The Invisible Cost of Delay: Why Getting Started Matters More Than Being Ready

What if alcohol isn't just costing you money? What if it's costing you opportunities, confidence, creativity, growth, and possibilities you haven't even discovered yet?

In this episode of The Pink Cloud Frequency, we explore one of the most overlooked costs of drinking: delay.

Many women assume alcohol is only a problem if it's causing obvious consequences. But what if the greater cost isn't what happens when you drink, but what never happens because you do?

We discuss why so many of us postpone goals, dreams, business ideas, creative projects, career changes, and opportunities that keep calling us forward. From fear of failure and fear of judgment to the psychological concept of status quo bias, and lack of confidence, you'll learn why human beings often choose familiar discomfort over unfamiliar possibility.

If you've been waiting for the perfect time to start a business, launch a podcast, apply for a job, pursue a goal, or make a change in your life, this episode is for you.

Because the life you want isn't built when you feel ready. It's built when you start.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning, good morning, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to the Pink Cloud Frequency. I am your host, Brianna Wynne, and today I want to talk to you about getting started. I want you to think about alcohol costing you more than just money. Alcohol may be costing you opportunities, ideas, experiences, creativity, growth, and possibilities. What if the greatest cost of alcohol isn't what happens when you drink, but what never happens because you drink? One of the biggest things I've noticed in my alcohol-free life is that I started doing more. I started falling through on ideas, acting on opportunities, and saying yes to things that previously only lived in my head. Most of the things that have changed in my life over the past year of being alcohol free didn't begin with confidence. They began with a decision to start before I felt ready, which is important because I think many of us spend far more time thinking about what we want to do than actually doing it. We consider, we plan, we research, we wait. And while we're waiting, life is passing us by. Delay feels harmless because nothing bad appears to happen on the outset. Let's say you don't launch that business, you don't start that podcast, you don't apply for the job, you don't do the renovations to your house, you don't write that book, you don't sign up for the class. Life simply goes on, right? But every day you delay, you are paying a cost. You just don't see the invoice yet. You can see the cost of starting something, and sometimes we're not ready to absorb that cost, but the cost of not starting something is invisible, so we never consider it. So why do we delay? We delay because fear of failure, fear of success, of judgment. We are uncertain. We fear changing our identities. We fear discovering what we're actually capable of. There is a psychological concept known as the status quo bias. And that's when human beings prefer familiar discomfort over unfamiliar possibility, even when the familiar thing isn't serving us. Alcohol becomes part of that familiarity. It's predictable, it's comforting even when it keeps us stuck. Alcohol on its own doesn't necessarily destroy your ambition, but it certainly distracts it, it sedates it, it delays it. It makes tomorrow feel acceptable. If you have an idea or a goal or a dream or you're curious about something, you are not going to act on it. And you're just going to drink instead. Not necessarily even consciously, but your drinking is going to inevitably postpone you taking that action. And then tomorrow becomes next week. Next week becomes next month. Next month becomes next year. Alcohol isn't stopping you from considering the possibilities in your life, but it's making you say later to all of those possibilities. You might even take some initial steps toward that goal. Maybe you pour a couple of glasses of wine and then you spend hours researching something. You look into starting that business. You browse programs, you attend a conference, maybe you even tell your friends about the idea that you have. And from the outside, it appears that you're moving towards something. But alcohol creates resistance around the follow-through. The next morning you wake up, you're a little bit more tired, a little less motivated, a little less decisive, a little less willing to do the uncomfortable work required to move forward. So instead of taking the next step, you postpone it. And because human beings are incredibly good at justifying delay, we create very reasonable excuses. You'll start after the holidays, you'll start when things calm down, when you have more time, when your finances are more stable, when you're more confident. But confidence rarely comes before action. Confidence comes from action. And every time you delay, you're not just postponing the goal, you are postponing the person that you are meant to become through pursuing that goal. For me, this short showed up shortly after quitting drinking. I knew that I wanted to start a podcast, but I had delayed a little bit. First it was, should I really do it? Then it was, which microphone should I buy? Then it was, what should the logo look like? What should the name of the podcast be? And months passed by. I agonized over the logos. Eventually I did buy the microphone. I delayed a little bit more. I went to a podcasting event in Orlando. I delayed for a couple other two, a couple more weeks after that. And that's important to note because the delay, the obstacle wasn't information, right? I had the information. I