From Overwhelmed By Self-Doubt And Inaction To Accomplishing Goals and Enjoying Your Life
What Your Mind Is Not Telling You
You get to the heart of the matter with this question. It is why so many have provided answers and even more have followed the question.
When attempting to understand why we are doing things that we don’t want to do, we have to first admit, we are doing exactly what we want to be doing (and change starts here).
While we may believe we want to take action and change our life, our mind is in the background reminding us of all the good times we had.
- Someone may want to eat healthier, but their fondest memories are eating with friends who don’t.
- You may want to be more responsible with your money, but alas, your mind replays the commercial that told you your life is not complete without this new gadget.
- Even if you felt it was time to change your career or ask that special someone out on a date, your mind warned you of the likelihood of failure and coached you back to the sideline of complacency.
The annoying thing about trying something new is the fact that we do not have any fond memories to attach motivate action.
All of our fondest (and worst) memories are tied to our previous actions. You may start your change-journey fed-up with your current life, but a couple weeks in… your old life didn’t seem so bad.
- Ordering food was much easier when we didn’t have food restrictions
- You didn’t like your job, but it paid the bills and you were too valuable to ever be fired
- Even those annoying relationships you said you were going to end, don’t seem so bad when you look through those rose-colored glasses
Most people want to change something about their life, but they are discouraged by self-doubt and a fear of failure.
This battle goes on in your mind every time you are fed-up with your current life and demand change.
However, when things don’t change as quickly as you would have hoped, you start to doubt you have the ability to succeed. You start to analyze everything and become paralyzed, afraid to take the next step, thinking it may be lead to disaster.
And if that were not enough, your doubts and fear of failure comes off as logical and rational.
- It is true that most businesses fail in the first year
- You are not wrong when you say most people gain all the weight they lost in a couple years
- It is an honest statement to say that most people loathe their job,
- And it is true that half of all marriages end in divorce.
It only seems natural to “stick with what you know” and “be happy” with what you got.
It is true that the grass is not always greener on the other-side, but if you want to change the way your mind perceives change, you need to start by breaking some of these beliefs and building new ones.
The quick and most effective ways to change your mind is to:
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Allow yourself to experience new things (preferably new things that contradict a lot of your current beliefs)
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celebrate the small wins.
Very simply, you mind needs to understand that a better life is possible and you are just as likely to create that better life as anyone else.
Find a podcast/article/book where someone is discussing challenges they overcame on their journey to changing their life. In particular, find someone who is where you want to be and read about their failures (and triumphs).
Next time your mind is telling you success is for dreamers, you will be able to recall several stories of people proving otherwise.
In addition, when you hear other people’s stories of success, you are going to naturally picture yourself overcoming the same obstacles.
Now your mind is able to truly believe success is possible.
By celebrating small wins, you will be able to recall actual memories of yourself succeeding. The mistake many of us make is we only celebrate when the journey is over. As a result, we feel anything else is failure. Since no one likes feeling like a failure, a month of failing is all your mind can take before it tells you to find something else to do.
Instead, you should celebrate each milestone on your way to accomplishing your goal. For example, if you wanted to run a marathon, celebrate each time you run/walk a lap. That is more than you did before you started training, so it is worth celebrating. So when you are able to run 5 miles, you feel like a success because 5 is more than 0 miles (instead of feeling like a failure because 5 miles is less than 26.2 miles).
You can be content without being complacent. Allow yourself to enjoy the journey, and you will find the journey is much more enjoyable (and as a result, you will be more willing to continue).
Don’t get so caught up in the fact that you need to change a bunch of stuff.
It took time to get where you are now and it is going to take time to change everything to where you want to be.
And last, don’t overthink failures. Failure should be expected because you are charting a new path in your life. You aren’t, nor should you be expected to know everything. You should only know enough to take the next step and then you can fill in the spaces as you walk.
Continued blessings,
Dre Griggs | Forecast Hope | Get Your Free Coaching Session Today
Most people want to change something about their life, but they are discouraged by doubt and a fear of failure. I created U. Forecast Hope, so you can accomplish your resolutions and be confident in your ability to Become the Champion of Your Life.