74: Stop telling yourself that you are behind.
What do you struggle to keep up with? Maybe it's managing your daily schedule, completing a course or embracing a healthy habit.
Whatever it is, one of your obstacles is definitely the thought "I'm behind." In this episode, I've got two examples to show you exactly how this plays out and why it's not useful. And good news, it's also never true! So you can stop thinking it immediately, and start moving forward a lot faster.
"You'll never get ahead while thinking you're behind."
Links
Sound editing is provided by Erik Hulslander at hearnoevilmedia.com
Schedule a coaching consultation at https://www.linsibrownson.com/get-started
Transcript
You are listening to Be Brilliant in Your Business, the podcast for small business owners to be focused, energized and in charge as you build the business you love.
Hey, Mavericks. How you guys doing?
Today we're talking about falling behind, which is a nonsense thought that I want you to stop thinking immediately.
And I think chances are pretty good that you have this thought "I'm falling behind" about something in your life or in your business. I've actually been seeing quite a bit of this recently online for some reason, there's a lot of social media posting, like, "Hey guys, I'm so behind on posting here on Instagram, but I'm gonna try to catch up now." And in email newsletters, and I also hear this, of course on the regular from my clients. When they get behind on things like proposals that they need to be writing, or courses that they've decided to take. And there's just, you know, this is #businessowner life. So, you're in good company.
This is understandable if you're doing this, but it is not useful, and it's time to break this habit. I want you to break the chain because it is just not helpful at all. It's a really destructive thought. You think you're just noticing this, but you will never get ahead while you're thinking you're falling behind. There's just no winning with this thought. There is only resistance or there's defeat.
Let me give you an example. So let's take an example of falling behind in a course that you're taking. I think this one will be relevant for a lot of us. So what does that mean?
If you think "I'm falling behind," it probably means that you bought the course with an expectation of how much time you were going to spend learning and implementing it, and being part of the community, or whatever it is that was included in this course that you bought. And that expectation isn't being met. Maybe you're taking longer to go through it through it than you thought you would. Or maybe you're just not spending as much time on it as you told yourself, you would. Maybe you're mad because you thought it would be finished and your life would be different and things would be amazing by now.This is #businessownerproblems, I totally get it. But I really want to break this down and look at what happens when you think that you are behind.
So let's look at the example of not spending as much time on it, as you told yourself that you would. So you bought this course you expected that you would work on it, and you haven't been doing it. And then what happens when you look at that and you think I'm falling behind? How do you feel?
I'm going to guess that you feel guilty or you feel overwhelmed. And what do you do when you feel guilty? Well, chances are you will take one, or maybe both - a layered approach - to handling your guilt. And of course, I'm generalizing here, but I want you to play along with this and see what comes up for you.
So option one; You think "I'm falling behind" and you feel guilty. You beat yourself up a bit, tell yourself that you probably should have known better. And you come up with all the reasons - all the times in the past - when you fell behind. And how you're not a person who finishes things, you're not trustworthy, you aren't acting in integrity. You basically spin yourself around in negative self talk.
And maybe you take some action, perhaps you make yourself a catch up to do list. This is basically a list of all the things you failed at so far, right? And then maybe if you can get through that whole list, then you can feel better about yourself. Or maybe you decide to move your deadline forward or you create a "more manageable" schedule for yourself. Or maybe you'll drop something else that you had planned to do and decide that this has to be worked on right now.
Right? So, we create urgency. Maybe you'll decide that you're going to work late and just squeeze in these extra couple hours. You're kind of choosing to punish yourself and get it done. All of these things, any of these options lead you to defeat, because you're spending your valuable time and energy thinking about this problem instead of working on your project. Now, best case scenario, you choose to overwork yourself for a few days or a few weeks, and you do get all the things done, you push through, you get to the end, maybe there's some good things that come out of this.
But what's the trade off? I want you to really start considering the trade offs that you're making in your life. In this case, maybe one trade-off is your health, your sleep, the enjoyment of the process, your excitement to do something like this in the future, right? You didn't treat yourself well this time around, so why would your future self be a gung-ho to do something like this again? You definitely didn't strengthen your relationship with yourself. So you might be glad to have it done. You might feel proud of yourself for pushing through. But then you're building your opinion of yourself based on the willingness to sacrifice you in an effort for creation. That's defeat.
So that's one option, when you think I'm falling behind. Option two is that, when you feel guilty because you're thinking "I'm falling behind," then you start justifying all of your reasons why. You say things like "it's too complicated," or you're "confused about what you actually want," or "[confused about] how to do it" or "[confused about] what's next.""Maybe it's not the right program for you, maybe it's not the right time. Maybe what you really need right now is self care, and then you can try again someday." "Once the kids are back in school." "Or you really need to take yourself on a working retreat, and you can get it done there." This you guys is complete resistance. You're trying to override that feeling of being guilty. You're talking yourself out of feeling bad. But when we resist our emotions, we think that we're pushing it away. We're actually only pushing ourselves further away from the life that we really want.
So thinking, "I'm falling behind", there is no winning. It's only destructive. It only creates resistance or creates defeat. It will do nothing for you. I want you to start to really pay attention to where you're doing this in any area of your life. And here's the thing: It's an optional thought. You don't ever have to believe that you're falling behind. You can make your current circumstance mean anything that you want it to.
So if you haven't been dedicating the time that you thought you would to a project, ask yourself why. Give yourself some compassion, to be curious and just explore why you haven't been making it a priority. Why you haven't been making the time. It gives you such a powerful opportunity to get to know yourself, and to love yourself even when you don't meet your own expectations.
How you treat yourself when things don't go according to plan, when you aren't showing up as the person you would like to be, this is going to have such a big impact on your ability, your willingness to take risks. To set higher goals, to go after bigger and better things.
If you keep telling yourself that you fall behind, and that you aren't capable of finishing these projects, and that you always have excuses for them, then you're never going to be willing to take the risk - and honestly to do failure after failure after failure that is required for you to really have the things that you want in your life. The less you practice thinking that you are behind, the faster and more energetically you will move forward.
So what is it that you think that you are behind on right now? And what might you choose to think about it instead? I will leave you with that. Have a great week, you guys.
Hey, I know that running a small business can feel complicated. So let me help you uncomplicate it. I teach people how to harness their creative brainpower to take clear and focused action to accomplish their goals without burning out. I offer a free one hour consultation where we uncover what is really getting in your way right now.
And I'll show you step by step how to create an aligned business that you will love to build. In this conversation. I'm going to give you the foundation to work on confidently every single day, and it's going to be super simple. I want you to have the time and energy and freedom for everything that you want in life. And I want you to start having it right now. To find a time that works for you, visit linsibrownson.com