Tiny Buddha

Tag: procrastination

  • 5 Ways to Start Valuing Your Time and Making the Most of It

    5 Ways to Start Valuing Your Time and Making the Most of It

    “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

    Oh, how I loved sleeping when I was a teenager. I would sleep for twelve hours, just as babies do.

    And guess what else?

    Another favorite activity of mine was taking selfies until I finally had a perfect one, editing it, posting it on social media, and waiting for likes. And scrolling through the feed.

    Wow. So unusual nowadays.

    I didn’t care what I was doing with my life. I chose a university degree just for fun and finished it just because I started it. I don’t even like what I chose. I had no goals, no ambitions. I was just drifting through life.

    But then adult life got in the way. Suddenly, I was married and had a child.

    What a turn.

    Now I don’t even have Instagram.

    Do you know why? Because I started valuing my time.

    And I am here to tell you that you need to do it too if you want to live a fulfilling life.

    Why should you value every second of your life?

    When I became a mom, I barely had time to brush my teeth. I didn’t have time to do anything that wasn’t related to my son.

    I started regretting all the time I’d wasted before.

    But let’s be clear: It’s not about productivity. It’s about living your life to the fullest.

    You see, when you value your time, you start valuing your life. You set your priorities straight and start doing things that matter to you. And that’s when life gets really good.

    Although my situation might be different from yours, time is one thing we have in common. And you’ve heard it a million times, but time is our most precious commodity.

    It is non-negotiable. You can’t buy more time, no matter how rich you are. And you can’t save time either. You can only spend it.

    Time waits for no one. So the sooner you start valuing your time, the better.

    Here are a few things that have helped me start valuing my time and life more that might help you too.

    1. Set your priorities straight.

    Oh, priorities. They are so important, yet we often forget about them.

    If you want to start valuing your time, you need to set your priorities straight. Ask yourself what is really important to you and start making time for those things.

    Ask yourself:

    • What do I want to do, achieve, and experience in life?
    • Who and what matter most to me?
    • What makes me happy?
    • Where do I see myself in five years?

    For me, the answer to these questions was simple: I want to value time with my son more. And I want to find a way to balance work and life.

    What I don’t want is to be glued to my phone while my son is next to me, or to watch movies instead of making small steps toward having my own business.

    Self-care is on my list of priorities too. I make sure to have enough time for myself. Even if it’s just ten minutes a day (to have a cup of coffee in silence), it makes all the difference.

    Self-care keeps me sane and happy. And when I am happy, I can give my best to my family.

    2. Realize the importance of limited time.

    We all have limited time on this earth, and we need to make the most of it.

    The idea of limited time gives so much magic to this life. It makes things more precious. And when you start realizing life is precious, time becomes more valuable to you.

    On top of that, it makes you more aware of your mortality. It might sound depressing, but it’s not. It’s actually very liberating. Just think about it: If you knew you’re going to die soon, what would you do differently?

    Do it now so you don’t end up with regrets about how you spent your time.

    I think about death every day. I accept it. And I thank the universe for being mortal.

    We never know when we are going to die, so the best thing we can do is to live each day as if it’s our last.

    3. Notice what your distractions are and eliminate (or at least minimize) them.

    We all have our own distractions. It can be social media, Netflix, video games, or anything else.

    Here is how I deal with my distractions.

    • My main distraction was Instagram. I deleted it.
    • Then, movies. I decided to watch only one movie per week. No TV series (all they did was make me escape my reality).
    • Internet surfing is another one. I decided to use the internet only for work and research. No more browsing without a purpose.
    • I open the app only if I want to relax for twenty minutes and watch something. Otherwise, it’s a huge time waster (I used to open the app and scroll through it for five minutes with no purpose).

    Once I did that, I noticed that sometimes I even got bored. And I love that feeling of not picking up my phone every time I have a free minute. I just enjoy it.

    4. Consciously choose to do one thing despite countless other activities you could be doing.

    You know those moments when you’re about to do something, but then you wonder, “Should I really be doing this? I could be doing something else.”

    This is a common feeling. We often have so many options that it’s hard to choose just one. But simply do that. Choose one activity and stick to it.

    It doesn’t matter if it’s the “right” choice or not. There’s no such thing as “right” when it comes to how you spend your time.

    I recently listened to a podcast by Oliver Burkeman. He said that we don’t want to make choices. We don’t want to decide. We want to let all the options remain available to us. This is also why we love dreaming about the future. Because all the options are open.

    But we need to make a choice. It is so liberating to make a choice. It gives you a sense of control over your life and your time and it keeps you moving forward instead of standing still.

    So, choose one thing and do it. You will feel so much more in focus because you know where you are going.

    For instance, I am writing this article. I could be doing a million other things, but I choose to do this. And it feels great. I am all in. And I am focused because I am not thinking about other things that I could do.

    5. Know that failure is a sign you’re using your time well.

    When we start a project or an activity, we want to do it perfectly. We need to be the best. Otherwise, we think it’s a waste of time.

    In reality, it is life itself. You can’t prevent failure. You will fail. A lot.

    And that’s a good thing. Failure is a sign that you’re trying something new; that you’re pushing your limits, learning, and growing.

    How can we make the most of our failures?

    • First, accept them. Don’t try to bury your failures or pretend they never happened. Acknowledge them and learn from them.
    • Second, put things in perspective. This one opportunity didn’t work out, but it’s not the last you’ll get.
    • Finally, focus on the successes in your failure. Odds are something good came from it, even if you can’t see it just yet.

    Oh, I failed so many times. I lost years of my life in failure. But I am grateful for every single one of them because they made me grow and become better, maybe even wiser.

    My biggest failure is probably my university degree. It’s three years of my life. I was so naive thinking that I can succeed no matter what bachelor’s I choose. And I chose the easiest one.

    Turns out, there is nothing I can do with my bachelor’s degree. It’s useless.

    I could have spent those three years better, but I am not regretting it. Because if I didn’t fail, I wouldn’t be so motivated today to start my own business and to create something that has meaning.

    —

    As I said in the introduction, I was once horrible at valuing my time. But I am glad to say that I have changed. It certainly wasn’t easy. And I am not an expert at this. I still must remind myself to value my time. To cherish every moment.

    But my alarm doesn’t annoy me when it wakes me up in the morning anymore. It’s a reminder that I get to wake up and enjoy my time on this earth.

    I am grateful to still be alive.

    The time that you took reading this article is valuable. I hope it will make you value your time even more.

    Remember that time waits for no one.

    Remember that it’s non-negotiable.

    Remember that you can’t save it.

    You can only spend it wisely.

  • How I Stopped Procrastinating and Started Creating the Life of My Dreams

    How I Stopped Procrastinating and Started Creating the Life of My Dreams

    “Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.” ~Robert H. Schuller

    Here’s a confession: I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was thirteen years old when I first discovered the magic of words.

    Here’s another: It was only at the ripe old age of twenty-six that I could truthfully call myself a writer.

    Why did it take me so long?

    I often think about that. Even today, when people ask me about my writing, I struggle to say that I am a writer. I am both proud and horrified, and I constantly wonder, what will I tell these strangers if I fail?

    It doesn’t begin like that, of course. As a teenager or as a child, the confidence you have in yourself is unnerving. For instance, I remember reading Agatha Christie and thinking, I could do that. Talk about confidence!

    Then, of course, comes the growing up bit. Being surrounded by comparisons, either by parents or teachers or peers, chips away at this faith in yourself. And there are discouraging comments, with their implications…

    “No one’s ever done this before” (so how will you?)
    “Most turn into failed writers” (as will you)
    “What do you want to write? Oh that? How will you earn a living with it?” (You will NOT)

    It was this kind of thinking that distanced me from my dream for a long time. I grew up in an environment where being financially independent was highly valued, and I just didn’t see how writing could help me achieve the same.

    Years went by, and I hardly wrote. There was the occasional poem, or a short fictional piece, but never anything substantial such as long posts or stories. It seemed I had all but given up, focusing instead on a steady, sensible career in engineering.

    Engineering was so far away from the pages that I never gave writing a second thought. I knew something was missing in my life, but I just didn’t know what!

    And then, something wonderful happened.

    Restless, I moved to a marketing career. Not only marketing but digital marketing. Here my first job was for a technology business, handling their blog, writing daily.

    Suddenly, I was back to my childhood dream. I was writing, editing, researching, and while I still had no answers to how I could sustain it, and what lay ahead, I knew one thing.

    I was enjoying it, even if nothing ever came of it.

    That was over five years ago, and since then I’ve taken step after step in the direction of my dreams.

    Here’s what I learnt:

    1. Don’t overthink it.

    If you’re anything like me, you probably spend a lot of time researching before actually starting anything. It starts with good intentions (to look before you leap), but before you know it, you have spent days and days on research without writing anything.

    I looked up everything: How to become a blogger? What should a writer look out for? Top five things new writers should know, etc.

    But ultimately, the only way to get writing was to write. And there was no way around it. In fact, if I had skipped overthinking it and just gone with the flow, I wouldn’t have ended up in what turned out to be a big waste of my time and energy.

    2. Detach your identity.

    For a long time, I didn’t pick up the pen because I was scared to try. You see. if I tried and it didn’t work out, I would become that failed writer.

    Without trying, I at least had the dream of being a talented, wonderful writer, albeit one that never wrote anything. It went on for some years, until I realized that time was passing without a single word from me.

    And each year that went by meant lesser time for me to be any kind of writer. And that scared me more than any of the reasons holding me back!

    I told myself, I will write. Now that doesn’t make me any kind of writer, it just makes me a person who writes. Who I am and what I have achieved isn’t defined AT ALL by my writing.

    With this statement, I detached my identity from the task, taking off the pressure and letting myself simply…write.

    3. Permit yourself to suck.

    The idea of what kind of writer I should be and how my style should evolve kept me off my desk for a while. Every article I researched felt wrong and when I did write, I never seemed to like the output.

    The problem? I was too wrapped up in who I should become and what should be said instead of being okay with mediocrity.

    It was only after multiple attempts that I realized that I sucked because I had hardly any experience. BUT that I could become better.

    All I had to do was accept that I sucked and work hard.

    Only by giving myself the approval to write poorly did I finally allow progress in my work.

    4. Block out the negative.

    Imagine you’ve finally gotten off the couch when a negative friend comes around. Oh, this? They say it will NEVER work. What if this friend comes around routinely?

    This friend can be an actual person, or it can be your own stressed, scared mind, throwing up objections and fears at you.

    In my case, it was my anxiety-riddled brain, torturing me with “You’re not good at this” thoughts. Just like with a toxic friendship though, you have to shut this narrative down.

    I did it simply—every time I started getting a thought like this, I would:

    a) Either distract myself OR
    b) Say “NO!” and cut it off before it took hold of me.

    Eventually, these thoughts become fewer and fewer until they stopped bothering me too often. Similarly, steer clear of negative friends who are likely to make you feel bad about your dream. It’s your dream—you must guard it with your life!

    5. Let go.

    A popular quote by Arthur Ashe reads:

    “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

    The most important tip of all? Don’t worry about what you cannot control. If you’ve done basic research (not too much) and taken the time to make up your mind, act.

    There will always be things outside your power—the future is not something you can foresee. The only thing you can control is your sincere effort, so jump in!

  • Why We Often Fail When We Set Big Goals and What Actually Works

    Why We Often Fail When We Set Big Goals and What Actually Works

    “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” ~James Clear

    If you pull up any popular motivational video today, you’ll probably hear things like “Set big goals!” and “Aim high and don’t stop until you get there!”

    After watching a video like this, you may get inspired and start mapping out your plan to leave the 99% in the dust.

    And typically, because you’re riding a wave of motivation, you’ll write out these monstrous, Mount-Everest-like goals. These goals paint a picture of your life that is so exciting that you can’t wait to wake up and get to work the next morning. But when you roll out of bed and take a look at the goals you set the day before, reality hits you like a truck.

    Instead of being motivated to take action, you feel a massive wall of internal resistance. You want to take action. You know you need to take action. But for some reason you just can’t force yourself to muster up the discipline necessary to make progress.

    So instead, you choose the path of least resistance. You retreat to the comfortable and the familiar, and then decide that you’re going to wait “just one more day.” One day turns into two, two days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months.

    But luckily, time heals all wounds, and six months later you get another surge of motivation and try it all over again. This is where most people find themselves in life—stuck on the self-improvement hamster wheel.

    How do you stop this vicious cycle? What’s the best way to facilitate lifestyle changes that you actually stick to?

    How Big Goals Ruined My Life

    When I was a sophomore in high school, I had ambitions to become an NBA basketball player. Despite the fact that I was 5 feet 6 inches tall, had below average quickness, and could barely jump over a stack of books, I was determined to prove everyone wrong.

    At this point, I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, so my wonderful mother would get up at 4:30 a.m. and drive me to my school gym early enough to get up shots before class. To make a long story short, I was cut from the team a few months into my sophomore year, and my NBA aspirations died right then and there.

    When I was a freshman in college, my focus had shifted to day trading the stock market. Once again, I had complete confidence that I was going to turn day trading into a full-time income. And once again, I was wrong. The $1,000 I had deposited into my Robinhood account disappeared in about two months, leaving me with no financial flexibility to invest into my dream of becoming a full-time day trader.

    During my sophomore year of college, I made the biggest decision I had ever made in my life up to that point. Despite having good grades, I decided to drop out of school and start my own marketing agency. Let me tell you, that phone call with my parents is undoubtedly the most emotional conversation I’ve ever had in my life.

    I even distinctly remember my own cousin telling me, “I think that you’re going to regret this decision for the rest of your life.” Still, I was unbothered, because I knew in my heart that I needed to give this a shot. A month after telling my parents I wanted to drop out of school, I was on a flight back home to California.

    Yet again, I found myself in a familiar spot—just a kid following his heart with some colossal goals.

    Filled with passion and drive, I set myself a goal to build the agency to $50,000/month in revenue by the following year. To reach that goal, I committed to at least two hours per day of prospecting, and another two hours of educating myself on the real estate marketing industry.

    By now, I think you can see where this is going. For fifteen months, I worked at trying to achieve my goals, but the highest monthly revenue target I was able to achieve was a measly $6,000/month. Despite desperately wanting to taste wealth and success, I had failed yet again.

    It was at this point in my life where I really took a step back and engaged in deep reflection. After all, I had just been following the wisdom that successful people had been preaching for decades—set big goals and don’t stop working until you accomplish them.

    Was it me that was a failure or was it my system? Why is it that so many people including me continually set big goals that they never accomplish? Pondering these questions drove me to explore the world of self-development.

    The Power of Identity

    I had always been passionate about self-improvement, but I had never really delved into the science and research behind what actually facilitates true behavior change. My research eventually led me to reach two life-changing conclusions:

    • Setting big goals does more harm than good for people who want to change their lives.
    • True behavior change occurs when you commit to small, seemingly insignificant shifts in your daily behavior.

    After spending hundreds of hours combing through research on habits, behavior change, and neuroscience, I finally had the “aha” moment that shifted my entire perspective on life. The fatal problem with setting big goals is that they focus on the outcomes we want to achieve as opposed to the type of person we want to become.

    The most powerful force in the human body is the desire to be consistent with who we’ve been in the past. Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last, which is why big goals are often so hard to accomplish.

    You may have a goal to build a million-dollar business, but if your identity is that of someone who procrastinates on important work, it’s unlikely you’re ever going to hit that goal. You may have a goal to lose weight, but if your identity is consistent with someone who eats fast food regularly and lives a sedentary lifestyle, you’ll continue to be pulled toward actions that sabotage your weight-loss goals.

    You may have some new goals, but you still haven’t changed who you are. I wanted to build a marketing agency even though I was the type of person who procrastinated and refused to get out of my comfort zone. It was the inability to change those underlying beliefs that ultimately led to my failure.

    How to Achieve Your Biggest Goals by Thinking Small

    If big goals aren’t the answer, then what is? The key is to focus on who you want to be as opposed to the outcomes you want to achieve. You need to become the type of person who can reach the standards you have set for yourself.

    Your identity emerges out of your daily habits. You don’t come out of the womb with a preset identity. Whoever you are right now is a direct result of the daily habits that you’ve developed up to this point.

    In order to start forming new beliefs about yourself, you need to start building new habits. The formula for changing your identity is a simple two-step process:

    • Figure out the type of person that you want to become
    • Commit to small changes that align with your ideal self

    First off, you have to decide what kind of person you want to be. When setting goals, most people are guided by the question “What do I want to achieve?” Instead, try asking yourself, “Who is the type of person that can get the kind of outcomes I want?”

    Instead of setting a goal to lose fifty pounds, ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that can lose fifty pounds?” Instead of setting a goal to build a million-dollar business, ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that can build a million-dollar business?”

    The beauty of focusing on identity change is that your success is no longer tied to arbitrary targets. Let’s say that you set a goal to lose fifty pounds in six months. As you pursue this goal, you start walking every day and improve your diet. At the end of six months, you step on the scale and you’ve lost thirty-seven pounds.

