How much do you owe to yourself
In this article we will put a light into why we still feel like we owe something to ourselves and we ain’t doing something about it.
Why is it that we postpone those activities that have a direct effect on our personal life but still we don’t commit to them? Why is it that we struggle so much with our personal discipline in comparison to being commited to external things and other people?
Basically we need to understand that there is a natural resistance to commit to personal disciplines because they change the way we live and there is an area of us that doesn’t want this change. We kind of want the benefits of a certain habit or activity but we don’t want to transform our whole lifestyle in order to stay commited.
There is also a biological factor, the way we live, think, feel, express, learn, etc meaning any experience is determined by our nervous system, so any change that we might want to make, we will have to make it also in our own brain. This is a big effort for him, it requires lots of energy, create new neuronal connections, reinforce them by repetition and basically teaching to our body the new way to be and do. Because our entire system took so many years to be the way it is, the older we get the harder is to change it. Its just too much work.
Fortunately this can change and its called neuroplasticity, the more we engage into new experiences, learn new stuff and keep healthy “brain workout” habits, the more we increase our possibilities to transform inside out. Travelling, meditation, languages, math, physical training, are just a few of ways to make our system to change.
Priority check
What are your priorities? What have been your priorities for the past 10 or 5 years? What priorities would you like to change or renew? Taking some time to reflect into our priorities is the best way to discard anything that we might believe we want but we are not prioritizing, because in the end if we are always feeling like we could do more or something different but we are never engaging actively into it, then the number one reason is that we don’t really want do it. Being honest to ourselves is good and we should not be embarassed to accept that we don’t want to look fit, we don’t want to stop eating ice cream or we don’t want to change our social lifestyle.
The priority meter
One good exercise is to make a list of your priorities, usually something in between 6 to 12, you draw a circle, give to each one of them a current level of accomplishment from 1 to 10 and ask yurself in a short term how much you would like to improve their level and what actions are you going to take right now to do so. Write down the date and hang it on the wall in a very visible way so you never lose sight of your priority activities.
Spot your kind of resistance
Right after you know your priorities with certainty you will want to spot on what kind of resistances you will have to beat up. I believe this is as important as the first part because we may do the motivational coaching job to define our next goals a thousand times and never really getting them. We need to know our enemy that lies in the shadows and we know it very well, it is just so good at hidding itself. Here is a list of the most common resistances that we all might have.
- Attachment, addiction.
- Comfort, lazyness.
- Evasion, procrastination.
- Overthinking, doubt.
- Fear, distrust.
- Lack of motivation and vision.
Once you have clarity over your main resistances you will be able to create a strategy to overcome them and step forward towards a life in which you feel really happy and connected to your own self, with the peace that you are actually doing everything that is in you to feel that way and having the results you wanted.
Accountability peers and coaching
Asking for help is one of the simplest way to introduce changes in our life, changing our social circle, having an accountability partner, sorround yourself with people with same goals and aspirations, and so on. Because there are some neurons that act as mirror and they literally copy the neurons of other people, we can induce behavioral changes by imitating how others drive their life.
Finally having a coach can be very transformative in various ways and can help you to jump from level 0 to 100 faster and better. Not because a coach is a divine being, but because is a person that has studied and perfectioned techniques to do so. Also because to be a coach and set an example to others, that individual had to overcome his/her own negligence. In the end nobody is an exception to the rule, we are all human beings with sort of the same problems and challenges.
If you want to get a call with me just send me a DM and will happily help you as much as I can.
