John: Hey, what’s up?
John Sonmez from simpleprogrammer.com.
I am still in Amsterdam.
I am going to do a lot of these Amsterdam videos since I’ve got to fill in to make
sure I’ve got enough videos here.
I’m getting it a lot of interesting thoughts here in Amsterdam.
I actually had a pretty cool experience this morning and I was thinking about this and
I thought I would share this because this is something that I think a lot of people
struggle with.
They might not even realize that they do because I didn’t realize this until really this
morning.
I’ve been travelling, right?
I’ve gone to Paris.
I’ve gone to Berlin, to Ireland, to Bruges and now I’m here in Amsterdam and if you’ve
been listening to my Get Up and CODE Podcast you know that I have been sort of like I want
to call it waffling but basically like, “Ah, I don’t know, maybe I’m just going to
walk around Paris and walking is enough exercise.
I’ll just—it’s too hard to try and workout and find a gym, all of this and run.”
So I didn’t really lift weights in Paris just did some pull-ups and things like that.
Then I got to Berlin and I decided I was going to go to the gym and I got a gym membership
and I was working out running there and the same thing in Ireland.
Then I got here to Amsterdam and I started to do it again.
I started to say, “Ah, yeah, maybe I’ll just like, you know, the next 7 weeks take
a break and not do this.”
It turned out the reason why I was doing this was because I was in a new place again, in
Amsterdam, I didn’t really know where the gym was or which gym I should go to.
I didn’t really know how to get there.
The family that we’re doing, the home exchange with, they have bikes and they have 3 locks
on their bikes and I have no idea how to unlock these bikes.
I don’t know even which—how to work—how the bike lane works and all this complexity,
so just intimidating, right?
I was basically going to not do it.
Then this morning I got up and I was like, “No, no.
I’m going to force myself to go do this and I’m going to figure out how to get on
the bike.
I’m going to figure out how to unlock the bike to get out there to go to the gym, to
sign up for a membership and go and get my workout in.
It doesn’t matter if it takes me a couple of hours this morning.”
I just got back today from there and now it’s like, “Okay, I'm ready to go Friday, no
problem because it’s super easy now.”
But I was stressing about this and it’s kind of silly.
This is all basically to say that a lot of times in life I found this in general.
Every time that I moved to a different place I was intimidated by the new place and I didn’t
want to put forth the effort to learn the thing I guess because you know what you think
when you get to a new place, at least what I thought was, “Oh, it’s going to be so
much effort and hassle.
How am I going to figure out all these”—there’s all these unknowns.
I don’t know how I'm going to get the bike and get on the bike and where to go and dealing
with trying to get a membership at this other gym in the Netherlands and all of this stuff,
right?
That’s what—it like prevents you from doing the thing, but what you don’t realize
and what I didn’t realize is that once you do that, once you go through that once, once
you figured out how to ride a train in Europe, in a country, once you’ve figured out how
to catch the bus and how to buy tickets, once you figure out how to get airplane tickets
from different countries or to set up travel, to do all these kinds of intimidating things
then once you’ve done it once or twice it’s easy, it’s not a problem.
There’s no more of that so the next time I go to the gym it’s going to be super easy.
Now, when I go to London and I have to figure this all out again the very first time I try
and set up a gym and get going to that it’s going to be intimidating again, I'm not going
to know my way around London.
I'm going to feel like I don’t want to do this, but I'm going to remember this time
that I have to force myself immediately to go and do it, go and run, go and lift weights,
go and figure out the things that you need to do because once you get it done that’s
it.
Let me related this back to maybe to your situation, I mean perhaps if you’re travelling
this is, but in general life, maybe in your job, in your career.
A lot of people I talk to they’re like, “Oh, sign up a blog?
I can’t write.
I don’t know how to write a blog post.
I don’t know how to set up a WordPress.”
But once you do it and you get that first blog post out or second blog post out it’s
going to be super simple, right?
It’s going to be easy from that point forward.
Not easy like you’re still going to have to write but it’s not going to be intimidating.
Same thing with switching jobs, learning a new technology, doing something that makes
you feel uncomfortable, going to a code camp, going to speak at a code camp, going to speak
at an event, giving a presentation, writing a book, getting on a podcast, starting a podcast,
all of these things, right?
These are things that were intimidating for me at first but then became comfortable.
Heck, recording these YouTube videos.
At first I was like, “Oh man, I can’t record YouTube videos.
It feels weird like I'm a 16 year old girl.”
I figured that's who uses YouTube and recorded YouTube videos but that’s not necessarily
true, right?
You get comfortable with it.
All I'm saying is basically this, look, from my own experience, I realized this by myself,
I would still, after all the things that I’ve done in life, I'm still intimidated by new
things.
I still have a fear of new things.
Anytime I'm in a new environment and I have to do something that I don’t know how to
do that makes me feel uncomfortable I still feel uncomfortable and my inclination is to
not do it, it’s to just go the old path.
What is the thing I already know?
What is the thing that I’ve already been doing and that feels comfortable to me?
But you’ve got to step out of that comfort zone.
I have to do it when I go to London, like I said, when I go to Iceland, before I end
this trip I'm going to have to do that again and it’s fine.
You feel good about it once you tackle it.
Don’t shy away.
When something feels intimidating to you, when it feels uncomfortable go forward, do
it and know that once you’ve done it, once you’ve figured it out it’s going to be
like second nature, it’s going to be like riding a bike.
Anyway, I hope you found this useful.
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I will talk to you next time, take care.