    Did you achieve your goal? Nope, you’re thirteen pounds short. However, what if your goal was simply to become a healthy individual? Did you achieve that goal? Absolutely!

    Once you’ve figured out what kind of person you want to become, the next step is to commit to small shifts in your daily behavior. Too often we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. This is the principle that guided my life for nineteen years.

    Through constant trial and error, I’ve realized that true behavior change is the product of small, incremental changes compounded over time. We tend to dismiss the effectiveness of small actions because they don’t make an immediate impact.

    If you walk for two minutes per day for a week, you’re not going to see the number on the scale move much. If you meditate for sixty seconds for a few days in a row, you’re not going to turn into the Dalai Lama. However, what you will do is to give your brain concrete evidence that you’re a different person.

    James Clear puts this beautifully when he says, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does evidence of your new identity.”

    Once you’ve nailed down your desired identity, come up with a daily habit that you can perform no matter how you feel. When you set big goals, your brain tricks you into thinking that the present level of motivation you feel will carry over to when it’s time to take action. By focusing on shrinking your daily targets, you’re taking motivation and willpower out of the equation.

    Here’s a few practical examples of this concept in action:

    • Meditating for ten minutes per day becomes meditating for sixty seconds per day
    • Walking for thirty minutes per day becomes walking for two minutes per day
    • Reading for thirty minutes per day becomes reading one page
    • Journaling for fifteen minutes every night becomes writing one sentence
    • Writing 1,000 words per day becomes writing fifty words per day

    It really doesn’t matter how successful you are right now, all that matters is that you’re on the right path. Once these small habits are solidified into your daily life, you’ll have mastered the art of showing up and acting in alignment with your desired identity.

    Since your brain now has some new evidence, you’ll be able to stretch yourself and gradually aim higher. That’s the true power of small habits. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the positive effects of your habits multiply as they become a part of who you are.

    So, the next time you get motivated to change your life, forget setting huge goals. If you do this, the power of your identity will loom large over you and prevent you from taking action. Harness the power of small, incremental change.

    Have the courage to set the bar low enough and aim at targets that you can actually hit on a daily basis. Solidify this small habit into your life, and then do the same thing with another habit. And then another. And then another.

    Soon enough, you’ll become someone unrecognizable.

  • The Fascinating Reason We Sabotage Ourselves and Hold Ourselves Back

    The Fascinating Reason We Sabotage Ourselves and Hold Ourselves Back

    “Sometimes we self-sabotage just when things seem to be going smoothly. Perhaps this is a way to express our fear about whether it is okay for us to have a better life.” ~Maureen Brady

    Have you ever decided to try something new—like getting into a new relationship or doing something that would help you experience success in your career/mission or offer you more vibrant health and well-being—and you were able to follow through for a bit, but then you stopped? Was this self-sabotage? Was it procrastination?

    Did you know that self-sabotage and procrastination can be survival mechanisms, and they’re actually our friends? They’re meeting some type of need, and it happens to all of us to a certain degree.

    Every behavior we do serves us in one way or another. We self-sabotage and procrastinate for many reasons, and it’s different for everybody; most often it’s coming from a part of us that just wants to feel safe.

    The key is working with these parts, not against them, and not trying to get rid of them. When we work with them and integrate them, we experience more energy, and they become a source of great strength and wisdom.

    The “symptoms” of self-sabotage and procrastination carry important messages; most often they’re a cry out from our inner child.

    Sometimes what we think we want isn’t what we truly want. Self-sabotage and procrastination may be our inner guidance saying, “Hey, I have another way.”

    Sometimes we’ve had many disappointments in the past, so our subconscious puts the brakes on and says, “What’s the use? I never win; I always lose.”

    If we’re overindulging in alcohol and food, using distracting activities, and not doing what we say we want to do, then there’s a reason. The key to healing and shifting that energy patterning is discovering the reasons and what that part of us needs.

    We often experience self-sabotage and procrastination when our unconscious needs aren’t being acknowledged or met.

    Trying to change the outer and/or push through with positive thinking takes a lot of efforting, and it often wears us out. Why? Because we’re fighting against our own biology, which creates self-doubt, self-judgment, inner conflict, fear, and insecurity. They all play together “on the same team” in that same energy.

    Most of our programming was created before we turned seven. This was when we formed our beliefs about who we are, what we deserve and don’t deserve, and how life works.

    When we want to experience something new, our subconscious goes into its “memory files” to see if what we want is “safe.” Safety can mean many things—maybe familiarity, or not speaking our truth or sharing our creativity, or using substances, like food, cigarettes, drugs, or alcohol, to numb our feelings and/or keep pain away.

    If we’ve had painful experiences in the past that were similar to what we want now, that may be the reason a part of us is procrastinating and/or self-sabotaging. Why? We have a built-in survival system, and when we’ve had a negative/painful experience, our protector part will keep that from happening again.

    We learn through the law of association, and this gets stored in our subconscious. If, as a child, we put our hand on the stove and got burned, our brain then created neurons that associated a stove with pain, so the next time we got close to a stove, we’d remember that pain and we’d be more careful.

    Our brain operates the same with physical or emotional pain. The problem is the brain may misinterpret the amount of danger we’re really in by operating on a neuro pattern that’s outdated.

    If the experience we want brought us pain in the past or we don’t feel good enough to experience it, we’ll either sabotage it or our brain will provide us with a list of reasons why it won’t happen. (But keep in mind it may not be in your best interest anyway.)

    If we found a way to soothe ourselves or find relief through addictions in the past, then we’ll automatically go back to those substances when things seem challenging if we haven’t learned how to comfort ourselves and feel, process, and express our emotions in healthy ways.

    When I was a child, my dad constantly told me, “If you don’t do it right, don’t do it at all.” The problem was, in his eyes, I never did anything right. He also told me that I wasn’t good enough or smart enough, I would never amount to anything, and I was a selfish human being.

    He blamed me for everything that happened, even if it wasn’t my fault, and if I “talked back” or shared how I felt, he either punished me or gave me the silent treatment.

    These experiences became my blueprint; I became fearful of myself, everyone, and everything, and this affected me greatly. I ended up disconnecting from my authenticity, and I became a very lost and confused being.

    The fear became so strong that if I had a thought about buying myself anything, asking for what I wanted or needed, expressing what I was thinking or feeling, or doing anything self-loving or self-nurturing, I’d self-sabotage, procrastinate, and feel anxiety and a sick feeling in my stomach.

    I wasn’t doing this consciously; my subconscious was signaling to me that wanting anything wasn’t safe because I may be punished, abandoned, or even hurt if I did any of these things I mentioned.

    As a child, I used food for my comfort and safety until age thirteen, when I was told to go on a diet and lose weight. At age fifteen I became a full-blown anorexic. Then my new comfort and safety became starving myself and exercising all day.

    From that point on, whenever I was faced with new choices or ways of being, I would push them away. I thought I was dealing with the fear of failure or not doing it right, but it went even deeper; I recognized it was really the fear of being punished, rejected, not loved, and abandoned, and to a child that’s the worst experience.

    I was stuck in an internal prison, thinking, “What’s the use of living? If I can’t be me or do anything, why even be in this reality?” This led to almost twenty-three years of self-abuse, suppression, anorexia, anxiety, and depression.

    My mom used to say to me, “Debra, you always climb halfway up the mountain, then you stop and climb back down.”

    This is what many people do: They stop before they even start, or they start something new and don’t continue to follow through, and this is because of our “emotional glue.” What’s emotional glue? Unresolved issues “buried” in us; it’s where our energy patterning is frozen in time, and it’s from where we’re filtering and dictating our lives. 

    Most often we don’t even know it’s there; we’re just living in the energy of “I can’t,” “beware,” or “it’s just not fair.” And/or we become judgmental of ourselves because we’re not able to do what we say we want to do.

    None of our symptoms are bad or wrong, and neither are we if we’re having them. In fact, “creating them” makes us pretty damn smart human beings; it’s our inner guidance asking for our attention, to notice what’s really going on inside that’s asking for compassion, love, healing, understanding, resolving, integrating, and revising.

    When I was struggling with anorexia, self-harming, depression, and anxiety, going to traditional therapy and spending time in numerous hospitals and treatment centers, nothing changed. Why? They were more focused on symptom relief than understanding what was going on inside of me.

    I was afraid, I was hurting, I didn’t feel safe in my body, and I didn’t feel safe in this reality. I didn’t need to be forced to eat and put on weight; that only triggered my traumas of being teased for being fat and unlovable when I was a child.

    I would gain weight in treatment centers and then lose it when I left; some may have called it self-sabotage; I call it survival.

