Your Drive is What's Holding You Back
Do you have one of those very long running lists of things you need to do, should do, want to do, think you don’t have time to do?
Moms. Entrepreneurs. Mompreneurs. Solopreneurs. Whatever, wherever. You know who you are.
You have that ever-growing list in your phone. Or written with actual pen on actual paper. Or in a bullet journal. I have one, too. Mine's mostly in my head, and I so weighed down by it. Maybe you are, too.
Maybe you feel weighed down and maybe even defeated. And by what? When you look at it objectively, it’s a whole bunch of not-that-much. Totally doable, disparate things. But all together, that very long running list is heavy enough to drag you down to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Or at least to slow you way, way down.
Like a pair of very un-fancy cement shoes. {Or very heavy feet...}
{Anybody else a child of the 90s? Nobody? OK. Carry on then.}
This condition, which my anecdotal research has found to be most common among entrepreneurs and working moms, comes with two common side effects:
1} The 10% Effect
Every time you think about a thing on that list, any thing, it feels like it becomes 10% harder to get that thing done.
Before you know it, some simple thing like signing your kid up for summer camp {which I screwed up this year and am now scrambling to fix}, that thing is an insurmountable task, buried beneath a mountain of procrastination and dread.
2} The Drag and Bag Effect
The size and weight of that running list as a whole pulls at the back of your brain, making sure you’re never fully in any moment. It amplifies that voice that tells you terrible things that are never true. It says things like: ‘You can’t possibly do this thing well. Not when you have 25 things that might as well be 25,000 that you seem unwilling or unable to get done.’And it drags you down until you’re ready to bag that inspiration you were so excited about a minute ago.
Well, my people, it’s time shed those cement shoes.
It’s time to stop staring up at that mountain of procrastination and dread. It’s time to stop being dragged down and just bagging your best inspiration out of desperation. It’s time to stop feeling like your endless expectations are so heavy, you’re locked in place by a pair of cement shoes.
Take them off. Take them off right now.
You can do this.
You must do this.
We all need you to do this.
Your kids need you to do this. Your clients need you to do this. Your colleagues need you to do this. The people who are going to benefit from that thing you’re meant to do and you haven’t even thought of yet? They need you to do this.
Because only by taking off those cement shoes will you ever bring your whole self to any person you encounter or any thing that you do. Only by taking off those cement shoes will you ever be able to celebrate the good in you and the good you bring this world. Only by taking off those cement shoes will you be able to truly move forward and feel elated in fulfilling your potential, instead of defeated in that downward spiral.
And you are hardwired to need to always be moving forward. Like a shark. A very friendly shark.
Yes, changing any habit is hard. Yes, you’ve spent a lifetime perfecting this one. And yes, you can do this.
Do I have to use up some word count to state the obvious? Change is hard. That’s why there are so many books about it. {Like this one that’s been on my shelf for like three years.}
Also? You’ve lived in your head your whole life. There’s a lot of stuff packed away in there.
But still, you can do this.
I don’t mean to sound like one of these gurus who wraps you, warm and snug, in vague life advice that shows you how simple this is and how silly you’ve been. But. I have a two-step secret plan.
Here’s the two-step secret to removing those cement shoes and freeing yourself to be yourself, once and for all:
1} Embrace the #failnotfail.
Yes, everyone’s talking about making room for failure, and having to fail before you succeed. This isn’t exactly that. It’s more like, looking at what might have seemed like a failure when you were weighed down and overwhelmed, but now you can see something new there.
Here’s an example.
I set a bunch of well-intentioned New Year’s Resolutions this year. I thought I’d gotten it right, finally. I focused on what I wanted to feel, not what I wanted to do. Some, like starting the day with a book and some quiet, I’ve done pretty well on. Some, like putting my phone away when I’m with my kids {and my ipad and my macbook}, not so good.
But. #failnotfail.
Remember that thing about summer camp way up there in the beginning? I screwed up. Because signing my kid up for summer camp was on that rolling list in my head, it was a speck in those cement shoes, it started to seem like I could choose between climbing Mt Everest or finding the time and brain space to figure out summer camp details. So by the time I sat down to do it, our first choice was not available. My son’s first choice. First thing I thought was that I had failed him.
Then I thought...#failnotfail
My son will now have options to consider that he would never have considered otherwise. And...I have learned for sure that those reminders they send me starting in August {for NEXT summer} are in fact not just great marketing. They are for serious that they WILL book up if you don’t get off your butt and spend five minutes filling out those forms. Lesson learned. When I prioritize this next year, I won’t do so with a bunch of mental background noise that maybe it’s not the most important thing I need to be doing right now because there are so many other things on the list.
Nope. Cement shoes be gone.
2} Embrace help
If you’re prone to expecting yourself to do a bazillion things, an impossible number of things no matter how simple each one is, then you are likely also prone to believe that if you need help, you have failed.
Embrace help!
Needing help. Welcoming help. Is not failure. It is smart. It is what the most successful people do every day. And people want to help you.
Your contacts want to help you build a thriving business. Your colleagues want to help you solve obstacles. Your spouse wants to help you check things off that list. Even your kids want to help you, I swear. {Maybe they don’t know it yet.}
When a friend of mine gave me a few suggestions of people to reach out to about drumming up new clients, I realized something...I hadn’t done it because something inside me said that if I needed to ask for help, I had failed.
And by not asking for help, I was adding to my endless list. And pouring more cement onto those big heavy shoes that were keeping me stuck in one place.
Need more clients? Embrace help from everyone you know. Don’t have time to do the laundry? Embrace help wherever you can get it. Hate sales? Confused by the tax laws? Don’t understand marketing? Embrace help from an expert.
OK. So we’re going to take these cement shoes off together...now.