Grabbing the bull by the horns is an older version of Nike’s “Just do it” slogan.

The Cambridge dictionary says it’s about doing something in a brave and determined way.

That applies to a lot of the things we do in internet marketing.

Those scary things on your personal to-do list that you know you should be doing but – for whatever reason – you’re putting off and they’re just sitting there, glaring at you.

Often the best way to deal with these kind of issues is to just start doing them.

Or make the decision that they don’t fit how you operate and scratch them from your to-do list so that they’re not nagging away at the back of your mind.

Unless the item is critical to your business, either of those options works.

The biggest thing to remember is that it’s rare for something to be as difficult or as scary as you first thought.

Often it’s a case of thinking “why was I worried about that” after the event. But there have probably been a lot of times when you got yourself into an unwelcome state because you’d been running over all sorts of possible outcomes.

Mark Twain’s quote “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened” is very appropriate.

We’re very good at playing out all the different possible – usually worst case – scenarios.

It’s time to stop doing that.

Whatever you’ve been putting off, spend a few minutes (no more than 10 minutes) coming up with a list of those things.

Rate them in terms of scariness – use whatever scale you’re comfortable with.

Then do the least scary thing as soon as possible.

Grab it by the horns and do it anyway.

Next, pick the next least scary option and tackle that.

Why the least scary things first?

For starters, they’re the ones where you’ve got least resistance so they’re relatively easy to set aside the fears and doubts you’ve got.

The other important thing is that fear is actually quite afraid of things. It sounds weird but try it – the more you chip away at that to-do list, the less scary all those larger fears seem.

Try it for yourself. Grab that bull by the horns and congratulate yourself when you’ve done whatever it was.