What’s blocking your path?
I was talking to a dear friend recently about their work and relationship commitments, and how over-stretched they’ve felt.
A huge people-pleaser, he’s felt torn between the competing demands of loved ones (who are going through mental health challenges), and his own inner battle between looking after himself and feeling guilty for doing so.
It made me think of my own struggles in this area. While I wouldn’t count myself as a people pleaser per se, I do still a have a tendency to prioritise other people’s tasks and requests above my own.
In fact, I now have a post-it note above my desk reminding me to “pay myself first”, to try and counter this tendency.
It’s originally taken from the world of personal finance, and the accruing of savings before you make any expenditures. But when you have limited energy to expend, as I do, it’s a useful - if sometimes challenging - reminder to take into one’s personal workday.
Because, as I’ve discovered, it’s so much easier for me to grasp what’s needed for someone else. With distance comes perspective, perhaps, and what needs to be done is often on a practical level; a problem to solve, an action to take. A clear next step is visible.
It’s the same with the procrastination many writers experience. I have a couple of writing projects on my horizon (including a dissertation. Eek!)
The running joke for writers is that ALL OF A SUDDEN the need to clear out a kitchen cupboard/re-organise a closet/completely clean and reorganise an entire house becomes UTTERLY COMPELLING and must be done RIGHT THIS MOMENT. Thinking about what to write feels HARD. What shall I write? Jeez, I don’t know! Let me do something where I KNOW what I need to do, and there’s a defined ending in clear sight, I beg you.
Now, there is some research which suggests that allowing the mind to wander during mundane tasks frees us up to have more creative thinking - albeit only if we’re chewing on the problem first to prime our subconscious to keep ticking things over on our mental back-burner. So there is some logic to this behaviour (maybe).
But the explanation I keep coming back to is the one I first heard in The Do Lectures The Missing Lesson:
“We are kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.”
―Robert Brault
Honestly, most of what I spend my time on is because a) there’s a clear path to it, and b) it’s clear because my larger personal goals are pretty undefined. They need some head-scratchery to define, which is tough when you’re already feeling overwhelmed or exhausted.
Which reminds me of something I read in David Allen’s classic book Getting things Done: “There are only two problems in life 1) you know what you want but you don’t know how to get it and/or 2) you don’t know what you want.”
His advice is to 1) make it up and 2) make it happen. But I keep feeling wary about simply ‘making something up’. What if I make something up to do, and then hate it?
So I’m feeling really lucky to have invested in The Happy Startup School’s Vision 20/20 programme to create an “excite strategy”. I’m in a cohort of 20 other change makers and entrepreneurs, focusing on 4 different areas over 20 weeks, to help support, generate ideas, and give structure to my emergent self-employment.
I’m currently focusing on Purpose and tuning into my needs, with the understanding that building a business to meet them will be far more sustainable in the long-term.
I’m hoping that intentionally defining what I want to do through the needs it meets, alongside living my values, will help me to create a richer and more meaningful life.
So when my people-pleasing tendencies come to the fore, I know that I’m acting from a healthy place of sustainable compassion, rather than drawing from a well of unmet need.
How about you? What’s your obstacle to defining or reaching a goal?
Photo by Skitterphoto: https://www.pexels.com/photo/gray-pathway-surrounded-by-green-tress-41102/
