Contributor to The Huffington Post. Whenever I saw this in someone’s bio, I always thought to myself, “wow, that’s 
pretty cool, I wonder how they did that?” For some reason, I chose to look at this accomplishment as something that only a chosen few could do. Was it something that I wanted to accomplish? Absolutely; yet for some reason I told myself the story that it wasn’t possible.
The interesting thing is that a few months ago I joined an online networking community for Female Entrepreneurs and many of the women were celebrating becoming contributors to The Huffington Post. I was beginning to see that this wasn’t some sort of Holy Grail, never to be attained; I saw the possibility. Even better for me, these women were open about sharing exactly how they did it and I’ve never been one to doubt a proven system 😉
Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I signed up for a 30 Day List Building Challenge for business owners who are looking to expand their reach – once again the suggestion to contribute to sites like The Huffington Post came up. I decided to take it as a sign that I should stop procrastinating and write an article and submit it. I followed the steps provided to me by my networking colleagues and guess what? Within a few hours of submitting my article I received an email from Ariana Huffington (or whoever checks her emails) saying that she would love to have me share my voice and copied one of her editors on it. I received login details, uploaded my article and the rest, as they say, is history.
Here’s the thing – for years I had been telling myself that I had to be a certain level of writer to achieve this accomplishment. I was telling myself that I hadn’t reached a level in my business or writing to be ready to submit anything to such a high profile site. It wasn’t until I saw other people making it happen that I was inspired to give it a try. Why didn’t I try earlier? Fear of rejection of course. I know that this fear is unfounded. I mean, my life wasn’t going to be over if the email I received after submitting my post had been a “thanks, but no thanks”, would it?
Sometimes we have to silence the voice that says we can’t or we shouldn’t and just do whatever it is that we want to do. Whether it’s submitting a demo to a music company, submitting a manuscript of a book, going back to school or applying for that job; don’t let your fears stop you from going after what you want. If others have already achieved goals similar to what you’re striving for, ask them for feedback and guidance on how you can do it too! You’ll be pleasantly surprised to see that most will welcome the opportunity to share their experiences with you to help you achieve your own success.
It’s time to stop putting off your dreams. If you want to try something, just do it. If you don’t know where to get started, ask for help or do some research. We’re so fortunate to have so much information accessible to us there should be no excuse not to take action on the things we really want to do in life. Stop listening to the voice that’s telling you it isn’t possible and find the one that encourages you to just do it. You’ll be glad you did!