Welcome back guys! This is episode #017 of To Take It Or Leave It, a podcast to help you change the way you look at things, end your mental suffering and give you some motivation and inspiration to live your best life! I’m so glad you’re here! I’m Val Poirier and I’m your host. If you haven’t done so yet, please hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. Today’s topic is: How To Take Action Even When You Don’t Feel Like It.
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So you’re feeling stuck. You might even know what you need to do but you just can’t make yourself do it. What can you do to get going? It’s important to know that every challenge is solvable. People often focus too much on the problem instead of the solution.
Fear and laziness have the power to kill your dreams. They both cause you to hesitate and not take the action you need to.
Let’s take for example that you finally decide you want to get in shape. You’re tired of being overweight, not being able to run around with your kids and not liking how you feel about yourself. Laziness is one of the reasons you’re there in the first place and this is your comfort zone. It’s what your brain wants you to go back to because that’s what it knows. Or maybe your focus is on how hard starting to exercise is going to be with you and this fear is stopping you from doing anything! Your spouse won’t do it with you. Your best friend won’t do it with you. You feel like you have no support and then the idea slowly dies. If you have an idea and don’t take action within 24 hours, it will start to die a slow death.
Shifting gears out of the day-to-day mode that you’re used to requires intention and for you to use a different skill that you may not be very good at yet. Remember not to let challenges stop you though and shift yourself to go into problem solving mode! Going back to our exercise example, what will you do when you’re feeling lazy to get yourself going? Maybe you’ll watch a motivational video to perk yourself up! Maybe you’ll call your friend and ask her to talk you through it. And what about fear? How will you get past that? Maybe you’ll change your focus to your goal and your why?
The problem here is your psychology, your mindset. You could subconsciously be scared that if you do get in shape that there will be some unintended consequences. You’ll need to buy new clothes. Your partner might still be out of shape and you could start getting attention which could cause for some uncomfortable feelings. You might worry about outgrowing relationships with people who participate in activities you no longer want to take part in. You could also be scared that you won’t succeed in getting in shape so why bother trying and failing. You might question what people will think of you if you get in shape. Will they think you’re vain because you want to look good or will they think you’re better than them because you want to be healthy? If you worry about what other people think of you, you’ll live a life they want you to live instead of the life you want to live. People might think these things or they might not. Maybe they’ll talk to you about how the changes you’re making in your life make them feel but maybe they won’t. You’re not saying anything about how they want to live their life the old way you used to but they may not be able to deal with their feelings around you changing because they aren’t.
What are some ways that you can take action even when you don’t feel like it?
So often, people repeat disempowering habits. The things that you say to yourself guys, you may not even know you’re repeating them in your head. Then you end up seeing the world through that pattern – I don’t want to; I don’t feel like it – you will never achieve your goals from a disempowered emotional state. If you’re feeling blah and you give in to the blahs, your neurotransmitters will fire back blah. Don’t feed the blah! Do anything to change your state – go for a 10-minute walk, turn on some fun music and have a dance party – it changes everything. Having emotional rituals of doing something for 5-10 minutes in the morning that make you feel good is a game changer! Get resourceful and change your energy. Have a cold shower! Intentionally move your body and shift your pattern.
If your goal seems too big, break it down into smaller pieces. If there are too many smaller pieces then you’ll need to have some smaller goals within your big goal to work towards. You could start with exercising three days a week for a month, then add a day every month until you get to every day of the week. Yes, the end goal is to get in shape but you can have some smaller goals within your big goal to celebrate and keep you motivated!
Get clear on your outcome and stay focused on the end goal if you’re not excited about the activity to achieve it. You need a why. Do you want to be able to run around more with your kids? Do you want to feel more attractive with your partner? Do you want to feel more confident in your own skin? I have to work out won’t get you out of bed, but I’m so committed to being healthy and being a healthy role model for my kids. It needs to become a part of your identity.
Make a list of the actions you could do? Which ones will make the biggest difference? Which ones will create the most momentum? Something that I often see when the kids need to clean up the play area is that they don’t know where to start. I often ask them what will make the biggest impact and it’s always the dress up clothes. Once those are picked up and put away, it seems like such a smaller task to complete!
Whatever the biggest, scariest thing is that you’re resisting? Do that first. Don’t do the busy work. Develop the habit of doing the things you don’t want to do. It doesn’t need to be a battle. Win it for a few weeks and it becomes a habit and you won’t need to psych yourself up every day. Your goals should catch your breath a little bit. If your breath isn’t taken away a bit, you’re not going big enough. If it’s not big enough, you won’t work hard for it.
Mentoring with accountability is a great tool to start and helps you until a certain point then you have to be accountable to yourself. What are the mindset patterns to the things that are making you not do the things you’re not doing – pull it apart and create a new mindset. It’s almost impossible to do that on our own, a good coach can tell you why you’re having that mental conflict and get you reconnected to the why. The faster you can move past your own psychological limitations the faster you’re going to grow. The limitation of the growth in your life is the limitation in your mindset and psychology. Life is going to teach you lessons and if you don’t get it, it will keep trying until you get it. Fear is always going to hold you back until you do something about it
That’s it for today guys! Please share this podcast with someone you know and help share my message. Remember to love yourself first. You know yourself better than anyone else and be confident that you will make the right decisions for how to live YOUR best life.
If you want me to work with you to help get past some of these things and sort these things out and you want to pull this stuff apart and get past the fear and get past the resistance and get into action where the results live, then I want you to go to totakeitorleaveit.com/coaching and book a call. The way that works is we’ll get on the phone for about 45 minutes and you can tell me all your fears, everything you’re stuck on, all the problems you’re having, all the problems you think you might have. Just tell me what it looks like now and what you want it to look like in the future and I’ll help you come up with a step-by-step game plan to get you to where you want to go.
No matter what’s holding you back or what’s resisting you, I can guarantee you I’ve seen it before. I know you might feel like you’re the only person out there who’s struggling with this, or you might feel like no one gets it or no one understands it, your friends don’t get it, your family doesn’t get it. You’re talking to them about how you feel and they just have no idea what you’re talking about. It can be really lonely if you’re out there and no one gets it and there are no answers. But I can tell you right now that whatever is on your mind, whatever you’re stuck on, I can help you. These problems that seem so big and overwhelming are just the kinds of things I deal with every day. So go to totakeitorleaveit.com/coaching and book a call to speak to me and let me get you back into action so that you’re doing the right things right, and you feel great about what you’re doing so that you’re doing the right things and building the kind of life you’ve been dreaming of building. Again, that’s totakeitorleaveit.com/coaching. Don’t wait any longer!
If you’re looking for more motivation to achieve YOUR goals in life, join my Facebook group! This is an amazing community of like-minded people! You can find it in my profile on Instagram @valcpoirier. Also, tag me in your stories with my podcast and what you think or what you’re doing while you listen to it and I’ll share it right back in mine! You are worthy and you are beautiful and I truly appreciate you all. Keep reaching for your goals guys … you got this! See you next time!