How to Finally Do that Thing You Keep Putting Off

Do you know what you need to do but for some reason you’re just not doing it?

You’ve put it on your to do list, you’ve told your husband, your mom, or your friend, you think about it all the time, but you just keep not doing it?

It’s like procrastination on steroids, right?

There’s no real deadline, so it just keeps getting kicked further and further down the road.

Another day, you say.

When there’s something you really want to move forward with in your life, but you keep not doing it, you’re suffering from a nasty little pest called resistance.

In his books, The War of Art and Turning Pro, Steven Pressfield explains that as humans we all suffer from it.  It comes in many forms – most of which appear to be true and genuine obstacles, or worthy distractions.

But at the end of the day, when resistance rears its ugly head (which is usually daily), you’re still not doing the thing you know you need to do.  The only way to make actual progress is to beat resistance.

One of my favorite ways to beat resistance is a visualization exercise that I learned from my coach Lois Barth, which I’ll be teaching tomorrow night at Happy Mama LIVE!  In a nutshell, it involves really separating yourself from the inner voice that tries to distract you and hinder you from achieving your goals, recognizing that voice is not you, and practicing the art of witnessing what it has to say, and then releasing it without judgment – of either the voice or of yourself.

If it sounds simplistic, it is.  But it’s not easy.  It takes hard work.  It takes COMMITMENT.  But anything worth doing takes commitment, right?

Like beating resistance.

In fact, the moment you make the commitment, the moment you decide you are moving forward, resistance has been beaten.

It’s like the famous Goethe quote (which may not actually be attributable to him; sources are unclear):

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

You CAN take the action you want to take.  You CAN live the life you want to live.

You just have to decide.

Are you committed?

Share in the comments below what commitment you are ready to make today.  Scary, I know.  But social accountability rocks.  When you say it out loud, to another human being, it makes the commitment even more real, right?  Which makes YOU more likely to act.

So say it.  Beat resistance.  We’re all here supporting you.