’ve sought out advice and someone qualified, who you trust, is giving it to you — they’re handing you The Thing — you should be careful that you’re not inventing obstacles that will keep you from taking that advice if it’s good advice.

And you’ll have to suss that out yourself. Because not all advice is good advice. Or the right advice for you.

My mentor wanted me to spend a lot of time and energy and money making videos for my online courses. That’s what he did at the time. It’s what most of his contemporaries did. So, of course, it seemed logical that I should do it, too. When he wanted to tell me something to do that would bring my business to another level, that was The Thing.

It was easy to invent obstacles to doing something I didn’t want to do in the first place —especially when what I was doing (offering text-based courses) was working out just fine.

And now, a couple of years later, most of those online course dudes are moving away from the whole thing. It doesn’t work as well as it used to. Videos or not. People are less willing to spend hundreds of dollars for pre-recorded material.

I did realize something, eventually. Video wasn’t a bad idea, but I had to find a way to make it work for me.

Instead of inventing obstacles, be a rebel.

If you find your brain offering up every possible reason why The Thing won’t work for you, and you recognize it as inventing obstacles, take a deep breath and a step back.

Ask yourself whether The Thing might work if you did it your way.

I wish I’d done that a couple of years ago, instead of just in the last six months.

Here’s how that looked for me and the whole video thing: I don’t like looking into a camera and recording a static lesson. It’s not something I’m good at. My brain works faster than my mouth and I choke. Every time.

But I love interacting with my students. Really love it. So I started experimenting with live video calls, where I’m there with some of my students and instead of recording a static video, I’m interacting with actual people.

It wasn’t what my mentor had in mind. But working on video where I had the chance to interact with my students turned out to be something I loved. And he was right. It did take my business to another level.

Invented Obstacles go beyond The Thing.

As I was writing this, a friend was messaging me on Facebook about all the reasons he can’t move out of the United States right now. He’s single. He owns a car and a passport. His work is mobile.

He could just pack up and start driving south to the Mexican border. But he has reasons, of course, why he can’t.

And who am I to say whether or not they’re valid. Maybe he really just doesn’t want to move to Mexico. Maybe waiting a year is a great idea for him. Maybe he really will spend a year getting his ducks in a row and then make a move somewhere, if that’s what he wants.

If there’s something you want to do, listen to your reasons why you can’t. Are you inventing those obstacles? Maybe it’s time to get out of your own way.