Get clear and accept your failures
A while back, one of my biggest struggles used to be making a list, losing that list, making another list, and adding it to another pile of lists with nothing ever really getting done.
I battled with moving forward on my goals. Big time.
Then, I remember trying to write my daily lists in a journal each day and forcing myself to transfer the undone things to the next day so I would eventually get tired of transferring the SAME tasks over and over again…hoping I would finally take action.
I didn’t.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have drive or passion or even purpose.
I was VERY motivated…
Motivated to sabotage myself.
My issue: I lacked decisiveness/a clear vision of what I ACTUALLY wanted.
One of my FAVORITE books on this topic is called Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. It reads like an interview with the Devil about how indecisiveness is the in Satan needs to control our minds.
I would wake up, review my goals, create my task list, get distracted for 5–8 hours and end my day feeling like WTF just happened?!?!
It wasn’t that I didn’t want it bad enough.
I just wanted to NOT have it more.
In order to support my goals, I had to change who I was on the inside. I had to take a stand for me that I was unable and really unwilling to see.
Sure, I would go through all the affirmations in the morning and look at my vision board and write down my goals…but that’s as far as I’d get.
I would soon pop open my laptop and get immediately lost in the chaos.
One reason for the cluttered state of mind: I didn’t keep my first hour of the day sacred.
I’d wake up, check Facebook then go make coffee.
No self honoring. No exercise. No water. No meditation. Just focus on other people and what they were doing for the day.
Another reason: I was saying yes to situations and opportunities that I KNEW were not right for me. I’d sit down to get work done and my soul would cry out for attention that I would not give.
And to make matters worse…the root cause:
I was neck deep in self punishment from making a poor business decision that I’d lost all hope, and trust, in myself to make better decisions in the future.
It was NOT pretty.
Have you ever sat back and wondered to yourself…
“Why did I so long in a relationship, a job, or even a habit that I KNEW was destructive?”
I had coffee with an old client of mine yesterday discussing this very topic.
Our higher selves TELL us we need to get out and the more we deny those messages, the less and less and less we hear of them. Eventually, only EGO and fear have access to the mic.
For him, the messages have come loud and clear about where he needed to be.
Once he began to deny those messages with his own logic and reasoning, the voice cut off and frustration, confusion, and ultimately, suffering came through to replace it.
I find it comical when clients come to me to seek guidance saying “I know what I need to do, I just don’t know why I don’t do it.”
So in other words, what you’re REALLY saying is that you can give OTHER family and friends advice on how to live but you’re unwilling to take your own advice? All this really says to me is that you attract people to give advice to on the sole basis that you have stopped listening to it yourself!
Because when your higher self is not given a voice,
it will use the outside world as a movie screen to project your inner battles to get your attention. And instead of you acknowledging these as gifts for greater self awareness…
Your ego buys into the illusion that you are the “go-to person” for advice.
It’s typical behavior for people who are stuck in their shit.
And until they are ready to cut the bulls*t, nothing will change. Until I cut it out, nothing changed for me either.
There’s not one motivation video, article, book, coach, mentor or even workshop that you can watch that will change you. YOU have to change you. So if you see yourself going in circles, you have to start with changing ONE thing…
NOT twelve.
The only reason why you got into this mess is the only reason I got into that mess, was because I stopped putting me first and started putting others’ needs above mine. We stopped trusting ourselves as worthy and then put the priorities of others are more worthy of our time and attention.
Then…
as though some miraculous shift would occur, I attempted multiple times to change EVERYTHING at once thinking it would actually work.
It didn’t. And it won’t for you.
If you’ve dug yourself into a hole, the first thing you need to do: put down the shovel and STOP digging.
This translates to accepting YOUR hand in putting yourself there.
Then, you’ve got to start filling up that hole by rebuilding trust with yourself…ONE step at a time.
Once you do this, only then can you add on another and another until you are back on your game.
With all my attempts to make lists…
I was not doing anything to rebuild my self trust. Instead, I made matters worse by making lists I KNEW I would not look at or complete. I KNEW I would fail somewhere deep inside and yet I was so angry at myself for failing that those lists got bigger, more complex, more confusing, more creative, more decorative, more elaborate…
and basically anything OTHER than more DONE.
Productivity hacks and time management skills won’t work until self trust is built. Period.
It’s like trying to build a frame for a house with no foundation to attach it to. Will it be stable? Oh hell no. And yet…we do it anyway.
If you are stuck in the starting and stopping pattern with no perceivable way out, there’s hope. But it won’t be easy simply because you’ll have to call yourself out on your own shit.
Or hire a kickass coach to do that for you. 😉
And before you even ask,
Do NOT approach someone to mentor you for free just to hold you accountable. You will have ZERO value in that relationship because you are not will to put skin in the game.
The changes you make within will require you to take action in ways you have not yet done:
To stop procrastinating…
To stop accepting your own excuses as valid reasons for not taking action…
To stop blaming people or circumstances or past mistakes for why you cannot move forward.
If you are really ready to change:
you’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen…even if that means waking up earlier, making your bed daily, not checking your phone for the first hour, working out before your day begins, and whatever else you avoid doing that you KNOW would make your foundation stronger.
Will YOU do whatever it takes to stop holding yourself back and start kicking ass at life again?
About the author:
Alida is an Intuitive Life Strategist, student of comparative religions, and co-owner of Mind Soul Fit OC in Newport Beach, CA. Her coaching company, Ambassador for Goodness, hosts various workshops on mindfulness, spiritual entrepreneurship, intuitive eating, art therapy, and relationship success. This blog is also a podcast called Wisdom Nuggets and can be found on iTunes, Anchor, Google Play Music, Overcast, Pocketcasts and almost anywhere podcasts are found!
