Afraid to feel foolish?

I’m a fan of James clear, the author of Atomic Habits, and one of his recent newsletters contained an idea which really struck me.

A great mistake

What he wrote was one of the great mistakes in life is suffering for years because you didn’t want to feel foolish for five minutes.

And I think that’s just so true because it can happen so easily. And then moments of delay build up into years when you haven’t done something that you want to do, but that you’re afraid you would feel foolish about, especially if a request were to be rejected.

Maybe you don’t ask for a date for years, maybe a you don’t ask for a promotion or a raise. Maybe you don’t ask somebody to stop doing something that they’re doing and you don’t like.

Easy to put off

It’s so easy to put off these things because you don’t want to feel foolish – and then time passes by. And a lot of time could pass by.

So I guess it’s worth asking yourself, what is it that I have been putting off asking for or doing because I don’t want to feel foolish for a few minutes?

And that, in fact, I could do – maybe today?

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