Why you're not (yet) where you want to be

You know where you want to be, and you’ve probably already tried A LOT of things to get there. And if you’re anything like me, many of those personal development practices helped a bit, or for a while, but nothing seemed to really stick or change anything on a deeper level for you.

I believe I know why. 😎

And it is NOT because there’s anything wrong with you, or that you’re missing something important. It’s because you’re a few steps ahead already.

Let me explain.

What personal development practices & pain management have in common

Trying to soothe your stormy brain, your insecurities, or any other challenges you’re dealing with, is a lot like trying to soothe (chronic) physical pain, which, unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with.

So, let’s say I’ve had a few very high pain days and I know I have to do something in order to return to the land of the living. Two things that I know (and are generally known to) work well to support my screwed up back, are yoga and walking.

BUT❗️

If I practice yoga or take a stroll when I’m in that much pain, I only make it worse. Before doing things that will help me make it better, I have to do the things that help me make it stop getting worse.

To bring the increasing pain to a halt, I have to lay in bed for hours, sometimes days on end. That’s what will actually kickstart my recovery, which looks something like this:

See where I’m going with this?

It’s the same for anything in the realm of self-growth.

Whenever we’re longing for change, we tend to look at all the things that could possibly make it better, but we skip the whole ‘‘not getting worse’’ part.

Which is, as the very scientific & professional graph above illustrates, pretty unskippable. 🙃

And I know all the extensive courses, the morning routines and the tomes that should only be used as a door stopper, feel just big and tangible enough to be able to get you to your breakthrough.

I know, at the beginning, it makes you feel all warm, fuzzy and hopeful.

But when the steps you are trying to take are too big and/or far ahead:

You. Don’t. Succeed.

You seem to be doing all the right things, they seem to be working for other people, they should be working for you, but they aren’t.

Failure sucks, I think we can all agree on that, but there is something much worse that happens in this scenario.

It depletes your self-trust.

You start to feel powerless, discouraged, like it’s just not in the cards for you.

Because you’re giving your energy & attention to all the places where you DON’T have any power or control (like, literally anywhere that’s not your own response in the here and now), you forget about the power you DO have.

It’s good to know where you want to go, but once you know, it’s important to take a few steps back, and find your equivalent for lying in bed so the pain can first stop getting worse.

Let’s take one of the most popular personal development practices as an example: meditating to calm your mind

If you start a meditation practice while changing nothing about the way you approach your stormy brain, you’ll still get attached to your thoughts, subsequently get overwhelmed by crippling self-doubt, and judge yourself for it all.

You’ll just be meditating while you’re doing it. 👀

Nothing will fix these things, if you don’t change the way in which you respond to them. Doesn’t matter if you’re die-hard meditating or just living your life, real change is achieved only through the accumulation of all these small decisions to respond differently to that shitty thing that keeps happening.

Instead of putting all your effort into trying to magically calm your mind, put it into quitting certain things:

• Stop judging yourself for your overthinking (and if you’re already judging yourself for it, then stop judging yourself for THAT 😉).

• Stop believing, listening to, and/or identifying with your thoughts.

• Stop putting the spotlight of your attention on your inner critic.

• Stop letting your worries determine your actions.

• Stop living in the past or future.

• Stop giving your power away to something that you have no control over.

By changing your focus, your perspective, by changing how you respond to what’s already happening in the here and now, you stop going down the overthinking spiral.

Which means, you’ll actually start to grow your self-trust (which is one of the most important ingredients for be(com)ing your favorite self), and get the confirmation, again and again, that it IS possible for you and you have what it takes to get there.

💛 PS. To get you started on your journey of be(com)ing your favorite self, here's a short & sweet visualization to help you get out of your head and into your heart: