Become a phone call expert!?

As mentioned in my fear post I’ve had a fear of making calls to strangers or taking calls with no preparation. If you have guessed by now, I have a bad habit of over thinking.

As soon as I see a number that I don’t know, or need to make a call to a stranger my mind goes into a chaotic zone, it creates negative outcomes to any questions/ thoughts that come along, e.g. Who is it? Why are they calling me? Would I be able to help them? What if I don’t know the answer? You get the idea, these thoughts go spinning around in my head psyching me out of acting.

With this type of thinking of course this task remained untouched on my procrastination list. In order for it to be made possible, I had to make it a common occurrence in my life as repetition is the key to any change.

This is exactly what I did. I got a job that involved phone calls. Ding Ding Ding Customer Service. Each day I put myself in a position that I was required to take and make calls. Each call differed from the rest, some easy and some difficult, but with each call I slowly began to rewrite my thinking.

The storm in my mind slowly calmed down and I began to focus on the voice of the person on the other side, what they we saying and not what they could be thinking. I released that it was okay if I didn’t understand some things or not know the answer. All you have to do was to ask questions in order to narrow down what they were after and if you didn’t have an answer at that moment, it was okay to let them know and contact them once you did.

With time it became easier handling calls but I won’t say that I am a phone call expert and I am okay with that. Considering where I started I would say, just the fact that I am now proactively making and taking calls is a big achievement.

Looking back at it, I probably chose the wrong term, which contributed to my procrastination. The word expert made things feel a lot more daunting. I’ll change the task to, become more comfortable with phone calls. – Check ✅