The Trap I See So Many People Falling Into & How To Avoid It
The trap I see so many people falling into is…not taking action.
Maybe you read loads of personal development books, listen to all the podcasts, save all the motivating social media posts.
You start to get a little more awareness.
Maybe you actually decide you want a morning routine, or realise you want to support yourself more when you feel stressed at work, or maybe you want to start repeating some empowering beliefs to see if you can start to believe in yourself more.
Then nothing……
You never act on this new awareness or even the ideas you have.
And everything stays the same.
You get frustrated, annoyed with yourself, annoyed that things aren’t changing – even though you are so much more aware of what could change and what you want to change.
I see this so much and it’s often why clients come to me – they are over being stuck in this cycle, they want things to be different.
Firstly, awareness is amazing. I really do want you to have greater awareness and understand yourself more but this will only get you so far.
To create the life you’re dreaming about, the changes you want, achieve the goals you desire, be the person you want to be, you need not only awareness but also action.
The key to change is AWARNESS + ACTION.
How do you avoid falling into this trap
I’m going to share a few key things I think you should be considering when you want to start taking some action.
When you feel calm and in a good headspace think about what you want the action to be. For example, don’t wait until you’re stressed at work to then think about how you want to support yourself.
Visualise yourself taking this action through to you completing it. Really connect with how good it will feel when you’ve done this and how you were able to support yourself while taking the action. Notice if anything came up which might stop you from taking the action (i.e. fears) and think about how you can work through that.
Set yourself up for success and make it as easy as possible for you to do. For example, if in the morning you want to journal or go to the gym, have your journal next to your bed and your gym clothes ready. The more obstacles you have, the more likely your unconscious mind is going to talk you out of doing it. Have reminders on your phone, alarms, calendar pop ups, post it notes – use whatever you need in the beginning to support you in taking this action. Don’t just leave it to chance, hoping you’ll magically wake up tomorrow and do it. You might but it’s completely ok to give yourself a helping hand in the beginning. When I want to integrate new beliefs into my unconscious mind, you best believe I have an alarm going off every morning to wake me up saying read my beliefs. And they are in a note on my phone pinned to the top. I want to make it as easy for myself to do it especially in the beginning so it becomes a habit.
Start simple but not so it’s boring. This will be completely dependent on the person and what it is but don’t feel like you need to change or implement everything at once. A common example, is often when people want to get fit they say right I’m going to walk 10k steps every day, workout every day, no carbs, no sugar. That might be a lot for you to do in one go, so how could you gradually integrate these changes into your life. Also, make sure it actually feels exciting to do rather than something so simple you feel like what’s the point - this will be personal to you but find the balance that feels right.
How can you make it enjoyable for yourself to do. Your unconscious mind doesn’t want you to do boring and unpleasant things so how can you make it fun and enjoyable to tick off the action you want to start taking?
Support – sometimes we can do all of the above and it’s still difficult, and that’s ok. If you’ve tried all of this and you just can’t get out of this cycle then know when to ask for support to help you uncover what in your unconscious mind is stopping you (our unconscious mind influences all of our behaviours everyday even if we’re not aware) AND keep you accountable (sometimes we all need a loving kick up the ass to actually do the thing).
I often say that the action you take in-between coaching sessions is where there is so much magic. It is during this time that you can be kinder to yourself, actually get up early to do a morning routine, challenge a negative thought, take a slightly scary but exciting step towards your goals.
With personal coaching I offer in-between session support, which means I’m on the other end of an email, text or voicenote, when you need support to take the action in real time and keep you accountable.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss how I can support you to start taking some action please get in touch.
Elyssa x
