We often find that we have all these great plans and ideas but never do anything about them that we let them go round and round in our minds but never find the right time to start them. We make excuses for ourselves,
I’m too busy
I haven’t got enough time right now.
I haven’t got the equipment.
My idea won’t work.
I’m not able to do it.
I’ll start it next week.
It’s overwhelming.
I’m too tired.
Sound familiar? It may not be anything that big we want to do it might just be wanting to clear the spare room of the clutter that’s accumulated but whatever it is we are the ones who get in our way and prevent us from achieving our goals.
I can think of many times in my own life when I have allowed my thoughts to get in my own way and prevent me from moving forward and achieving my goals.
Whether it was something big like setting up my own business, creating and launching my own product range, writing my first blog or it was trying to clear through my to-do list at home.
I could think of every reason why I couldn’t start there and then, why I wasn’t good enough to do it, why I just needed to do other things first, why I needed more time or energy to be able to focus on it. You name it I’ve probably used it….
Then on the back of a conversation with a great friend I realised that I could continue as I was getting frustrated with myself and beating myself up and making excuses to myself about why I couldn’t do things and continue and accept it or I could make some changes.
I realised then that even though I wanted to make changes that the only thing stopping me was myself.
No, I didn’t suddenly find that from that point onwards I stopped making excuses and finding reasons not to do things – I still do that, but I started to look for ways I could make these things happen.
What Did I Do?
Well, whether it was dealing with things like clearing out the back bedroom or writing my own blog I started by taking my ideas and plans and breaking them down into much smaller steps. Steps that were difficult for me to use any of my previous excuses/reasons to prevent me from doing them.
Steps that were small enough sometimes for it to take longer for me to think of all my excuses than it was to actually do them.
What Did That Mean?
I would like to use the following examples to explain what I did and how it worked for me.
1. Clearing a cluttered room – this was a room I used as a place to put things when I didn’t have time to put them all away like when someone was coming around and I wanted to clear the clutter from downstairs, I would gather it all up and put it in the spare bedroom intending to sort later, but never did and over time the room just became full.
I Set Myself Two Tasks.
a. To spend 5 minutes every day clearing things from the room or putting them away where they belonged in the room.
b. If I ever went into the room for any other reason, I had to pick up 1 item and put it away.
The outcome was that I found it easy to focus 5 minutes each day on the task and often found I spent longer clearing more than I intended and when I went in for another reason more often than not, I picked up more than 1 item to put away. Ensuring that within a short time the room was cleared.
Every time from then on that I did use the room to quickly clear things away, I started the process again, and generally, the room is now in a clear state permanently but when it isn’t the time it takes to sort is minimal.
2. Writing my blogs or articles. Every time I thought about writing them, I was overwhelmed with thoughts of not being able to make them interesting or useful, thoughts of why anybody would be interested in what I had to say, and also that I didn’t know what to write about or what to say so I broke it down into small steps. I told myself I would write something and didn’t have to share it or post it and I broke it down into smaller steps.
a. I wrote down the steps I needed to take.
b. I chose a topic but not a title.
c. I set myself targets to write just a paragraph at a time.
d. I set a task to review it when written
e. Chose a title
f. Find and add the images I wanted.
g. Share the blog/article.
Breaking it down in this way took away my fears and excuses and allowed me to make a start, I found more often than not that once I started writing, I just continued until I was done.
The hardest part for me was to actually press the button to make my blog live or to send the email to the editors.
I have used this technique now in many areas of my life to help me achieve the things I have wanted, big or small. It doesn’t necessarily take away the excuses or fears but it’s helped me achieve things I never thought I would.
Over the last few years, I have set up my own business, created my own range of Inspiration products “Moments of Inspiration”, written a book due to be published soon with a second one started, taken on a second business running a Networking business “Unique ladies network (Salford)” and become a trustee for the Endeavour Project a charity supporting victims of Domestic violence.
What are the things that you keep putting off?
What have you always wanted to do but haven’t?
What dreams have you got that you haven’t started working towards?
What’s holding you back?
Why Not Take Your First Step Today?