    My deep-rooted fear about gaining weight, which meant “If I’m fat, I’ll be abandoned, and no one will love me,” was the driver for most of my life journey. All my focus was on controlling my food and weight.

    I was numbing and suppressing; I was existing but not living; I was depressed and anxious. I was running away from life and myself. I didn’t want to feel hurt by those negative things that were said to me, so I stayed away from other human beings.

    I didn’t want to face the hurt and pain I was feeling internally, especially the fear of being punished and abandoned again; but really, I was doing this to myself. I was punishing and abandoning myself, but I couldn’t stop the cycle with my conscious thinking.

    Self-sabotaging, procrastination, and the anorexia, anxiety, and depression, well, they were my friends; they were keeping me from being punished and abandoned. They were keeping me safe in kind of a backwards way.

    I wish I knew then what I know now—that in order to help someone, we can’t force them to change their unhealthy behaviors; we need to be kind and gentle and notice how the symptoms of self-sabotage, procrastination, eating disorders, anxiety, addictions, and depression are serving them. 

    What’s the underlying cause that’s creating them?

    What needs healing/loving, resolving, and revising?

    What do we need that we never got from our parents when we were little beings? How can we give this to ourselves today?

    When we see our symptoms as catalysts to understanding ourselves better and we integrate internally by giving ourselves what we truly need, we’re able to heal and overcome self-sabotage.

    All parts of us are valuable and need to be heard, seen, loved, and accepted unconditionally. Each part has an important message for us.

    If you’re experiencing any of the symptoms I mentioned, please be kind and gentle with yourself. Instead of feeling down on yourself for sabotaging yourself, dig below the surface to understand what you’re really afraid of and how your behavior may feel like safety. When you understand why you’re hurting yourself and holding yourself back, you’ll finally be able to let go of what doesn’t serve you and get what you want and need.

  • How to Stop Procrastinating When Things Feel Hard or Scary

    How to Stop Procrastinating When Things Feel Hard or Scary

    “You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” ~Louise L. Hay

    I dreamed of starting my own business for years. Ten years, exactly.

    While there are a few reasons it took so long to take the plunge, procrastination is at the top of the list.

    It’s hard work to change careers, uncomfortable to leave a steady paycheck, and nerve-wracking to think of failure.

    Even after spending months and years learning, studying, and getting certified, when it was no longer a matter of having the skills, the uncertainty of success was enough for me to keep kicking the can down the road to start marketing myself.

    I was afraid of failing. I was afraid of not being perfect. I was afraid that people would think I was a joke. And I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be capable of all the work it entailed.

    So I dragged my feet and kept passing my work off to “Future Me.”

    I did this for everything, though.

    “Tomorrow Sandy” can do the dishes. She’ll take care of scheduling that doctor’s appointment. Oh, and sign her up for that tough conversation I need to have with my mom too.

    At one point I recognized that I often procrastinated because I needed everything to be perfect.

    • I wouldn’t work on a craft project or cook a new recipe unless I knew it would come out flawless.
    • Or I would keep tweaking projects at work up to the last second and beyond, at the sacrifice of getting more work done.
    • Or I would agonize over every text and email I sent, often opting not to send any message unless I knew exactly what to say.

    But, as you can see, I’ve come a long way from that version of me.

    I’ve since started my own business (and I’m loving it!), and I’ve pulled my best tools together on paper for how to stop procrastinating—even though I actually procrastinated on writing this post (ironic, I know!).

    Today, I didn’t let my fear of “good enough” hold me back from sharing actual, helpful advice and mindset shifts to get moving and stop staying stuck.

    Because when we’re stuck, we start telling ourselves stories. So that’s where we’ll start, with this story we tell ourselves about why we procrastinate.

    What We Think Procrastination Is

    We have this misconception that procrastination is laziness.

    But procrastination is an active process. You choose to do something else instead of the task that you know you should be doing.

    In contrast, laziness is not caring. It’s apathy, inactivity, and an unwillingness to act. It’s an “I could, I just don’t wanna” kind of attitude.

    But when you’re procrastinating, you feel even more stressed because you do care about getting the task done. You’re just avoiding stress and having difficulty with motivation.

    Because that is why we procrastinate.

    What Procrastination Really Is and Why We Do It

    Procrastination is a stress-avoidance technique. It is an active process to temporarily avoid discomfort.

    We subconsciously are saying, “Present Me is not willing to experience this discomfort, so I will pass it on to Future Me.”

    (We do this as though we’re asking a stranger to do the work for us. Researchers have seen on fMRI that when we think about our future selves, it lights up the same part of the brain as when we think about strangers.)

    The really cool news is that by working toward overcoming your procrastination habit, you’re building your overall resilience to distress.

    That is how I define resilience: a willingness to experience discomfort.

    Examples of Procrastination

    Procrastination is tricky. Sometimes it’s obvious that we’re doing it. Sometimes we don’t quite realize it (like when I had to water the plants right then and there instead of writing this blog post).

    So here are some examples:

    • Scrolling through Instagram instead of getting started on important tasks
    • Putting off work assignments until the last minute
    • Wanting to start a new positive habit (dieting, exercising, or saving money), but repeatedly delaying it while telling yourself that “I’ll start soon”
    • Wanting to start a business but wasting time in “research mode” instead of taking action
    • Doing an easy, less important task that “needs to be done” before getting started
    • Waiting until you’re “in the mood” to do the task

    5 Steps to Stop Procrastinating

    Now that we know what it is and why we do it, let’s look at how to stop.

    1. Motivate yourself with kindness instead of criticism.

    What really holds us back from moving forward is the language we use when talking to ourselves.

    Thoughts like:

    • I don’t want to.
    • It will be hard.
    • I don’t know how to do it.
    • It might not come out as good as I want it to.
    • I’ll probably fail.
    • This will be so boring.

    This is what we think that drives us to procrastinate. I mean, really, when you read those thoughts, they just feel so demotivating, right?

    This negative self-talk has a good intent. It is trying to save us from discomfort.

    Unfortunately, it’s achieving the opposite because it adds to the stress by making us feel bad.

    If you speak to yourself with kindness, just as you would a friend, it will feel so much more motivating.

    So think about what you would say to that friend. It might sound like:

    • I get it, it will be uncomfortable, but you’ll be done soon and then you can relax.
    • Once you get started, it will be easier.
    • You can do it!!
    • If it doesn’t come out perfect, at least you’ll have practiced more.
    • If you fail, you’ll have learned so much.

    2. Create a pattern interrupter.

    That negative self-talk has simply become part of your procrastination habit.

    Because that is what procrastination becomes—a habit—and habits are comprised of a cue, a routine, and a reward.

    • The cue is thinking about a task that needs to be done.
    • The routine is to speak that negative self-talk that leads to procrastination.
    • The reward is less stress. (Not no stress, because avoiding the task is still somewhat stressful because we know it eventually needs to be done.)

    In order to break the habit and create a new one, you need to introduce a pattern interrupter.

    Mel Robbins has a great one she calls the 5 Second Rule. When you think “I should do this,” before the negative self-talk starts in, count backwards, “5-4-3-2-1-GO” and move.

    I find this helpful when I’m having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.

    If I’m having trouble getting motivated to do something difficult like write a post about procrastination, my pattern interrupter is “I can do hard things.” Not only am I interrupting the pattern, I’m motivating myself positively as well.

    If I’m having trouble doing a boring and tedious task like my taxes, I use something like “I’m willing to be uncomfortable now so that Future Me can be at peace.”

    3. Break down the task.

    One of the big drivers of procrastination is overwhelm. Overwhelm happens when we’re looking at a project in full scope, either not knowing where to start or feeling like all the work involved will be too much.

    If the next task at hand is too big, or if you don’t know where to start, your first task really is to either 1) make a list, or 2) figure out the smallest thing you can do first.

    The whole house is a mess? I bet you know where that one sock goes!

    Another example, I had social anxiety and going to the gym was overwhelming to me.

    So I broke it down into:

    • I just need to put gym clothes in my car, that’s it.
    • I just need to drive to the gym. I can turn around if I want once I get there.
    • I just need to walk in the door. I can always leave.
    • I just need to get changed in the locker room I can do that.

    Honestly, I never turned around and went home. Because once I’d taken the small, easy step, the next small easy step was doable.

    Which leads me to the next step…

    4. Just commit to five minutes.

    Studies show that if we commit to five minutes only, 80% of us are likely to continue with the task.

    Five minutes is nothing. You can do anything for five minutes.

    There is an 80% chance you’ll continue working once you put in those five minutes, but even if you don’t, you’re still five minutes closer to your goal.

    And, you’ve taken one more step to breaking the old habit of not starting.

