How to overcome the excuses, stories and “yes buts” that keep you stuck in your paralysing procrastinating programming.
Have you ever been inspired with a fabulous idea BUT as soon as your mind kicks in you start coming up with all the reasons, excuses and limiting stories why it won’t work?
Or you know you have a project, homework or something urgent that really needs doing BUT there seems something or someone blocking your momentum?
Or does the task seem so overwhelming and impossible there is no alternative BUT to put it off until you have more time, energy, inclination and preferably all 3 co-ordinating together.
Think of your inner conflict at the moment about something you know you need to move forward with, what’s your “Yes BUT” ?
“I don’t have enough time, money, help, knowledge, energy, support, resources”
“I can’t stick to it,”
“I will probably fail so why bother”
“I am too exhausted”
“My partner, boss, family member, friend, work colleague etc won’t let me, like me or may leave me.”
IT TAKES MORE ENERGY NOT TO DO SOMETHING
Did you know that even though you may be physically putting off taking action, your mind and body is using at least double the energy needed to do it?
How come?
When you know you have a task to complete your mind logs it in its own little “to do” folder.
Another part of your mind kicks in visualising you doing the job (your body is now physically using that energy needed to do it in one way or another)
Another part of you comes along with the resistance, so now you are putting up a fight energetically with yourself (more energy needed and expended)
Then your emotional side kicks in with all sorts of scenarios like fear of failure, fear of success, fear of rejection, fear of ridicule (more energy expended either feeling the feeling or resisting the feeling)
Or the emotional side may resent the task or feel overwhelmed with the enormity or that somehow taking action is going to lead to some other bad feeling (more energy loss).
And then because you haven’t succeeded in taking action you add to all of this by feeling ashamed of yourself, you are probably beating yourself up, and then that’s when you are most likely to look for distractions, dramas, or addictions.
Why when a part of you deep within knows that you are taking up a lot of energy in resistance, why doesn’t it kick in and just get on with it?
The reason is likely to be because you have yet another part of you trying to protect you. The procrastinator and perfectionist (opposite sides of the same coin) have developed from an incident, usually when you were young, that quite affected you and so is determined it’s not going to let you feel or go through that again. So now you have almost a whole inner army preventing you from moving forward!
A personal anecdote, is when I was young girl at school, the teacher made 4 of us walk around the other students in the class parading how bad our homework was. I can still feel that to this day 50+ years on, the shame, the humiliation and utter embarrassment of having to do this.
Now although thankfully I have no bullying teachers in my life, the part of me that was mortified vowed that would never happen again and so does its absolute best to prevent me completing or even starting a project that someone else might judge. All so that it can prevent me ever having to feel those feelings again.
Unfortunately, because the shock of that event was never cleared or healed properly, every time I go to start something, complete a project or have an idea, not only does my “self-preservation side” kick in but unconsciously I still go through feeling those feelings all over again (more energy loss).
So, what is the answer?
Take action, so what if it’s not perfect, getting it started or done trumps putting it off because it might not be perfect.
Explore your old programming, beliefs and stories, then upgrade them
Examine your fear. Is that threat that was there years ago really still here now?
Thank all your resistances for wanting to keep you safe and then list all the positive reasons why you will benefit from actually starting or completing your tasks. Prove to that part of you, you are safe now. The only way you can prove it, is to take action no matter how small.
Set 3 goals for yourself (this works brilliantly when you have an enormous overwhelming project e.g. like de-cluttering). The absolute minimum you know you can achieve, medium goal which will be a stretch and a maxi goal -what you would really love to achieve but might feel a bit outrageous! That way you can’t fail, you will always be succeeding at least one goal level.
If you still haven’t been able to move forward, then go higher. Ask your Higher Mind/Self/Inner Power to help you remove the blocks, excuses and fears.
Most important visualise what you will feel when you have completed your project, now really feel it and now keep acting that feeling out until you get your task finished.
Facing the fear is the death of the fear. You’ve got this.
If you need any help with this, then drop me a line or call 07801 567850