#43: That Thing You're Avoiding? It matters. How to Do It Scared

What if the thing you’re avoiding is the very thing that could change everything?

Let’s be honest—there’s probably a task sitting at the bottom of your list that’s been there for weeks. The one that low-key haunts you.
It feels too big, too scary, too uncomfortable. And if you're like me, you've probably moved that one thing from Monday… to Tuesday… to “someday.”

I’ve been there more times than I’d like to admit—staying busy with all the easy stuff while the one thing that actually mattered sat untouched. But here’s what I finally realized:
I wasn’t too busy. I was scared.
And what I needed wasn’t more time… it was courage.

In this episode, I’m sharing some of the hardest (and most meaningful) decisions I’ve made—where fear showed up loud and clear, and I had to decide whether to let it win.

Buying my first home in my 20s.
Moving across the country.
Starting this podcast.
Saying yes to scary, meaningful things—before I ever felt “ready.”

Because tiptoeing around the thing you're most called to do? It only keeps you stuck.

And when it comes to chasing your dreams, the only way forward… is through the hard.
And that requires courage.

✨ 3 KEY TAKE AWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE

1️⃣ The things you avoid most often hold the most meaning.
Resistance isn’t random—it’s pointing you toward what matters.

2️⃣ Courage isn’t a personality trait—it’s a choice.
And you’ve already made that choice more times than you think.

3️⃣ Your past brave moments are fuel for your future.
You don’t need to become someone new—you just need to remember who you’ve already been.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or like you're circling the same part of your dream over and over again… this episode is for you.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

On-Demand Course: UNDAUNTED: The Art Of Taking Action Even When You Doubt Yourself

DOWNLOAD THE FREE START DREAMING AGAIN GUIDE

Check out all my coaching and course offerings - Coachcarlene.com

MORE FROM ME

Follow me on Instagram: @coach_carlene

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Your support helps me reach more dreamers who need these insights. 🎙️ Thanks for tuning in to the Distracted Dreamer Podcast! See you next week!

FOLLOW NOW
Also, if you haven't done so already, follow the podcast. I'm adding episodes every week, and if you're not folllowing, there's a good chance you'll miss out. Follow now!

Episode Website

Transcript

Speaker 3 0:01

You're never too busy, too tired, too old, or too anything to pursue your dreams. Welcome to the Distracted Dreamer Podcast, where you'll learn how to move all those never ending distractions aside and chase your dreams with confidence.

