Dear First name / Sunday Sparker,
Are you stuck somewhere in your life?
Do you think it's time to move forward and take action, but another week has gone by, and you have not lifted a finger?
You might be stuck for one or more of these reasons. Which sounds most familiar to you?:
You don't know what the real first action is.
You need to declutter your house, but what is the first area you need to tackle? You need to plan a party, but what would the first action be? Decide on the date? Book the venue? List whom to invite?
You think you are stuck, but you actually did not define the first action, and the next, and the next. What you are planning to do is a project of multiple steps. If you keep thinking of the project as a lump you need to do rather than steps you need to walk through, you will stay stuck.
You did not assess the time-sensitivity of the task.
You might have succeeded previously in doing things last minute, like studying for an exam overnight when you were in school or university, so the lesson you learned is "I work best under pressure". Wrong lesson. You are an adult now. Keeping things for the last minute reduces the quality of your output, as studies on procrastination show. Also, when we have many tasks at hand, it's very healthy to ask what is time-sensitive? That gives you an instant direction of what to prioritize. Answering your social media DMs is an example of not urgent, though.
You did not factor your future self into the equation.
Studies by psychologists Timothy Pychyl and Fuschia Sirois show that we often overestimate the motivation and energy of our future selves, leading us to postpone tasks that later cause frustration. In other words, when you postpone tasks to later, later-you will resent you for this decision; her plate is already full in that future, why didn't you do the task when you had the chance? She thinks. Psychologist Hal Hershfield found that people who feel more connected to their future selves make better long-term choices. Help future-you feel readily grateful to you. Do what needs to be done now.
You thought fear was a stop sign.
I learned so much about fear lately because it will always be there, especially when you want to do something meaningful. Its job is to protect you from real and imagined dangers. And most of the dangers we face daily in our privileged lives are imagined dangers. A helpful soundtrack I learned from Jon Acuff: Fear Gets a Voice, not a Vote. This means fear is here to be heard and acknowledged. Don't mistake fear for a stop sign.
You thought you couldn't handle the consequences of failure.
In the past, you died a thousand deaths because of failure, or did you? You are here, aren't you? You survived previous failures, and perhaps you reached the point where you are thankful for them today. You have handled failure before, and now you have more experience, and hopefully your chances of failure are less. Failure doesn't define you unless it stops you.
Sunk costs are weighing you down.
Sunk costs are those things that you invested money, time, and energy in the past, but still include in your present decision-making process. What about the money you spent studying for the major you now hate? Sunk cost. What about the many years of experience in that one company or in that relationship that you thought was going somewhere? Sunk cost. Just like a sunken ship, they are gone. As Seth Godin says, sunk costs are a gift from your past self that you don't have to accept. But don't despair. You are not abandoning them altogether. You get to keep the experience and skills from your past investments. They will help you in your future. But don't let them into the decision process.
You thought you had to pick one thing and stick with it for the rest of your life.
This reason has the words "LIMITING BELIEF" all over it. Do you see it? After we finished school, we had to pick one thing to study in university, and then we had to work within that one domain. This is what successful people are supposed to do, or so we were told. I am old enough (ahem) to say to you: Nothing is final. You can experiment with something that tugs at your heartstrings, maybe on the side, while you still work in a career that doesn't make your heart sing. You can try new things.
You thought you could do it alone.
I fell for this mistake many times, and now I know we need other people more than we think.
We need them for accountability.
We need them for cheering.
We need them for advice.
We need them to clarify our thinking
We can NOT do it alone
Last reason that I will share today:
You didn't have a planning session.
You can't jump from idea to action without some planning. Planning itself is a crucial step that needs time, just like doing the action. Plan planning time. Use it to look at your calendar and realistically find time to work on your goal. Adding new tasks to your already-full life means you need to decide when and where you will do the actions. A good session of planning can make you go for weeks! Don't skip planning.
Which of these reasons is stopping you? What did I miss? Understanding why will clarify the way. Share please by replying to this newsletter!
