Stop searching and start DOING

Back in the day, newspaper classified ads were the closest thing to the way I think about the Internet now, especially Help Wanted ads and the Personals. I would scan them almost in desperation, looking for an ad with my name on it, something that would say to me:

YOU. This job? This apartment? This guy advertising for a date? This is for YOU.

And that’s how I’ve been scanning the Internet since I first got online, looking for something, anything, that would speak to me personally. Nowadays, I’m looking more for information than for a job, a place to live, or the love of my life, but the feeling of desperate searching is the same.

You know what I’m talking about. Don’t we all do that? There’s a reason ‘google’ is now a verb, after all.

But it’s a trap.

Marketing maven Wendy Maynard writes about getting stuck in the learning trap:

…let’s face it, learning is safe. Because if you are always learning, you won’t ever fail.

Searching aimlessly for answers to vague questions is the same kind of trap. If you are always searching, you don’t have to face the real problem that’s bothering you: Fear.

In 1996, I lost my job at a Minneapolis radio station and decided to move to Los Angeles and stay with my sister there while I looked for work. I was sure I would have no trouble finding another good radio job, since I had an impressive resumé as a former network news anchor. But I was 50, way over the hill in radio years. I couldn’t even get an interview. I wound up doing traffic reports for $10 an hour.

My sister had also gone through a difficult financial reversal, was very worried about keeping her house, and I was unable to help her much. We were both scared and depressed, though neither of us would admit it.

What did we do? My sister played computer solitaire, night and day. After some futile attempts at finding a better job, so did I behind closed doors, under the pretense of job-hunting. It was a tense, lonely time.

That compulsion to play a mindless game is no different than endlessly searching for answers while we avoid taking action in our businesses or lives. We are avoiding facing our fear, but in the process we are giving it more power over us. That uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach just gets worse. How to relieve that awful feeling?

DO SOMETHING.

Wendy puts it better than I can: “Action will get you unstuck.” Stop searching, close down the Twitter and the email, get offline altogether if you have to, and start working on what scares you.

Elizabeth Potts Weinstein calls it the vomit factor. If it scares you so much you feel like vomiting, that’s what you should do:

Don’t you just marvel at Elizabeth’s courage? I do. She inspires me, and so does Wendy. And Catherine Caine. I found these wonderful, inspiring people during my desperate seeking, and I’m glad I did. But now, I’m going to stop seeking and start DOING.

Tell me what you’re going to STOP, and what you will start DOING, in the comments below. I’d love to know!