0:22

Well, hello. Hello my friend. I'm your host Carlene, and I am so glad that you are here today. Whether you've been here a long time with me, or this is your very first time tuning in, welcome to the Distracted Dreamer podcast and family. You are officially among friends. So before we dive in today, can I ask you a quick favor? If this podcast has encouraged you or inspired you or just made you feel a little less alone, would you take a second to share it with a friend? Send it to that person who's been avoiding their dreams, that's how this community grows through people like you who share it. Now, before we dive into today's episode, I just wanna take a moment to connect the dots. Back in episode 39, we had a really honest conversation about the messy, unexpected parts of going after our dreams. It's called Hard, is part of the Dream Six mindsets to keep going anyway, and in that episode. I shared some of the tough stuff that I've walked through, like starting a podcast and moving across the country and navigating a cancer diagnosis and all this stuff, and I offered six mindsets that helped me keep going when quitting felt a heck of a lot easier. So we talked about. Doing it bigger than your fear about bringing the fun and how sometimes just remembering that you've already done hard things is enough to help you take the next step. So if you haven't listened to that one yet, I've put a link to it in the show notes. Or after you're done listening here, just go right to episode 39, wherever you're listening. It's a really great companion to what we're gonna be talking about today. We are zooming in and we're taking one very specific piece of the puzzle, something that we all wrestle with, and that is the tendency to avoid that one hard thing. You know, the one, you know, that task that keeps moving to the bottom of your to-do list. Or that project that lives in your head, but it never gets touched, or that dream that both excites you and totally intimidates you. Yeah, that thing. Today we're going to talk about why we avoid the hard thing, what's really going on underneath that. And how can we bring courage front and center when the fear is so loud and you really can't see your way forward? And just so you know, I'm not speaking from a mountaintop here. I've avoided the hard thing more times than I can count, but I've also taken some pretty bold leaps even when I didn't feel ready. And I just wanna share a few of those moments with you. Just so you can see how courage actually shows up in everyday life and how it might already be showing up in yours, even if you haven't given yourself credit for it yet. So, grab your favorite coffee or refresher and take me with you on your walk or curl up in your favorite chair because we're gonna have a real heart to heart today. And we're gonna talk about the hard thing, and we're gonna talk about courage. So let's get back into motion, especially when we're not feeling brave. Now, if you find yourself constantly moving one task from today to tomorrow, to next week, yeah, I do that a lot. Um, it's either not important and you should just take it off your to-do list, but a lot of times it's a sign. It's a sign that you're avoiding. The hard thing. And here's the other secret. You don't need more time. You don't need a better morning routine. You don't need another podcast episode or a planner hack. You need to stop avoiding the hard thing. That one task that you keep skipping, that one that feels scary or vulnerable, or just really heavy. That's the thing that actually moves the needle on your dream, not the quick wins, not more learning and going down rabbit holes for hours before you start. I'm so guilty there not the color coded calendar or the updated website. It's the thing that stretches you. So lemme give you some examples. Maybe your dream is to be an artist, and the hard thing is submitting your portfolio or putting your prices on your website. Maybe your dream is to write a book, and the hard thing is just opening up the blank document and writing that messy first paragraph. Or maybe your dream is to speak on big stages. And the hard thing is pitching yourself or posting that first video online. Or maybe your dream is to run your own business. And the hard thing is sending that invoice or raising your rates or saying no to a client who isn't a good fit. I have been there. Maybe your dream is a healthier body, or deeper relationships. And the really hard thing is asking for help or telling the truth or starting over. I know that when I avoid something, it's almost always because I'm afraid I'm gonna mess up or I don't really know where to start, or it feels too big and too risky and too vulnerable. Does any of that sound familiar? So avoidance isn't a time issue. You're not avoiding it because you don't have time. That's just a bad cover story. Again, it isn't a time issue. It's a courage issue. So let's talk about courage. And this is important to talk about because this, this is actually a core part of what I teach in my on-Demand course. It's called Undaunted, the Art of Taking Action. Even when You Doubt yourself. I'll leave the link for you in the show notes, but just know if fear has been holding you back. This course is designed to help you move forward one step at a time with real tools, one of which I'm actually sharing with you today. So if you're resonating with what we're diving into right now and you want to go deeper, undaunted might be the perfect next step for you. But enough of that, let's get back to courage. There's an interesting thing that happens there. I ask people what they think courage means. Most of the time people think courage means you're fearless, that you're not afraid. But courage really is feeling afraid and doing the thing anyway. And you know what? Courage isn't something that you're born with. It's something that you practice. It's the willingness to act even when you're afraid. So confidence, it says, I know what I'm doing, but courage says, I don't know yet, but I'll try. Encourage. That's what bridges the gap between where you are right now and where you want to be. Let me give you a real life example. I want to show you how this plays out in all kinds of moments. After college, I was determined to be independent. I didn't want to rely on anyone. I wanted to prove that I could build a life for myself. And honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. I was terrified, but I did it anyway. So at 23, I bought my first piece of real estate, a little 900 square foot townhouse. I had no idea what I was doing. Loans and interest rates and property taxes. Oh my. But I learned, I paid the bills. I lived alone and I didn't especially love living by myself, but I loved what it taught me that I could figure things out. In fact, I remember when my garage door opener broke and I couldn't figure it out, and honestly, the solution was so easy. But I called my brother-in-law and he was such a sweetheart, and he came over and he fixed it for me, and it wasn't about if I knew