    It’s a big win-win!

    5. Reward yourself or make the task more enjoyable.

    Another problem with looking at a big task in scope instead of the next five minutes is that the reward is too far away or not satisfying enough.

    When you’re trying to lose weight, twenty pounds is weeks and months away.

    Or, when you’re putting off your taxes, if you aren’t expecting a return then the reward is “not going to jail.”

    So bringing in more rewards sooner will fast track creating the new habit of getting started.

    But also, making the task itself more pleasant will make it a less monotonous task.

    • To write this post, I put on my softest bathrobe and grabbed my baby’s tub from when he was an infant to make an Epsom salt foot bath under my desk while I write.
    • I’ll be starting my taxes in the next few weeks, and I already plan to have a glass of wine and super fancy cheese and crackers while I sit down to do them.
    • I save listening to super nostalgic nineties music for when I’m exercising just so that it makes that time extra special and fun.

    What Would Open Up for You If You Stopped Procrastinating?

    We spend so much more time avoiding the discomfort of a task than we do stepping into what it will be like once the task is complete.

    If you were to stop procrastinating, what would open up in your life?

    • Would you start your business because you’re no longer afraid of experiencing any discomfort if you “fail”?
    • Would you simply enjoy life more if you weren’t in a perpetual state of stress because there is a list of things you’re putting off?
    • Would you finally lose weight or get in shape and feel good once you push through being able to get started?

    The Bottom Line

    Procrastination is an active process to temporarily avoid discomfort (it is not laziness!)

    By overcoming your procrastination habit, you are building your emotional resilience.

    Notice the negative, demotivating self-talk and motivate yourself with kindness over criticism.

    Create a pattern interrupter before the negative self-talk starts weighing you down.

    Commit to just five minutes and you’ll either keep going to do more, or you’ll at least be five minutes closer to done.

    Reward yourself or make the task more enjoyable so there is less discomfort to avoid.

  • Why We Procrastinate and How to Finally Do What You’ve Been Putting Off

    Why We Procrastinate and How to Finally Do What You’ve Been Putting Off

    “Low key change helps the human mind circumnavigate the fear that blocks success and creativity.” ~Robert Maurer

    I’m currently working on my doctoral dissertation. It’s something I’ve been working on for many years. It’s something that I deeply believe in and want to complete, but I’m also the mom of two small kids and I run my own business.

    Making time for to work on my thesis is low down on my priorities.

    And for years I’ve been able to justify it to myself that I don’t work on it as much as I should because I don’t have the time.

    That may well have been partly true while my children were younger.

    But now as they’re getting a bit older, I realize that my procrastination is also about something else.

    It’s about all the stories in my head that make working on this project unpleasant.

    It’s about the fear, the self-doubt, the worry about not being good enough, the doubt about whether I’ll ever be able to finish, and the expectation that it’s going to be a really hard and frustrating process.

    Because I do have time.

    I have time to read and work on other projects that interest me. In fact, I make sure I create the time because I enjoy working on them.

    This is something that I’ve only recently realized. Recognizing it has been so empowering.

    Because I do want to finish it. I’ve dedicated so much time and energy to it, it would feel really good to complete.

    Since recognizing this and recommitting to the project, I’ve been experimenting with an idea that so far has been really helpful, and I’m excited about its potential.

    Sneaking Past Fear the Kaizen Way

    The idea comes from the Japanese art of Kaizen. In his great book One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, Robert Maurer describes it as a gentle and elegant strategy to maintain excellence and realize dreams.

    He explains how when we try to do big things and make big changes, it triggers our stress response and makes us avoid. So the solution is to make tiny, incremental changes, so imperceptibly small that you don’t activate your stress response.

    All kaizen asks is that you take small steps for continual improvement.

    As I was reading this I could immediately see where I was going wrong.

    Each time I sat down to work on a paper I’m writing I was thinking about how I could make this a brilliant paper that would make the biggest impact and so do justice to the participants of my research.

    Wow, the weight of the pressure. No wonder that felt like a big ask and made me avoid it.

    The two strategies I have been working with involve asking small questions and thinking small thoughts.

    1. Ask small questions to dispel fear and inspire creativity.

    Big questions, such as “How can I quit my job and find my purpose?” tend to overwhelm us. Small questions help us get around our fear and start making progress, especially when we ask them regularly.

    Maurer illustrates this point by asking you to imagine coming to work and having a colleague ask you to remember the color of the car parked next to you. You probably wouldn’t remember. If they asked you the same question the next day you probably also wouldn’t remember. But by the third day, as you arrived at work, you would probably pay attention to the car parked next to you.

    Asking yourself tiny questions consistently helps you teach your mind what to pay attention to.

    He recommends asking yourself your question a few time throughout the day for a number of days in a row.

    I’ve been using this by combining two questions: “If I was guaranteed to succeed, what would I be doing differently?” and “What small step can I take today to move me forward?”

    One idea that came to me today was to reach out to a colleague who I know was also working on her PhD while working fulltime. I shared my experience with her and her response: “Ali, I feel like you’re completely describing my experience. Let’s speak more and find out how we can support each other.”

    We’re now going to support each other as accountability partners which I can already feel will make a significant difference.

    Some other questions you could consider asking yourself daily:

    How could I make working toward my goal more fun?

    Who can I ask for help today?

    What’s the simplest thing I can do with the time I have available?

    2. Think small thoughts to develop new skills and habits.

    The second strategy involves a kind of mental rehearsal called mind sculpting, which helps you develop new social, mental, and even physical skills just by imagining yourself performing them. Here you identify the task you want to achieve from your questioning process and then begin to imagine yourself doing it.

    But instead of seeing yourself on a moving screen, as is the traditional visualization technique, you are advised to feel yourself doing the task and incorporate all your senses.

    So I see myself sitting down, feeling my fingers on my keyboard, hearing the sounds of the birds outside, and seeing the screen in front of me.

    And the important part—seeing yourself enjoying the process. Because we avoid what we imagine will be unpleasant and painful.

    What I’m doing with that is giving myself the next two weeks while my children are on school holidays to spend a few minutes a day imagining myself working on it and enjoying it.

    The idea here is that by doing this for a period of time, you start to rewire your association to the task, which makes it easier to then take small actions.

    So choose a task that you’re afraid to do or something that makes you uncomfortable and decide how long you’ll practice for each day. Make the time commitment so little that you’re going to do it consistently, as repetition is important. Maurer recommends starting with a few seconds a day!

    So what have you been putting off that you would love to accomplish? I’d love to hear in the comments below.

  • You’ll Never Be “Ready,” So Stop Waiting

    You’ll Never Be “Ready,” So Stop Waiting

    “It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready.” ~Hugh Laurie

    Throughout our childhood and early adult years, we’re conditioned to think we need to be “ready” to take the next big step in life.

    Our teachers won’t let us get too far ahead of where they think we should be in terms of knowledge.

    Our parents try to protect us from ideas and truths they think we’re not ready to learn about.

    We, ourselves, hold back when faced with major decisions that we don’t believe we’re ready to make.

    We’re constantly told we’ll understand certain things, or be able to do certain things, when we’re older—as if the passage of time alone is enough to teach us everything we need to know about life.

    This way of thinking has a hugely negative impact on the way we live our lives.

    For one thing, some of us feel we are ready to move forward in life, but are constantly being held back by societal norms. Additionally, there are those of us who never take the first step toward our goals because, despite being told by society we are ready to do so, we don’t believe we truly are.

    —

    The night I graduated from high school, I broke down into tears.

    It hit me all at once as I returned home from the school-sponsored “All Night Graduation Party”: I had no idea what I was going to do with myself after walking across that stage.

    Throughout my first eighteen years on Earth, life simply happened to me. I didn’t need to make decisions on my own. As long as I did the work that was given to me, I was passed on to the next grade.

    Though I did well enough in school, had succeeded at many after-school jobs, and felt pretty good about my life in general, I didn’t feel as if I was ready to take the next step.

    It was intimidating to think that everyone around me had a plan for the rest of their lives while I had no clue what I wanted to do. I figured if I was going to move away, spend thousands of dollars, and commit to learning a specific set of skills, I had to be 100% certain that it wouldn’t end up being a mistake.

    It never once occurred to me that most of my peers were just as apprehensive about their future. But while I wasted time waiting until I was “ready” to dive into college, they dove in knowing they’d figure it out along the way.

    —

    I ended up attending a local two-year community college that fall. I figured I would “get the prerequisites out of the way” before narrowing my focus on specific coursework.

    If I’m being honest, that’s what I told others—and myself. In actuality, I spent two years doing the bare minimum to pass my classes. I barely gave any thought to my future.

