Last week I participated in Amira Alvarez’s “Visibility Challenge” for women entrepreneurs. Each day for seven days we were prompted to take a small action to up our visibility. On Day 5 we were challenged to give a “free taste” of what we had to offer in some way.

I’ve been meaning to start producing videos for some time, but somehow it has seemed daunting for both technical and equipment reasons, and of course, and maybe more to the point, for personal reasons to do with vulnerability, self-confidence, and wanting it to be perfect.

In fact, I often help my clients with these things!

So I decided, in the spur of the moment, to just use my iPhone to shoot a video of a simple little stretch you can do as a constructive break from computer work and posted it on Facebook, and then later on YouTube.

Here it is!

As you can see it’s pretty basic – no captions, no fancy titles, it stops rather abruptly, and the audio volume could be better.

I’ve had great feedback though, and so far it’s had over 1,600 views on Facebook – not bad for a first attempt. People do seem to be finding it useful. I hope you do too!

It took me under 10 minutes to record it, and another few minutes to upload it and post it on Facebook from my phone. It was actually easy and quick, yet felt like a major achievement.

It was major. I had stretched myself (ha! no pun intended!) and overcome a hurdle.

It strikes me that we often do this to ourselves. In our minds we build up things so they seem like monumental tasks. We put off making what we perceive to be an awkward or uncomfortable phone call, for instance, and spend many hours playing out what we might say and how it might go. Yet when we finally pluck up the courage to pick up the phone, the deed is done and dusted in just a few minutes. What was the big deal? Why all the unnecessary anxiety and tension?

I see this phenomenon in my clients’ postural habits too – using way more effort than needed to do even the simplest of actions. As you’re reading this at your computer or on your phone, notice how tightly you’re holding the mouse (do you even need to hold it at all?) or the phone itself. I’d be willing to bet you are using more effort – more tension – than is actually needed. Making a mountain out of a molehill, in fact.

Clients are often astonished when they realize how little effort they actually need when they use their body efficiently and intelligently.

Sometimes we simply need to ask an expert for help, and voila that difficult thing becomes easy.  What’s hard for one person is easy for someone else. Sometimes it turns out to be quick and we can learn in seconds once we’re shown how.  At others it takes time to learn and put it into practice.

And sometimes we just need to do it – like my experience with the video.

Do you relate to this? Have you had similar experiences?

As always, I’d love to hear from you. As the comments function is still not working properly here on the blog, I’ve turned them off, until the problem is fixed. In the meantime, if you have an observation, question or comment for me, please hop over to my Facebook page and leave it there.

Photograph © lzflzf / 123RF Stock Photo