Procrastination holding you back?

Procrastination holding you back?

Many times when you want to do something and you attempt to do activities towards the new, you find it to be very difficult. It may even appear that you are stopping yourself. Well many times you are!

Procrastination is usually based on some block you have about doing something based on a fear, or some sort of confusion about what to do.

As to being confused, the mind can hold us back if we think we must know everything clearly before proceeding. This needing to know everything, based on the fear of the unknown, is just our rationalization of what we perceive.

To move ahead, you need to get yourself to mentally allow yourself to proceed with what you do know, with the faith that additional clarity will continue to be revealed as you proceed towards the goal. The key here is that you must start, you must do something, whatever you know now.

As to the blocks, there are many potential things in your mind that can be the basis of a block. As you said, fear of rejection, also fear of success, failure, feeling you don’t deserve it, aren’t capable, don’t know how, what will others think, and the new endeavor not fitting into your perception of yourself based on the past or self-concept.

The way to get over these blocks, as with any thing is to face them. Don’t continue to bury them. They must be brought up, faced, analyzed and understood. At one time the feelings or thought habits served a purpose, but you can decide it they are appropriate for you today. If they are not, thank them for serving you in the past and let them go.

Decide on a new perception and attitude regarding the future. Those old things can be converted into mere memories rather than controlling programs for today.

Seek to see the feelings clearly in a positive curious way.

I suggest asking yourself questions, but phrase them in the positive not the negative. Ask from the perspective of seeking revealing and helpful answers not from the point of frustration or resentment.

Ask yourself questions such as,

What are my feelings about ____?

Why do I feel this way?

What purpose are these feelings?

Then ask again to the answers you get – then why do I feel this way? – and again and again, to drill down to the deeper root feeling and original seed, beginning of the feelings.

Why did I need to do this then, for what purpose?

How does this serve me now?

How else can I feel about this today?

Vary the questions as appropriate for you but continue to be persistent with this but relaxed at the same time. Do not try to force yourself.

Give it time, you may not get a clear answer the first time asking, your ego mind my want to protect you from any potential discomfort, which is why the feelings are buried in the first place.

Just keep asking calmly and tell yourself to be open to what ever needs to come up for you to clearly understand this.

There are other things you can do to help discover the blocks and change the habits, like hypnotherapy and the related NLP, meditation, brain wave work, EFT techniques and more.

If you are not having good results by yourself get some assistance with it, because until you can change the way your brain is dealing with these thoughts they will continue in the same way.

You are at the first crucial step, you recognize that something is there in your mind that does not properly support where you want to go on your life. It would not rise up as it has if it did not need to be dealt with.

One more thing is don’t allow yourself to be resentful of those feelings or habits, remember that at one time in the past they served you for some reason. Bless them and let them go so that you will have space to set up a new way to think about it. If you are angry or resentful you will actually continue to focus on what you no longer want and it will persist!

What you resist, persists!

Seek to understand, analyze and let go, create the new concept that allows you to move forward.

Reformatting habits established in the past is part of our ongoing growth process – if you look at it as such.

Welcome change even if it feels uncomfortable. It’s only uncomfortable because your ego doesn’t want you to feel bad. You must step through it or you will always stay as you are.

That’s growth!

John

We All Need Time And Space To Be

Are you always ‘on’ or distracted or interacting with others?

This can lead to a low level stress if you are not allowing yourself ‘alone’ time.

An important aspect of life that is often overlooked is the quiet and ‘alone’ time that we all need to get in touch with ourselves.

All of the different categories of activities we are involved with in life are necessary. I am talking about our social interaction, workgroup relations, individual relationships, family relationships, intimate relationships and our relationship with self. Each of these is a vehicle for our growth and development, as we learn and experience differently from each one.

Many people don’t give a lot of thought as to what kind of a balance we have in our life with these activities. The most commonly someone will notice that they are alone much of the time and they yearn for more human interaction. If you are in this situation it would be worth your while to make the effort to get around more people, interacting in some way that you find enjoyable.

One of the things that can happen is that we can find ourselves ‘on’ too much and not having any time for ourselves without outer interactive stimulus. Being ‘on’ is when you are actively involved with outside stimuli, thinking and acting in conjunction with them, almost feeling that it you are on automatic. This is a part of the necessary human experience; we are designed to inter-relate with one another. We learn about others as well as about ourselves from others, as well as develop our interaction skills.

But, in this state we are not usually with ourselves, we are distracted from outside rather than in tune with ourselves. Not that we should be looking to be selfish with our self, but we do need time to ourselves. We each need our own time to be just with ourselves and many times this is overlooked in life.

Particularly when there are people in our life that are demanding our attention for various reasons. We just see this as our life and not think much about it, but we a neglecting a very necessary need we all have, to be alone. We need to just ‘be’ with our thoughts, to be able to calm down our thoughts and this can’t be done with the constant input of stimulus from outside of us.

One common activity where people need to be alone is meditation, even if you practice this in a group, you become alone. Others around you are not attempting to interact with you, they are being with themselves as well. With meditation you learn to calm your thinking and let go, allowing yourself to be aware at a much deeper level.

Another necessary individual activity is introspection. Just being able to allow your thoughts to delve into something you want to ponder or understand.

For most people, being alone in thought is how they connect with our creativity as well as our intuition. These are necessary connections we must be able to cultivate in order to expand our life experience.

We also need our ‘alone’ time to relax in a way that does not even occur when in the company of a loved one. Many people get much relaxation feel rejuvenation from activities they do alone with no outside stimuli. This allows one to do just as they wish without the need to consider how it affects others.

Some people are not able to get their thoughts into a ‘flow’ unless they are alone. Look to people in history, scientist, writers, painters, philosophers and inventors all had much ‘alone’ time, where their ideas ‘flow’.

Many people are by nature very concerned about the people in their life, that they are continuously considering how everything they do could affect the other. They can’t seem to get out of this mode of thought as long as they are around other people.

So, to be able to allow their mind to relax, get calm, to allow intuition and creativity to surface, they must be along on a regular basis.

This can be something you have not even thought about, as you may be doing just fine with the amount of ‘alone’ time you are getting. But someone you interact with may not be getting the ‘alone’ time they need.

We all need ‘alone’ time to truly come to understand ourselves. One of the most powerful thought activities you can do is to ask yourself and spirit questions about yourself and life to gain a deeper understanding of yourself.

It is absolutely necessary, if you want to grow and develop in life, to continually seek to understand more about yourself and you must calm your thinking in order to do this.

One of the things we all can do in our various relationships is to keep this basic human need in mind. Make it a point to allow those who want this ‘alone’ time to have it. Provide them the space they need.

When we are able to do these alone activities we are actually better for the people we relate with. We are more understanding, calmer throughout the day, less susceptible to stress, just have a better attitude overall.

Make it a point to notice the different ways we each seem to have different needs in terms of being alone. Learn to respect the ‘alone’ time needs of others. Some need to be alone when they are upset before they want to talk about it, some need to be alone to be creative,

Notice what others need and allow them to be themselves, everyone has a different mix of activities that works best for them. There is always a way to compromise with the needs of all, if you make it your intent.

There are good days available, get yours now!

John