    It’s not that I wasn’t interested in the material. It’s that I didn’t see myself ever doing anything with the information I learned.

    I continued to believe that I’d know what to do “when the time came.”  

    I failed to realize that I should have been using the prerequisite classes to help me figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, rather than simply taking courses just to fill up my schedule. Instead, I skated through four semesters of community college without truly learning anything that would help me get anywhere in life.

    —

    I was one of the last of my friends to move out on my own. For years, I had convinced myself that I wouldn’t be able to make it in the “real world.” The thought of living paycheck-to-paycheck and in debt scared me to death.

    Once again, I never once stopped to think that all of my friends also owed thousands of dollars on car payments, college loans, and more, but it didn’t stop them from taking the next steps in their lives.

    While my peers were well on their way to building a life for themselves, I spent my early twenties mistakenly believing it’d be better to put my life on hold and have money saved up for when I was “ready” to move out than to just do it and get busy living.

    —

    We all know that hindsight is 20/20, and time is our greatest teacher. But if we wait for time to teach us how to live our lives, we’ll have missed the opportunity to take advantage of these lessons.

    We need to have confidence in our abilities, and faith in the notion that taking immediate action will result in much greater gains than if we were to wait until “the time is right.”

    There are a few ways we can make this happen:

    Stop Comparing Yourself to Everyone Else

    If you constantly compare your accomplishments to others, you’ll always find a way to be disappointed. This disappointment can lead to self-doubt and feelings of unpreparedness.

    As I mentioned before, I wasted an enormous amount of my twenties thinking that everyone else around me somehow had it all together while I was barely staying afloat.

    I kept wondering when I would finally have the confidence and abilities needed to move forward in life—as if these things would just come to me one day.

    I now realize that confidence and ability comes from active practice, and the reason many others around me may have been more successful was because they didn’t waste time hoping for something to come to them; they put in the effort to make it happen.

    Identify and Challenge the Excuses That Hold You Back

    “I don’t have enough money.”

    “I don’t have a well-paying job.”

    “I don’t know what I want out of life.”

    “I’m not quite ready yet.”

    Since there are innumerable ways things could go wrong when stepping out of our comfort zones, it’s possible to create an inexhaustible list of excuses to stay stuck, and seemingly safe.

    But we must realize that most, if not all, of the excuses we make are temporary roadblocks, not concrete walls. Even if it takes a little extra effort, there are ways around them.

    If you don’t have enough money to go back to school, or are stuck in a dead-end job, you might default to thinking you’ll never make something of yourself. But instead of wallowing in your sorrows during the time you have to yourself, you could sign up for cheap (or even free) online workshops to help you spring into the next chapter of your life.

    If you don’t know what you want to do with your life, chances are it’s not because you don’t want to do anything. (It’s more likely that you want to do everything!) Unfortunately, too many of us allow our indecisiveness to manifest in stagnation, and we end up letting opportunities to try new and exciting things slip away from us.

    Yes, we should be wary of the possibility that things won’t always go swimmingly in life. But if we let the fear of being unprepared for such contingencies stop us from taking steps forward, we’ll never get anywhere at all.

    It’s okay to not feel like you’re ready to make big moves in life. We all feel that way at times.

    But sitting around waiting to “be ready” won’t get you anywhere. You need to actively go out and get the experience that will prepare you for the next step.

    Maybe you aren’t ready to take a giant leap into the next chapter of your life, but that doesn’t mean you should stop taking baby steps in the right direction altogether.

    We tend to measure our worth by our major accomplishments: graduations, first jobs, marriages… the list goes on. But we often fail to realize that none of these things happen overnight. It’s through the little steps we take leading up to these major events that prepare us to take the giant leaps that define who we are.

    As long as you continue to press forward, you’ll eventually get where you want to be.

    Time will not prepare you for what’s next in life. Only your experiences, and the lessons you learn from them, can.

  • 5 Fear-Based Decisions that Limit Our Potential

    5 Fear-Based Decisions that Limit Our Potential

    The Sky is the Limit

    “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself . . .” ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

    You’ve heard that quote more times than you can count.

    You’ve also made fear-based decisions; we all have.

    Looking back, you can point to times it has happened and caused you to fall short of what you could have achieved.

    It has certainly has happened to me.

    I was three years into my first career as a high school science teacher. I had always wanted to live abroad, specifically Mexico, and I had always wanted to learn Spanish (after taking an embarrassing amount in high school and college without really ever picking it up).

    So when I met a lady that had a connection to a high school in Monterrey, Mexico, where they taught the classes in English and had an opening for a science/math teacher, I jumped on it.

    I contacted the school and expressed an interest. When they told me if I ever came through Monterrey they would be happy to speak to me, I immediately booked a flight and flew down during the upcoming spring break.

    I went to the interview and told them I would be happy to teach science or math, or both. They told me about the program, and that they support all of the teachers with intensive Spanish-immersion classes.

    It was exactly what I wanted—a way to live in Mexico, learn Spanish, and keep teaching.

    I left the interview excited.

    A couple months later, they contacted me and told me I had the job if I still wanted it.

    Perfect, right? I got exactly what I had been dreaming of.

    I turned it down.

    I rationalized the decision at the time because I had already told my current school I would be there the next year and had already committed to a trip to Europe with friends that I would have to miss because the school year started earlier in Mexico.

    The reality is that my school would have understood and my friends would still be my friends (and Europe wasn’t going anywhere) if I took this opportunity, which I had been talking about for years.

    The real reason I didn’t take the job was that I was scared. Scared to move to a new country where I didn’t know anyone. Scared to leave my comfort zone. Just generally scared of the unknown.

    Now, looking back, I have a lot of regret about that decision. Over ten years later, I still haven’t lived abroad and I still don’t speak Spanish fluently.

    But I have also learned from that experience to push back when fear pops up to stop me from moving forward.
    And importantly, I’ve gotten much better at recognizing when it is fear that is stopping me, even when it isn’t so obvious.

    And that’s what I want to share with you.

    How You Can Target Fear and Beat It

    Below are five common, but not-so-obvious, ways fear works to limit our potential.

    And importantly, how you can recognize that fear for what it is, and then push through anyway.

    1. You procrastinate.

    We have a lot of faith (for no apparent reason) that the version of us that wakes up on Monday will start that thing we want to do.

    It’s like we believe some other person will be responsible for getting us up and moving.

    It’s hard to start now, when we are the ones in charge. Why?

    Fear lives in starting. Because starting means one of two things will happen: You will do the thing you set out to do, or you will fail.

    And failure is scary; we fear it. So we decide to start later.

    The problem is that later is quite elusive. So the change never really happens.

    Even though you think you are protecting yourself from failure by procrastinating, you are actually just ensuring it. By not starting, you take success off the table; the only thing left is failure.

    The solution is simple, but not easy:

    Recognize your procrastination for what it is—you letting fear prevent you from moving forward.

    Move anyway. It doesn’t have to be a huge movement, but just do something that commits you to either success or failure.

    2. You create your “big-hairy goal” and then wait for the magic to happen.

    I know, you’ve been told to set a “big-hairy goal.”

    The problem is that the definition of a big-hairy goal is a goal that seems impossible. Because it seems impossible, you don’t actually believe you can achieve it. So you don’t act. You just wait for some cosmic shift to occur.

    You are scared that if you act you just will prove that it is impossible. That fear paralyzes you.

    To overcome this, you have to set smaller, more approachable goals, after you set the “big-hairy” one. Goals that you see as possible, but that add up to the end game.

    Come up with three small goals that you believe are doable and that will get you closer to the “big-hairy goal.” They don’t need to get you there. They just need to head you in the right direction.

    When you’re done with those, come up with three more. Keep that up and that almost-impossible goal will become inevitable.

    3. You let “emergencies” get in the way.

    Have you ever decided that something you’ve been “meaning” to do for months, like organizing your closet, has now become a must-do thing?

    You are probably using your newly minted “must-do” task to avoid starting something that might open you up to failure.

    While organizing a closet isn’t fun, you aren’t going to fail at it, so it’s not scary. Even though it feels very much like you are being productive, you are actually paralyzed.

    If you hear yourself saying things like, “I know I said I would do X today, but I actually can’t because I really need to get Y done first,” you are probably falling victim to this fear-based behavior.

    The solution is easy: Realize that you haven’t done Y for the past two months, and so not doing it today will probably be fine and do X instead.

    4. You focus on the judgment of others.

    As soon as you go from, “This is going to change my life for the better” to “What will so-and-so think about it?” you have almost certainly sunk your chances of moving forward.

