Two days ago, a friend of mine called me in panic. She was facing a relationship issue. “Aren’t we all?” I answered back in a teasing way. Her issue was that she got in a new relationship with a guy that she really likes. He has everything that she wanted to find on a man and they started a relationship for three weeks. Everything seemed to be perfect: singing birds, butterflies in the stomach and pink clouds! Suddenly a day, someone told her some very bad things about her boyfriend and as she was in panic, she picked up the phone and told him everything.
And here is when we have troubles in paradise and huge discussions and fights take place.
This article is not about relationships, but for the habit of keeping “secrets” when people are into starting something new.
Every woman that has already become a mother must remember very well when the doctor advised us to keep our pregnancy a secret for at least three months, until our baby is strong enough and the possibility of loss was minimum. Why should we keep our pregnancy for ourselves? Simply in order to avoid the gossip and judgement from people around us, or making up excuses for the reason that has caused the loss, in the case that there is miscarriage.
Since I was a kid, I was trying hard to discipline myself and that wasn’t an easy task as I was kind of a rebel. I invented my own methodology on doing that and I called it: “My method of #3”. I was using number 3 for almost everything, #3 can be 3 minutes, 3 days, 3 hours or 3 years. Having this rule in mind, we can help ourselves to discipline in our life. For instance, when I got divorced I made a promise to myself: “Nadia, you have 3 months to grief. After the time is up, you need to get yourself together and move on”. This is not always easy, but it works!
Let’s see now how can everything get related to business. If you have an idea in your mind, let it grow until it matures. Hence start implementing your idea and speak it out only when you feel ready to do so and after a period of #3. In this way, you will not be influenced by peoples’ judgment which is based on their underlying beliefs and experiences.
Let’s suppose that you are thinking to get married. If you ask the opinion of a person that has just divorced, then there is a great chance to advise you to abandon the thought of marriage. It doesn’t necessarily mean that your own marriage will end with the same results, does it? You are a completely different case and you live your own experiences.
As soon as I started my own business in a period of crisis in the end of 2008, everyone around me considered me crazy for leaving a comfortable and well paid job in order to work on my own. I decided to trust my gut and my own passion. The same happened when I wanted to expand abroad. Everyone was trying to persuade me that it was too difficult or even impossible. What was my answer back to them? That if I wasn’t trying hard and dare for a better life since I was really young, I would still be counting coins to put gasoline in my old car. If I didn’t make the move to take a divorce, there is a great chance I would have already be dead from anorexia. Instead, I faced and overcome this issue on my own.
Don’t let others guide your life. Go for it secretly and reveal it when you feel ready. We are also allowed to make mistakes in life, our own mistakes. That’s called being a human. Our mistakes are valuable lessons that help us to move forward and hit back at life ten times harder. This is how we develop and grow ourselves, being winners in life.
Keep my #3 Rules in mind for any challenge you might face today and If you are having hard time in achieving that, I would be glad to work with you.