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June 2, 2009 I have been giving more thought to what's holding us back from moving forward as quickly as we desire. You may have noticed that I am reluctant to say what is holding us back from being successful. This is because I notice that many of my clients do not view themselves as being successful and yet by almost everyone's "yardstick" they would be considered very successful.
What is it that is holding us back? In my previous article, I called this procrastination. The dictionary definition of procrastination is postponing on a regular basis. What is it that we are postponing? Sometimes I wonder whether we know what it is that we are postponing. Perhaps, that should be the first step. Let's identify what is it that we are postponing? Do we know what it is? That may be the issue. What is the next step that if we took it would help us move foward? Can we identify it? If not, perhaps we need to find out what it is. Or if we do know what it is we are postponing then we may want to examine what it is about that task we don't like or are reluctant to move on. By answering or perhaps simply reflecting on these questions may help us move forward.
Another thought that I had is that often we "self-talk" and say the reason that we are procrastinating is because believe we are lazy. But are we lazy? Do you honestly believe you are lazy? I tend to think of myself as hard-working and I think most people feel they have a reasonably good work ethic. I suspect that if I were to tell clients and friends they were lazy that I would not have many clients or friends. I believe that the voice saying we are lazy is in reality our Inner Critic speaking. You know that voice that says we are not good enough, deserving enough, not fast enough, not smart enought, too tall, not pretty or handsome enought, etc. So could it be that procrastination is not us being lazy. Is it our Inner Critic making us believe we are lazy. Let's recognize that it is our Inner Critic saying we are lazy even though in reality we are hard-working individuals who want to move foward. Recognizing that we are not lazy enables us to take that next step.
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