    Everyone wants the approval of their peers and seeks to avoid their disapproval. But you can’t let fear of disapproval prevent you from acting.

    It’s not easy. But, when you feel judged by your peers, and you feel like it is stopping you from moving forward, consider these questions:

    • Does this peer lead a life I value?
    • What values are they using to judge me?
    • Do I even want to live up to those values?

    If you don’t want to live up to their values, just shrug off their judgment and move on.

    5. You forget that your life is one big science experiment.

    Science is all about failure. And your life should be all about failure too.

    Science comes up with an explanation for the data available, and then tests that explanation.

    As soon as the explanation fails, everyone goes back to the drawing board and comes up with a new idea, incorporating the data that was collected as a result of testing the first idea.

    Over time, science gets more and more right. That is what life is about.

    You aren’t going to live a perfect life. You aren’t going to achieve everything you could possibly achieve. But, you can get closer to perfect. You can achieve more than you have so far.

    But to do so, you have fail. You have to try something new. And doing so, you will fail. Which is great. Because then you get to learn from your failure, and try again.

    To start, try to get three people to tell you no every day, ask random people to do things for you, ask for discounts on retail or food, whatever.

    I know it sounds stupid, but the whole idea is to get used to failing and so dampen the fear of it. Then you can see failure for what it is:

    A big billboard telling you are going in the right direction but that you just need to adjust your course a tad to take into account what you learned from the failure.

    Now What?

    You have the tools to recognize fear for what it is and to shine a light on it when it pops up its ugly head—no matter what form it is using.

    Then you can then address that fear, knowing that it is largely, if not totally, of your own making. And you can stop the rationalizing that you will inevitably use to avoid doing the scary thing that led to the fear in the first place.

    Once you have done that, you will start pushing the envelope of your potential and achieving more than you thought possible.

    So look fear in the eyes. Call it out. And, keep moving.

    The sky is the limit image via Shutterstock

  • Eliminate These 5 Words to Create the Life of Your Dreams

    Eliminate These 5 Words to Create the Life of Your Dreams

    “Don’t be pushed by your problems; be led by your dreams.” ~Unknown

    For years I felt nothing.

    Nothing, that is, except bored at work, trapped in my marriage, uninspired in my educational pursuits, misunderstood by friends and family, and stuck in my hometown. I’d lay awake at night wondering what was wrong with me.

    How did I manage to manifest the exact scenario I’d been trying so desperately to avoid?

    As I reflected upon all the major decisions I’d made up until that point, it didn’t take long to realize what had happened: I’d spent so much time focusing on what I didn’t want that I’d neglected to figure out what I actually did want.

    I’d been pushed by my problems rather than led by my dreams.

    This realization was both unacceptable and intolerable, and sent me on a quest to uncover who I was and what I actually wanted in life. Once I had a clear vision, I began taking action.

    That was more than three years ago. My life today is much, much different.

    For the last six months I’ve been driving around the United States, living out of my car, and couch surfing with friends and strangers. This adventure was just the icing on the cake of a three-year stint living out of a suitcase and traveling around the world.

    Long gone are the restless nights, self-defeating thoughts, and dull emotions. The words “play” and “work” have become synonymous; my interpersonal relationships are now fruitful and plentiful; I’m inspired and motivated to learn as much as possible; and I happily refer to the world as my newfound hometown.

    Believe it or not, the process of how I re-created my life started with a few simple changes. One of the biggest changes I made right from the beginning was with the way I speak.

    Words are powerful and they carry energy. While they can be used to manifest massive growth and positive change, when used unconsciously, they can just as easily aid in creating a life we never wanted.

    So, rather than having a “breakdown,” I’d talk about having a “breakthrough.” Rather than discuss the pieces of my life that were falling apart, I’d talk about the pieces that were falling into place. There was no longer space for things I didn’t want in life; instead, I placed all my energy and focus on the things I did want.

    To start creating the life of your dreams, eliminate these five words from your vocabulary:

    1. Should

    As I started to explore all the reasons I wasn’t taking action in my life, I quickly came up with a laundry list of “should” statements.

    “I should be happy in my marriage.”

    “I should stay in this high paying job.”

    “I should feel understood by my friends.”

    The word “should” gives you an easy way to avoid going inward; it’s often used in statements that are based in fear.

    For example, if there was no “should” regarding my marriage, that meant I suddenly had no excuse for why I wasn’t taking action; it also meant that I had the freedom to make changes, which was both liberating and terrifying.

    Ask yourself why you aren’t taking action in your life, and for every “should” you come up with, explore what would happen if you actually did make the change. Once you maneuver through any guilt and shame, you’ll find a little seed of fear.

    Nurture that seed because when you overcome the fear that planted it there, you’ll start moving forward in the direction of your dreams.

    2. But

    Many years ago, I was told that every time you hear someone say the word “but,” you can erase everything they said leading up to that point, because none of it is true.

    “My family’s great, but…”

    “I would quit my job, but…”

    “I’m relatively happy, but…”

    No, your family’s not great. That doesn’t mean you don’t love them. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It simply means that you’re unhappy with them, and that’s okay.

    Just be honest with how you really feel; there’s no need to sugarcoat things. If you don’t have any intention of quitting your job, stop saying why you “would if you could, but you can’t,” because the minute you really want something, “I would” becomes “I will,” without the “but.”

    Being honest is a critical step toward manifesting the life of your dreams.

    3. Maybe

    The clearer I became about what I wanted in life, the easier it was to make decisions in alignment with my dreams. I suddenly went from saying, “Maybe I’ll go on a road trip,” to “I’m going on a road trip,” and “Maybe I’ll leave my job,” to “I’m leaving my job.”

    The word maybe indicates a lack of clarity and fear of commitment.

    “Maybe I’ll start my own business.”

    “Maybe I’ll start looking for a new friends.”

    “Maybe I’ll start sending my resume to headhunters.”

    No, you won’t, and if you do, the energy behind your decisions still isn’t firm enough to manifest your dreams. Figure out what you want and start making clear and succinct statements about it. Declare your intentions to the world without an ounce of wavering in your voice. 

    4. Don’t

    What I really mean here is, “I don’t know.”

    When people used to ask what I wanted in life, I used to respond with “I don’t know,” and at the time, I thought that was the truth. Then one day, a friend challenged me and said, “Yes you do. Try again.”

    The truth is, he was right; I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to volunteer in Brazil. I wanted to take a road trip around the United States. I wanted to leave my job.

    We all have an idea of what we want in life. Saying “I don’t know” is just an easy way to avoid the hard work of clarifying our vision. It becomes a statement that enables us to stay “stuck” in our lives.

    So whenever you catch yourself saying, “I don’t know,” go deeper. Even if you don’t have all the answers, somewhere inside of you there is a little pearl of wisdom just dying to propel you in the direction of your dreams.

    5. Can’t

    When I began telling people about the changes I wanted to make, I started to hear about all the things people “can’t” do in their lives.

    “You can’t quit your job!”

    “You can’t leave your PhD program!”

    “You can’t spend your life traveling!”

    What I quickly realized was that I was telling myself those same stories. There seemed to be a constant stream of “I can’t” running parallel to all the things I wanted in my life.

    But then one day, I decided to look the word “can’t” right in the eye and call him out with a simple question: “Oh really? Why not?”

    For the first time, I started to challenge all the things people were telling me I “can’t” do—all the things I was telling myself I “can’t” do. What I uncovered was that the only difference between what we can and can’t do is our belief in what’s possible.

    So whenever you hear the word “can’t,” take a step back and affirm, “Yes, I can!” Then create a list of all the reasons that you will.

    These shifts in the way you speak can serve as a huge catalyst toward manifesting the life you want. Dare to use words that solidify your dreams rather than those that perpetuate your fears.

    Then watch the magic unfold.

    I made these shifts over three years ago, and my life has been one big adventure ever since. Won’t you come join me?

  • Why Resistance Isn’t a Bad Thing and What to Do About It

    Why Resistance Isn’t a Bad Thing and What to Do About It

    Hiding

    “Worry looks around, fear looks back, faith looks up, guilt looks down, but I look forward.” ~Unknown

    I moved houses a couple of weeks ago. It was the perfect opportunity to take a break, pause and reflect, and decide on the directions I wanted my small business to take.

    And I did just that: I rested, took the time to think and get über clear about what I wanted to do next and how, revamped my offerings, made a super duper inspiring goal list and… decided that getting to know our neighbors’ cats was far more fascinating than, you know, work.

    It didn’t take me long to realize what was going on here: my old friend resistance was paying me a visit, and it didn’t want to leave anytime soon.

    When I see resistance, I usually choose to either push through (and end up so tired I could sleep for a month), or give in and get nothing done (resistance: 1, Emmanuelle: 0).

