For example, let’s say that lonely-hearted Sally finally got fed up enough to get mighty real with herself and face her issues around relationships. She’d start by getting clear on what her stories are:
I can’t meet a man because there aren’t any good ones left.
I suck at flirting.
I never know what to say to men.
I’m not attractive to men. Not the good ones anyway.
I scare men away.
I don’t trust men.
I don’t believe there really is anyone out there for me.
Once she’s got her list (which could easily go on for pages, BTW, but for the sake of example, and because I’d like to leave the house today, we’ll stick with these), Sally can stream of consciousness journal about the false rewards she’s getting. And by stream of consciousness I mean just let it flow, don’t edit or overthink it too much, just write. In Sally’s case, her journaling could look like:
By saying there aren’t any good men out there I don’t have to take responsibility for why I’m not meeting any. I get to feel victimized and right for staying single. I get to prove how lame men are by never being with a good one. My pain of feeling unworthy and my mistrust of men get proven right when I stay single. I feel like I know what I’m doing and in control by not letting anyone get close to me. I feel free. I feel safe. I feel special because I get attention for breaking the rules.
Again, this could go on for pages but you get the idea.
Once she’s gotten all her false rewards on the page, Sally can then focus on them, feel them all the way through, thank them for trying to protect her (we don’t want to turn this into a self-loathing exercise please) and release them by replacing them with new, powerful stories.
She can literally take each one and replace it with a new truth. For example:
By saying there aren’t any good men out there I don’t have to take responsibility for why I’m not meeting any.
Then becomes:
The world is filled with awesome, loving men, and I am fully capable of, and so excited to find me a good one.
I get to feel victimized and right for staying single.
Then becomes:
I am powerful and in control of my life. I choose to love and be loved.
I get to prove how lame men are by never being with a good one.
Then becomes:
I love and trust men and am so thrilled to be with an awesome guy who makes me giddy with happiness.
These new stories become her new truth, and in order to make them stick, she focuses on them, breathes them in and feels how happy they make her feel. These stories are her new affirmations (remember those?) that she will not only write down and repeat and bombard herself with over and over and over, but that she will instantly replace
her old stories with if they should fly out of her mouth or into her mind out of habit.
Let’s review, shall we?
1. List off your old stories that you’ve gotten into the habit of thinking and saying.
2. Journal about the false rewards you get from them.
3. Feel into these false rewards, thank them for their help, and decide to let them go.
4. Take each false reward and write a new, powerful story to replace it with.
5. Repeat this new story, or affirmation, over and over and over until it becomes your truth.
6. Behold your awesome new life.
Nothing in this world is permanent, including our stories. Yet we try to hold on to them for false security, which ultimately leads to sorrow and loss. Be willing to let go. Keep reinventing your story as you continue to grow.
4. GET A MOVE ON
Once you’ve gotten clear on your story and have done the energy work above, take action. If you were once depressed but have decided
to let it go, stop listening to melancholy music, stop talking about how lousy you feel, stop pretending that putting on your bathrobe counts as getting dressed, etc. Instead, focus on the good and do the things you love to do— make an effort instead of collapsing into the familiar feeling of being depressed.
Realize that you’ve gotten into habits with these things and switch them around. Behave the way a person who isn’t depressed behaves. Dress how they dress, hang out with the kinds of people they hang out with, speak the way they speak, do the things they do. Really sink into the understanding that you can have what you want. This won’t work if you just pretend. You can’t be like, “Okay, I’m going out on a date, I’m telling myself I am going to have a great time but I know it’s going to be hideous because it’s always hideous but I’m having a good attitude about it.”
Going out into the world and trying, yet still deep-down believing that you’re ruled by your past circumstances, is like forgiving someone but still hoping they sit in something wet.
5. GET OUT OF YOUR ROUTINE
Talk to strangers, wear something different, go to a new grocery store, make dinner for someone who you want to get to know better, change toothpastes, go to a movie at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday, learn three new jokes, walk taller, notice five awesome things you’ve never noticed about your home, your beliefs, your mother, your face. Do things that
pull you out of your routine and you’ll be amazed by the new realities that were there all along that suddenly presents themselves.
6. SIDESTEP THE SPIRAL
There’s also the ever-popular Spiral Into Darkness where you begin by being sad that your dog died then realize that not only are you now dogless, but you’re still single and you will always be single because everyone, including your dog, leaves you, which probably wouldn’t be the case if you didn’t have such fat thighs or weren’t so overshadowed by your gorgeous sister who is pretty much the main reason you’ve had no self-confidence your entire life and wah wah wah.
Feel sad, but don’t blow it up into some huge drama. If something negative happens in your life, feel it, learn from it, let it go and get back to focusing on the life you’re excited to live.
7. LOVE YOURSELF
More than you love your drama.
PROCRASTINATION, PERFECTION, AND A POLISH BEER GARDEN
In order to kick ass you must first lift up your foot.
—Jen Sincero; author, coach, self-quoter
One of my first jobs out of college was production coordinator for the Ethnic Folk Arts Festival, which was put on by a little nonprofit group in New York City. I heard about the position opening up from a friend, and decided I had to have the job even though I’d never produced a thing in my life and find folk art to be fairly yawnable. It looked like fun anyway—they worked out of a funky loft in Tribeca, knew a lot
about music, brought their dogs to work, and the festival I’d be working on gathered musicians, dancers, and artists from around the globe and brought them together in a Polish beer garden in Queens for a big fat party. Which meant men in skirts and free sausage and beer.
So I put together a résumé that listed such achievements as: produced plays in college (demanded my friends show up to watch my boyfriend act); started several organizations in high school (started a sledding team that had no competition and only one meeting where we spent most of our time figuring out how to score some beer); worked at my college radio station (hung around while my friend DJed). Then I got all dressed up in some business casuals that I borrowed from my mom that didn’t fit and marched off to my interview. A couple of hours later, me and my big mouth had a new job.
That night I laid awake in wide-eyed horror. My God, what have I done? I’m a monster! These sweet, big-hearted, sandal-wearing people just handed me a coffee can full of money that they spent an entire year collecting for this festival, and I’m the lying fathead who’s gonna blow it.
I thought about turning myself in, but, unwilling to turn down a good party, went for it instead and wound up working harder for them than I had ever worked in my life. I decided that I’d rise to the occasion, that I would do whatever it took to make this the best damn festival that that Polish beer garden had ever seen, and I pulled if off with flying colors if I do say so myself.
I got all twenty-seven of my unemployed friends to hand out fliers and take tickets in exchange for the aforementioned free sausage and beer, herded the unruly polka dancers into their places on time, got the latke vendors set up, and saw to it that the bagpipe parade went off without a hitch.
If there’s something you really want, I’m not (necessarily) saying you should lie to get it, but I am saying you’re probably lying to yourself if you’re not going after it.
Because so often when we say we’re unqualified for something, what we’re really saying is that we’re too scared to try it, not that we can’t do it.
Most of the time it’s not lack of experience that’s holding us back, but rather the lack of determination to do what we need to do to be successful.
We put so much energy into coming up with excuses why we can’t be, do, or have the things we want, and designing the perfect distractions to keep us from our dreams—imagine how far we’d get if we just shut up and used all that energy to go for it instead?
Here’s the good news:
1. We all know way more than we give ourselves credit for knowing.
2. We are drawn to things we’re naturally good at (which counts more than having a graduate degree in the subject, BTW).
3. There’s no better teacher than necessity.
4. Passion trumps fear.
In hindsight, I realized that I was more qualified for that job than I thought. I’m a big sister, which means I’m naturally bossy. I love throwing parties, and I can talk to anyone, even seventy-six-year-old Russian men who don’t speak English and are freaking out because they can’t find their tights.
I went on to do many more things that I was “unqualified” for, but I also wasted plenty of time pretending I wasn’t ready to do some other things I really wanted to do. And, shockingly, the times I jumped in and went for it were way more fun than the than the times I spent sitting around “getting ready,” and doing nothing, instead.
Whether it’s an online dating profile you’re not ready to post or a trip you want to take after you lose ten pounds or a business you want to start as soon as you save enough money . . . just start. Now. Do whatever it takes. You could get run over by the ice-cream man tomorrow.
One time I spent an entire month preparing my office to write a book. I got just the right chair, put the desk in the perfect place by the window, organized all the materials I needed and then reorganized them—three times—cleaned the place until you could perform surgery on the floor, and then proceeded to write the entire thing at my kitchen table.
Procrastination is one of the most popular forms of self-sabotage because it’s really easy.
There are so many fun things you can do in order to procrastinate, and there’s no lack of other people who are totally psyched to procrastinate with you.
And while it can be super fun in the moment, eventually the naughtiness buzz wears off and you’re sitting there a few years later, feeling like a loser, wondering why the hell you still haven’t gotten your act together. And why other people you know are getting big fat promotions at their jobs or taking trips around the world or talking about the latest orphanage they’ve opened in Cambodia on NPR.
If you’re serious about changing your life, you’ll find a way. If you’re not, you’ll find an excuse.
In the interest of getting you where you want to go in this lifetime, here are some tried-and-true tips to help you stop procrastinating:
1. REMEMBER THAT DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT
Just get the damn website up already or send out the mailer or make the sales calls or book the gig even though you’re not totally ready yet. Nobody else cares or will probably even notice that everything isn’t 100 percent perfect—and, quite honestly, nothing ever will be 100 percent perfect anyway so you might as well start now. There’s no better way to get things done than to already be rolling along—momentum is a wonderful thing, not to mention highly underrated, so get off your ass and get started. NOW!
2. NOTICE WHERE YOU STOP
When you’re working on whatever you’re working on, or whatever you’re pretending to work on, where exactly do you stop? Is it when you have to do the research? Make the scary phone calls? Figure out how to raise the money? Right after you start? When you have to commit? When it starts getting good? Right before it takes off? Before you even get out of bed?
If you can pinpoint the precise moment that you say, “Screw it—
I’m outta here!” you can prepare yourself for hitting the oil slick by hiring coaches or assistants or psyching yourself up or delegating that particular part of it out, or removing known distractions.
For example, let’s say you discover that every time you sit down to make calls to try and book yourself a speaking gig, you mysteriously find yourself pulled into Facebook for hours, turn off the Internet, or go someplace to make your calls where you can’t get online. Like a park. Or your car. Or Antarctica. And then decide that you have to make five calls before you can check back in and see if anyone commented on the picture you posted of your cat eating a potato chip.
3. MAKE A BET WITH SOMEONE MEAN
A good way to make yourself accountable is to make a bet with someone who will hold you to it. They must have no mercy—they can’t coddle you or “understand that you tried your best.” You want the kind of person who will make you feel humiliated even before the excuses come out of your mouth, or who will show up at your doorstep with a burlap sack, a big rock, and a blindfold should you attempt to wiggle out of paying your debt. And make sure you bet something that’s painful to lose but not too unrealistic. For example, you could bet someone a thousand dollars that you’ll have the first chapter of your book written by a certain date. Make it a payable amount that you really don’t want to pay, but that’s barely within your reach. Then write the check out to him, include the payment date, and keep it over your desk to remind you what’s in store if you don’t get the job done. And if you really want to up the stakes, tell him that if you don’t meet your deadline, instead of giving him the money, you’ll donate the thousand dollars to a group or cause that makes your flesh crawl. Personally, I find this kind of horror works wonders for my self-discipline.