Have you ever heard yourself say…
it’s too hard
that’s for someone else
i’m not good enough
she’s a lot better/smarter/younger/prettier/faster
I’ll never finish
Be Specific
Define suck. Does it mean you only made $30 last month? Your best client dropped you? Figure out what it means in concrete terms so you have a starting point. Then concretely define not sucking. What does success look like? Making $2500 a month? $6000? Your brain needs concretely defines starting and ending points to work away from and toward. Once you figure out what those are, your subconscious can rally your resources and make it happen.
Visualize It, Then Mitigate the Negative
This is a little woo, but bear with me. Sometimes your brain derails your best-laid plans because its afraid of what will change if you achieve what your end point. Visualize how your life will be different if you get what you want. Not just what will be different financially or in your business, but in all aspects. Think about what will change in your relationships, where you live, what you do for fun.Take some time to write it down.
One that came up for me: If I make enough money to easily pay my bills every onto I won’t be able to bitch about money with my friends over coffee.
Your brain doesn’t like change. Messing with your payoffs (in my case bitching about money to my friends) is a fast way to push your panic buttons and derail your plans. One workaround is to change it upfront. In my case, I just quit bitching to my friends about money. At the time, the money woes were there, I just stopped whining.
Another way to mitigate is to is to make it a game. Try something new, just to see what happens, without being attached to the outcome. Change just for now; it doesn’t have to be a permanent lifelong change. Just see what happens. Your brain is more likely to play along if it’s not permanent.
When you visualize what will be different, don’t forget to focus on the positive. What will achieving this goal give me? Really see it. The more senses you can get involved the easier it will be to get your subconcisous on board to help you achieve your goal. You don’t have to be looking for lofty changes either. A decent a haircut is an acceptable change when you achieve your goal.
Let Go of Your Drama
This one is hard to take. I’m not being cold-hearted and insensitive. There are a ton of absolutely legit reasons to feel like there’s drama in your life. I want to acknowledge first and foremost that whatever is holding you back is hard and it hurts.
But, it’s easy to get caught up in your own woe-is-me story. Here’s a secret: there is a solution to everything. If your issue is too big to handle on your own, get help. There are resources available. If you have garden-variety, my-partner-won’t-unload-the-dishawasher issues, there is a solution. You just need to drop the drama and look at it logically. If you spend an hour of your work time doing chores you wish your partner would do, drop the drama. Stop telling yourself what a chauvinistic, unsupportive jerk he is and get up an hour earlier. Or tell him you don’t have time to watch American Idol with him. The bottom line is the story you tell yourself about the issue is causing most of the problem.
Baby Steps
This one is so overdone, I’m sick of hearing it. I mention it because it works. It’s overdone because it works. The trick to getting moving is to choose the smallest possible action in the direction you want to go. You want to pick something so tiny doing it is easier to do it than put it off. I mean, an action that will take less than 5 minutes. Not, call Josh about design work, but find Josh’s number.
Another take on the baby-step idea, is to use the kitchen timer. Yup, that old piece of advice again. It keeps floating around because it works. Set the timer for 10 or 15 minutes and work on that project you haven’t taken action on. If you’re on a roll when the timer goes off, by all means, keep going. If not, schedule another 10 minute block for tomorrow. Then congratulate yourself on what you got done. Go make yourself an iced coffee with a splash of chocolate syrup. It’s a fantastic reward for getting stuff done.
The last hint I have for you is:
Banish “I Suck” from your vocabulary
You can do this. Whatever this is, you can do it. Work with your subconscious instead of fighting it. Give it concrete starting and end points. Find a workaround for whatever it is that derails your plans for success. Once you get your subconscious onboard you’ll be unstoppable.