    This time I chose a new road. I chose to see it. To hear it. To listen to it.

    Acknowledge

    The first thing I did was to acknowledge resistance. It was my reality, it was there; I could not deny it. So instead of playing ostrich and burying my head in the sand, I chose to face what was really going on and become present to it.

    When you feel something that you don’t really want to feel, the first step in letting it go is acknowledging it, accepting that it is what it is, that it is your current reality.

    Feel the fear…

    Now that I was seeing the resistance, its true colors were showing. Because you see, resistance is a disguise, and what hides beneath is fear.

    It could be fear of failure. It could be fear of success. It could be fear of falling flat on your face and making a fool of yourself. What is hiding beneath resistance, what is holding you back from taking that next big bold step ?

    For me, it was fear of being seen. Fear of exposing myself in such a way that it brought back my insecurities and blocks. Fear of going to a new level and failing miserably, because apparently that is what was supposed to happen, right? Right.

    … and do it anyway

    That’s when I made another decision.

    Once I recognized my fear, I chose to have a chat with her. Yes she’s a she, a pre-teen hiding in the dark corner of the room, curled up into a ball. It’s much easier to have a conversation with your fear once you can see it as a person. And the truth is, it is usually a version of yourself, the dark version, the shadow you don’t want anyone to see.

    So I had this conversation with her. I told her I knew she was trying to protect me from the unknown, she was trying to keep me safe, but everything was going to be all right. I told her I was going to make sure she wouldn’t go through this again, because I committed to do my 100% best at all times.

    She smiled, opened up, and reached for my hand. She said she was going to watch, but she knew she could trust me. She knew I could trust myself.

    And you can, too.

    When resistance shows up, first acknowledge it, invite it to come in, and identify the fear behind it . Use that fear to propel you to do your 100% best at all times. That scared person in the dark corner of the room? Let him or her become your best friend and your fuel.

    Here is the thing with resistance and fear: When you decide to think and play bigger, to show up like you’ve never done before, to make bold moves, resistance will show up, there is no way around it.

    It’s part of the process; it means that you are on the threshold, waiting to take the next step toward another level of consciousness, another level of being.

    Resistance is here for you to make a choice : stay on the threshold, or look forward and step up.

    Which one will it be?

    Photo by r.f.m. II

  • Why You Aren’t Living Your Dreams and What to Do About It

    Why You Aren’t Living Your Dreams and What to Do About It

    “Your belief determines your action and your action determines your results, but first you have to believe.” ~Mark Victor Hansen

    Screech!

    The car engine’s loud revving got quiet. The tires came to a screeching halt.

    This towering, slender, intimidating man, with a beard like the skin of a shaved porcupine, shut the driver side door behind him and approached me with thunder.

    “Is this what you’re doing?!” he demanded. “On the corner—with a girl?”

    It wasn’t her fault, but his expression almost made me turn around and look at her with utter disgust.

    Instead, I was too busy quieting the butterflies in my stomach, looking up everywhere into his chiseled face except his eyes. His head blocked the sun like a solar eclipse on that urban street while his eyes burned a hole in my forehead.

    “You’re going to throw away the championship for this.”

    Never explicitly saying out loud what I did wrong, as he put me to shame, it made the unspoken truth stab my heart like a dagger, over and over, especially because I had deep admiration for this man.

    As he walked away from the sidewalk concrete and drove off, I caught a glimpse of his long hairy calves in my peripheral vision and stared into the black pavement in deep contemplation.

    Yanking my arm away from the hot girl next to me, like an annoyed child from an overprotective parent, I walked up the block and took the bus home.

    I was sixteen when my tennis coach, this amazing man, taught me my first lesson in what it really meant to walk away from a grand vision you have in life, and the price you pay on your personal growth when doing so.

    My sin: I had stopped showing up for tennis practice with two weeks left to a championship game that depended on my performance.

    But why did I do that? And why do so many of us fail to do the things we want to do, resort to our old ways, and ignore our glorious vision in life?

    Luck

    A study by Janssen and Carton demonstrated how what scientists call the “locus of control” affects how timely we do things.

    No, locus of control isn’t that awesome pose at yoga class! It’s our perspective on what’s really  responsible for the outcome of things.

    Do we take personal responsibility for things that happen in our lives and have an inner locus of control? Or, do we blame it all on luck and circumstance, otherwise known as having an external locus of control?

    They gave forty-two students a homework assignment and found that students who had an inner locus of control started and returned assignments sooner, while those with an external locus of control started and returned assignments later.

    We procrastinate more when we blame luck and circumstance for the results we get and avoid taking personal responsibility for what we want to achieve.

    That’s what I did.

    I hung out with my new girlfriend instead of going to practice so that I could retrospectively blame her in the event that I lost the championship. I have a girlfriend now, and she’s taking up my time. That’s why I’ll lose. It’s not because I didn’t take full personal responsibility. It’s her fault.

    My tennis coach was trying to teach me the locus of control at the time, when the locus of other “things” controlled me more.

    Fear and Limiting Beliefs

    Research suggests a variety of reasons on why we fail to do things we want to do, but two stand out.

    1. Fear of the unknown.

    We can’t predict the outcome and the consequences it will have on our self-esteem. We do what we usually do to prevent our self-esteem from getting damaged.

    2. The belief that we’ll perform better at a later date when we’re “more prepared,” which will likely never come.

    This causes us to engage in indecision—on purpose, to validate our stalling.

    In my case, I dated a new girl and stopped practicing to avoid feeling bad in the event that I lost the championship. I knew that I would win the girl, but wasn’t sure about the game, so I focused on the easy win.

    Our human tendency to want to be right, certain, and safe can overshadow doing the hard work, breaking bad habits, and getting something we desperately want.

    Old Conditioning

    On Psychology Today, Ray Williams suggests that the brain is protective over its current habitual patterns. Achieving something new will require new behavior, and the brain will try to resist new patterns to protect its old conditioning.

    The brain is also wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain and fear.

    “When fear of failure creeps into the mind… it commences a de-motivator with a desire to return to known, comfortable behavior and thought patterns,” he writes.

    Before you set out on a journey to achieve something, you must pay attention to the triggers that will happen in your mind, because your mind could derail you.

    The most important factor in overcoming your mind’s tendency to keep you in your comfort zone is awareness.

    The more aware you are of how your brain is conditioned and the lifestyle it’s trying to protect, the better equipped you’ll be to take action.

    When my brain tries to make me curl back to comfort, I whisper to it, “Stop it! We must do this! Think about what we could gain in the long run.”

    Awareness

    While many “gurus” might tell people to wake up earlier, set priorities, and plan better in order to work toward their dreams, these tactics alone do not always help.

    Why? Because it’s our mental conditioning that’s holding us back, and that’s what we need to change. It’s our fear of the future, and often, our lack of personal responsibility that keeps us from taking action, not the failure to create to-do lists and wake up at a specified time.

    Keep a vigilant watch at how your mind will try to take you back to your old ways. This is the only way to change your conditioning.

    Changing your mind and spirit first, letting go of fear of outcomes, and challenging your old conditioning may revolutionize the way you live so that you own up to what you want to do—and then do it.

  • Beat Procrastination: How to Want to Tackle Your To-Do List

    Beat Procrastination: How to Want to Tackle Your To-Do List

    “Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you won’t do anything with it.” ~ M. Scott Peck

    Ten years ago, I stopped procrastinating. Lots of procrastination, then zero—overnight. Cold turkey worked for me. Now I hardly ever procrastinate.

    Why the sudden change? How did I do it?

    Lists and Procrastination

    Like many people, I make lists, including to-do lists, reminders, shopping lists, wish lists, and my what-to-do-when-bored list. I completely rely on my lists to keep my life moving along.

    My Dad purposefully decided not to make lists. He believed he could maintain his memory better if he didn’t rely on them. Could be true, because he always had a good memory.

    Not me, however. I do seem to need lists to remind me about important to-do things. When I write something on a to-do list, I can get it off my mind for now, knowing I’ll have that reminder. So why not just do that important thing now instead of writing it down? Well, sometimes that’s not practical or possible.

    But sometimes it is. Sometimes writing a to-do item on a list can actually be an act of procrastination.

    Apparently lists and procrastination go hand in hand for some of us. My reason for making lists is to ensure that things get done, yet writing something on a list can also make it easier for me to procrastinate doing it. Once the to-do item is on a list, it’s off my mind—so it might never get done.

    There’s something wrong with that picture. Making lists to remember to do things, and then avoiding those lists because of a procrastination problem? A deadly combo in terms of productivity! (more…)