how to fix it myself. It was really about having the courage to say, Ooh, I did this big thing, and now something isn't working and I don't know how to fix it. And then to ask for help. That's a courageous moment, and all those moments from signing up for a mortgage on my own at the age of 23 to budgeting and learning how to be okay living alone. I have returned to it so many times, like when I moved to California and I left my family for the first time, let me tell you, California just felt like it was so incredibly far away, which it, which it was like I couldn't just drive home and. I didn't have money to fly back and forth like that terrified me, but I did it. And then there was the time when my husband and I decided it was time for me to leave my job and stay home with our girls. I always go back to when I bought that townhouse. If I could do that, I can do these things. Like when we packed up everything and moved to Tennessee recently, or when I faced hard choices during my breast cancer treatment or when I started this podcast. Or when I launched my coaching practice, every one of those moments was a moment of courage and every single one of those moments before I did them, I thought about what I did at the age of 23. I always go back to that. And here's the truth. Courage ebbs and flows. You're not always gonna feel brave. But you get to decide when to look back and borrow strength from the moments when you did the dang thing, even though you were scared out of your mind. So here's something powerful that you can do. You can create your own collection of courageous moments. So I just gave you some of mine and I call it moments of clarity and courage. And this is an exercise in the Undaunted course that I mentioned earlier. And so I'm gonna tell you how it works so you can do it right now. How does that sound? Okay. If you want, you can pause me and make sure that you have something to write some things down with. Go get a journal or open up your notes app, and what I'm inviting you to do is to look across all areas of your life. So these are the things that you wanna write down. Work, you just wanna get these categories, work, relationships, parenting, if you're a parent health. Money and your dreams. And then underneath each of those categories, write down moments when you acted, when you took action, even though you were afraid. Now they do not have to be big and dramatic moments, like me calling my brother-in-law to help me fix my garage door opener. It wasn't big and dramatic. It was a moment of courage, I had to ask for help. So sometimes courage looks like having a hard conversation with somebody, or like I said, asking for help or saying no to something that everyone else is saying yes to, or saying yes to something that no one else understands. Mm-hmm. Or how about starting something new? Or ending something that's no longer right for you. You see there's a lot of things out there. So when you write these down, you're gonna start to realize, huh, I've done this before. I have been courageous. And the next time that you're staring down a hard or scary thing, you can remind yourself, if I did that scared, then I can do this. Scared now. Okay, what happens now? Well, once you've remembered all those moments that you acted, even though you were afraid, it's time for a new one. So here's what I do when I'm staring down the hard thing and I've decided, okay, I'm gonna do this. I'm scared outta my mind, but I'm gonna do this. I break it down into 15 minute blocks. That's it. You can do anything for 15 minutes. It's okay. And I always start before I feel ready. I always remind myself, I'm not gonna feel ready till I'm in it. You won't feel ready until you're in it. That's why you need 15 minutes. Get in it and you're gonna be like, huh, I got this. Nothing bad is happening. I can keep going. The other thing I do is I track action and progress, not perfection. It's. Hey, I took 15 minutes today to do X, and this is where I landed at the end of that 15 minutes. That's tracking action and progress. Not, oh, I didn't finish it, or What I did wasn't perfect. No, no, no. Track your action and your progress. This isn't about doing everything, it's about doing something. The hard, scary thing first. This is your nudge. Tackle the hard thing tomorrow morning. Don't give it another week. Don't do that. Don't let it slide to the bottom of your list again, because you have everything you need already, because you've done hard things that scare you before. You've been courageous before, and you can be again, starting right now. Right now, all right my friend. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today, and I hope this episode reminded you of just how powerful you really are, especially when you show up for your dreams, even when it's hard and scary. Because you've already done so many things that scare you. And look, you are still here. You're still dreaming and you're still becoming, so I have an invitation for you. Just a couple things. First, I want you to take 10 minutes today to do the moments of clarity and courage exercise that we talked about. Write down the times you took action, even when you were scared and then, and. This is the game changer when you do this exercise. I don't want you to do it and then just close your notebook or leave it lost somewhere on your phone, I want you to post it somewhere that you're gonna see it often a sticky note. Leave your journal out, stick it on your mirror, or put it on your lock screen and let it be a reminder that you can do hard things because you already have. Now if you haven't listened to episode 39, I've put the link in the show notes for you, like I said. And if you wanna go deeper on being courageous and rebuilding confidence, you can check out the Undaunted course link is also in the show notes. And if this episode encouraged you, would you take a second to leave a quick review on Apple or Spotify? Not just because it helps the show grow, although it really does, but because your review helps. Other dreamers, other people just like you, the overwhelmed ones. The stuck ones, the secretly hopeful ones, find this space. The words that you write in your review might be the reason that someone else keeps going today. Okay. So remember, keep going. Choose courage even when it's hard, because if nobody else is telling you this, I'm telling you this, you and your dreams are worth it. You've got this.

Carlene 16:08

Alright, my sweet friend Thank you so much for being here with me today. And remember your dreams. They are waiting for you and your time. It's now and I'll be back next week. Ready to welcome you to our next conversation. Oh, and one more thing. This is the legal language. You know, the stuff that the lawyers put together, and they say that I need to read this to you. So here we go. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I'm not a licensed therapist. This podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professionals. Got it? Good. I will see you in the next episode.