Have you ever had a goal in mind, and as much progress as you made towards it, you never seemed to achieve it?
That's where I sit on one of my goals for this year, and I only made four goals for 2016 so each one has some weight to it. I knocked off one within the first 3 months of the year and thought I was on track to check each one of the list with a quickness, however here I sit entering the 7th month of the year and wondering why I haven't made much progress on the others.
Of course I can come up with plenty of reasons (and many of them you might agree would be very good) as to why I haven't checked off the second goal yet, but within those justifications lies the key to unlock the door that's holding back my motivation to get it done. Actually the key is not within the reasons themselves but rather because I can make reasons.
Why would I make up reasons to justify not achieving my current goal?
The answer is simple, and it's always the same, FEAR.
I might as well tell you what my goal is so I can give you some context for this. (Even writing the goal as I type has caused me to slow down so as to put off being held accountable for it.) The goal that I'm currently stuck on is starting a blog. There it is. I said it. I may have told some of you, but putting it out there in the newsletter takes it to a bigger (and scarier) level for me.
Why would I be afraid of starting a blog?
When pondering that question, a few things came up. I've talked with songwriters before who have told me that they get scared every time they play an original song in front of a crowd because it puts you in a place of vulnerability. They are baring their soul and exposing their innermost self to the audience. What happens if they don't like what they see, or in this case hear? You feel rejected, and for those of us that have experienced heartbreak like that, you're not in a big hurry to feel that again.
But there's gotta be something more to it than that. I could face that and know that I won't be rejected by everyone. There's gotta be something deeper, a part of my inner psyche that is challenged by the thought of publishing my thoughts through writing... and there it is! It's not me as I stand in life now that's afraid. It's a part of my identity that I created when I was younger, partially by me and partially by the people around me.
I'm a math guy, not an English person.
Whoa! That hit me deep. I can feel that inner part of myself freaking out for being seen right now. He's clouding my thoughts so I can't even think straight enough to continue typing. That part of myself that is buried deep inside my personality is the part that is self sabotaging my plan to start blogging because if I do HIS identity is challenged. What is he to do? How will he contribute to my current life if I become a writer? He's throwing out "what if" questions around in my head to throw my focus off, keeping his role safe and secure in my personality.
My responsibility to myself is to make sure I'm kind to myself, all of me, every last little bit.
Therefore I have to be kind to this aspect within me. I need to check in with this "math guy" persona and find out what he needs to feel secure and make sure he knows that he is still loved and he can still help out. I don't need to throw out that part of me because I'm shifting focus in my work.
Well, I'm deciding right now as I am typing this sentence that this is to be my first blog entry. I had no intention of that when I started writing this story down, but it seems like it's the right thing to do. What will happen next? I have no idea. I'll put another entry together in July, probably the one I planned on being the first entry, but things don't always go the way we plan them.
And like with many things I do in life, I'll start this blog without exactly knowing how to do it or how it will turn out. I've had to learn to have faith. Trust that this process will lead me as I go through it. I can't know how it will turn out. That ruins the adventure, and life is just that... an adventure.
Cheers to being a part of my adventure.