This week, I am hosting a live, virtual event. It is two days. I hired the event producer and started planning in January. I recruited nine other nonprofit experts, promoted the event…did ALL THE THINGS.
Last week, I was stressed. I worried it won’t go right, won’t have the intended outcomes. I worry my speakers won’t help promote, or that I will be disappointed.
My monkey mind went into OVERDRIVE. The rubber was meeting the road on this event and I was registering on my Freakout O Meter.
I was at the Battle of the Border.
This was shared to me in a conversation with my accountability coach and she couldn’t have been more right.
I have bet you have been there too.
The battle is when your ideas, plans visions and desires meet reality. Sure the planning stages of the event are so fun. Nothing but promise and opportunity. Then you get closer and closer to the actual physical manifestation and that’s when your monkey mind goes into overdrive.
It wants to keep you safe and in that place of ideation and visualization. Because doing something means the risk of failing, and that brings up feelings your monkey mind wants you to avoid.
You may remember that stress at the the first virtual event you held, or the first event you held, or sending out the annual appeal…the battle for the border was probably raging.
You may be tempted to put off or delay putting new ideas into action because of the fear of failing and slip back onto the “idea” side of the border. Instead, use these tools to quiet the monkey mind and move forward.
Maryanne is founder and CEO of Courageous Communication. She works with nonprofits to grow their influence and leadership so they can be more productive, powerful & persuasive and stop feeling rejected, ineffective or pushy. She is author of Courageous Communication: how codependence is making your nonprofit brand boring and what to do about it, creator of Up Level Your Influence training for individuals and organizations and host of The Influential Nonprofit podcast.