Give yourself a chance: Don’t push it with your belly!

Before I start this new article, I’d like to say thanks to everyone who reached out to me after I shared my last article, and to tell you how humbled I am.

I had no idea that sharing my article would impact so many people. My LinkedIn and WhatsApp inboxes were cluttered with messages from people from all over the world. Thank you!

But what next?
The reaction got me thinking: when was the last time you procrastinated or avoided making a hard decision?

In my last article, I spoke about discovering I suffered from depression – which is all fine when we are self-aware about a particular issue we undergo (see box for a reminder of what happened to me in 2019) – but what happens next?

Belly up
In Brazilian Portuguese, we have an expression called ‘empurrar com a barriga’, which in literal terms means to push something with your belly. In simple terms, it means to procrastinate.

You see: becoming aware of a particular challenge that is bugging you is very important, but things won’t change much if you don’t take action.

Nothing comes your way for free. The beautiful and challenging thing about becoming part of the adult world is: no-one will tell you what to do, and no decisions will be made for you.

Action is everything
You may work consciously or subconsciously to have someone decide your destiny for you, but I don’t think that is sustainable.

There’s no doubt that 2019 has been a transformational and turbulent year for me – let’s face it, I could have spent it beating around the bush.

But that would have made the price of not taking any decision (which is a decision by the way) much higher for me.

For 2020, I hope you too can take the necessary action for whatever you’ve set as a priority in your life.