You know what you should do…but you don’t do it
February 28, 2008
Why do you procrastinate when you know that you should just make the phone call?
Why do you not go to the gym when you know you should?
You probably think it’s because you are lazy, but that’s not why.
Why do you say yes to other people when you know you should focus on finishing your own client work?
Why do you let other people’s comments make you feel bad about yourself?
You probably think its because you are too nice or too thin skinned, but that’s not why.
Here’s why you do that.
If you are like most people, you tend to look at a single behavior and think that one behavior is what you do to ‘get in your own way’. For example, you think “my problem is that I procrastinate”. You know techniques to change that one behavior, BUT you don’t use them and life doesn’t change much.
That’s because its rarely a single behavior that is ‘getting in your way’. Generally your ‘single behavior’ is embedded in a whole approach that you have to your life. The reason that you don’t have the willpower to change that one behavior in the moment is that you have not yet built ‘who you need to be’ in order to do things differently. As long as you are still being who you are now, you need that behavior. It serves a purpose for you –it helps you feel confident and worthy in yourself.
If that sounds like a stretch, let me explain. Procrastination is not putting yourself out there in order to prevent other people from shooting you down or giving you feedback that would make you keep doubting yourself. Thus, the reason you procrastinate is because you have a doubt about yourself and therefore you must avoid putting yourself out there in a way that could erode your shaky confidence. Its not about being lazy. You don’t even necessarily have to work hard to change that procrastination habit. If you got your confidence from within, you wouldn’t have to hold yourself back in order to protect your shaky confidence from other’s opinions.
Here’s another example: If you say “yes” to other people when you mean to say “no”, its not just about scheduling your time differently or just learning to say ‘no’. You probably know how to say ‘no’ already, but you are not doing it. Why? Your ‘overgiving’ behavior serves the purpose of getting other people to think well of you. You get them to think well of you so that you can borrow your confidence from the way you’ve gotten them to think about you. If you had strong confidence in yourself, you would be able to choose what to do based on whether it fit in well with the results you want for your life. You wouldn’t need to do behaviors, such as say ‘yes’ when you mean to say ‘no’, in order to build your confidence through others’ eyes.
As long as you are trying to derive your confidence and worthiness from certain behaviors, it doesn’t matter that you “know” you should be doing it differently – you will repeatedly turn to the things that help you feel confident in yourself (even though they just help you manage other people’s perceptions of you but in the end just keep you unconfident). The only way forward is to build a rock solid sense of confidence from within.
Questions to ask yourself:
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What are two things you often know you should be doing but don’t do?
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How does it affect your view of yourself that you repeatedly don’t do the things you know you should?
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How is “not doing what you know you should” affecting the amount of money you earn each month and the amount of time you spend with your family each night?
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If you felt truly confident in yourself, how would you act differently?
If you are sick of floating through your days and getting down on yourself for knowing what you should do but not doing it, don’t end up kicking yourself for not having joined my course in NYC starting in 5 days. Now is your chance! The course guarantees that you will build unprecedented rock solid confidence in yourself within 2 months.
There are only 3 seats left and registration ends tomorrow. Act before the deadline and be the last to slip into this exclusive opportunity to be mentored by Sharon personally. This is the last time she will offer this course at this price this year.
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