had the microphone. I had the resources that I needed to be able to move forward. But it was action. I wasn't taking that full step. All those little steps matter, of course. I was gaining knowledge along the way and what I needed. But what helped me was getting out of my own head and just realizing this isn't just going to happen. If I want it to happen, I have to do something about it. I can have the microphone, I can have the setup, I can have the information. But if I don't move forward, then what does any of that matter? So on February 3rd is when I published my first episode. Actually, I published five episodes. But right before I did that, I had absolutely no idea how to use the recording software. Then once I figured out how to use the recording software, I couldn't figure out how to upload the episodes. I had to learn how to host a podcast. I had to learn how to distribute it and what an RSS feed was. And it took me half a day just to get all those things connected correctly. But what would have happened if I had waited until I knew how to do each and every one of those things? I never would have started because I didn't learn those things before I started. I learned those things because I started. And today, nearly 30 episodes later, I cringe listening to the first episode. I think it's terrible. Because the competence comes after action, not before. And people are often waiting around for the confidence, but confidence is created through the evidence. And the evidence is created through the action. Most people want the confidence first. But life doesn't work that way. You are going to build the belief in yourself through the actions that you take. And once you have that belief, you are going to then influence the other outcomes in your life. Every time you follow through, every time you learn something new, every time you practice a skill, you improve, you create, you strengthen your belief in yourself. But alcohol weakens that. Because alcohol is what is interrupting your consistency and your follow-through. Yet that consistency and follow-through is what builds your belief system. Once you start something, you learn, you adapt, you improve, you discover strengths that you didn't even know that you had. You develop skills you didn't possess, and you become someone new in that process. So for me, the podcast became evidence. Like I said, I'm over a year alcohol free at this point. But if I didn't quit drinking, that thought of even doing a podcast, I actually don't want to say it never came to me because I have had a conversation with a couple of my friends about this before, like, oh, we should start a podcast. But that's that's the whole difference is having a conversation about something and saying, oh, this is a good idea, we should do this, and then allowing that idea to just live separately from you. That idea truly isn't something that you are going to take the steps to embark on. But once I quit drinking, the ideas came to me, and it wasn't just in the form of a podcast. There were tons of others. But the ones that I thought would be genuinely worth embarking on are the ones that I explored further. And a podcast happened to be one of those. So once I started that, then what happened? More online conferences, networking meetups, community, meeting other alcohol-free um people. Now I'm working on other new opportunities. But none of those things were visible to me when I recorded the first episode. But I had to take that first step in order for the second step to be revealed. And then the second step revealed the third step. Today, online on social media, I record videos almost daily. Because again, growth requires us to be seen before we feel ready. I didn't feel ready. You should, if you go back to some of my first posts, even the post now, I'm still learning how to use Instagram. I don't even know. I get so frustrated sometimes just trying to post videos because it's overwhelming for me. And I'm not worried about looking perfect. I am simply sharing a message and trying to help women consider an alcohol-free perspective and expand what's possible for themselves. Because that's exactly what happened for me. So it's not about looking perfect or doing everything perfect or having all of the resources or gathering all of the information or being ready. Because you are never going to feel 100% ready. If you are waiting to feel ready, you are going to be waiting forever. But once you stop drinking, your world is going to slowly start opening up for you. And through this podcast and through conversations, that's what's happening for me. And that's one of the greatest gifts of alcohol-free living. You begin to ask yourself different questions. Instead of can I do this? It becomes what else is possible? Instead of who am I today? It becomes who can I be twelve months from now? Alcohol-free living on its own doesn't magically create new opportunities, but it creates awareness of them first. Alcohol-free living helps you tap back into all of that potential that you haven't been accessing. And then it gives you the energy, the clarity, the consistency, and the curiosity to pursue them. Most people overestimate the risk of starting, and they underestimate the risk of staying where they are. Because the greatest risk isn't failure, it is reaching the end of another year and looking back and realizing nothing changed. Not because you couldn't change it, but because you never started. So for your reflection, ask yourself what idea or goal or opportunity or curiosity keeps returning to you? Chances are that's a sign. So thank you so much for listening today. I will talk to you all next Wednesday. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend. Bye.