I was recently exposed to the idea that, in life, we can be “in our own way”…

I was watching a FaceBook Live video of a lovely lady who had challenged herself to actually sing – real time - for her online audience (boy! Was she good!). But her preamble to the song was how we lock ourselves up in man-made cages, and limit ourselves by – wait for it – “getting in our own way”. We shrink back, and allow ourselves to believe that we are incompetent, inexperienced, reaching too high, punching above our weights, making a fool of ourselves, and wholly inadequate.  If she had attuned to her own hang-ups, and been in her own way, she wouldn’t have published her breath-taking video. Her video went on to inspire nearly everyone who watched it. And, importantly, it inspired her!  She wouldn’t otherwise have known the sense of pride on completion, and wouldn’t have experienced the resultant self-confidence boost, which then opens up the world of possibilities.

We can listen to all of our insecurities and hang-ups. They say things like:

• “It is what it is”.
• “It’s the economy you know… It’s terrible”.
• “All the best ones are taken”.
• “I’ve failed before; I’m not trying any further. I just can’t”.
• “There’s nothing new under the sun”.

In life, and love, and finances, and success, we are often our most significant barrier to achievement.

This concept resonated with me, and I wanted to write it up for you, so that you can benefit too. We all have goals and aspirations, right..? Whether it’s to save up for a special holiday, or lose some weight, or become physically fit… Or write a book, start a business, move town or country… Start a relationship or end a relationship… Put down the wine or the cigarettes or the credit card. We can become feverishly excited about the idea of success, at first, but, in time, motivation often dwindles right down to a trickle, and then a clotted mess. And we find ourselves right back at square one, stuck in our status quo, and going nowhere slowly.

You are in your own way if you:

• Will always be starting your diet or fitness plan ‘on Monday’ (I battle here too!)
• Will start saving just after you get those shoes or that new car.
• Work on an exciting project until it feels difficult, and then abandon it, and rather binge-watch TV series.
• Press ‘snooze’ more than once, each morning.
• Tell white lies (and even darker lies) to your partner, to avoid drama, rather than going through the effort of the difficult conversations.
• Sometimes move automatically through a day, and berate yourself by bedtime with how little you achieved.
• Know you should change jobs, but don’t have the energy to physically search and apply.
• Know what you should be doing, in any given instance, and then consciously and almost deliberately seem to do the complete opposite (no judgement here; we’re all in this together!)

So why do we get in our own way?

1. Success is Scary; the status quo is not.

Perhaps somewhat exaggerated, but we’ve all heard stories of obese women who slim down, only to boomerang back into fatness once they experience unwanted attention, or feel pressured to date. Or of heavy drinkers who teetotal for months, and then fall spectacularly off the wagon. Or of people who study diligently for months, and then lose momentum and don’t even sit their exams. Success has its own demands. Positive change has an emotional price tag.

The status quo is the “devil we know”. To move beyond our current stuckness, we need to put ourselves out there. We need to take risks. We need to “sing on film”. Change, and fear of change, awakens all the scary little voices in our head.

We get to choose in this life:  we can be scared of trying. Or we can regret never having tried. It’s mostly as simple as that.

2. We don’t like uncomfortable feelings. But discomfort makes us grow.

If we try, we could fail. If we fail, we would feel bad. If we feel bad, we could go into decline.

When we try, and don’t immediately succeed, we may have the discomfort of a bruised ego. We may be flooded with feelings of incompetence, and diminished self-esteem. We may feel that our faith in life is challenged. But these feelings are PROGRESS FEELINGS!!

I call them PROGRESS feelings because they can help us grow! We actually need to have a dented ego, from time to time. It’s good for the soul and keeps us humble and introspective. It makes us empathic. If we feel incompetent, it’s often because we KNOW that we have a better effort within us, and so the feeling communicates the need to dig deeper and find that core efficiency. When our faith is challenged, we find greater truths that make more sense to us, and our philosophies become more whole and polished.

But what if we don’t try..? What if we stay stuck, in whatever form our personal stuckness takes..? The truth is that then we would feel bad too, but that would be a different, more serious, type of bad. That’s the kind of “bad” that leads to REGRET. Regret is often a problem that can’t be solved. I would – any day - choose the discomfort of stretching, over the pangs of regret.

3. We’re a little compulsive, and not very disciplined.

There are hundreds of definitions of compulsiveness. Mine is simply “an inability to tolerate emotional discomfort, and a corresponding need to do something quickly to make the feeling go away”. I would go as far as to say that this describes the vast majority of what I encounter in my private practice. People are anxious, depressed and frustrated. And rather than just being anxious, depressed and frustrated, they feel the need to launch themselves out of those emotional states. And this they do with a range of idiosyncratic behaviours – some healthy and functional, but most not. Over-drinking, over-eating, over-drugging, over-dating, over-fighting, over-controlling, under-performing, under-reaching… All of these things serve the purpose of circumventing emotional discomfort.

It would be better, rather, to brace ourselves for the feelings that reaching-into-greatness evoke, and to resist the urge to escape from them. It’s a little known fact that feelings aren’t usual fatal. Nor are they permanent. They are transient situational responses.

So, to get out of our own way, and be all that we want to be, we need to understand that growth-change will always evoke some emotional discomfort. Our human tendency is to avoid emotional discomfort with our own ‘go-to’ self-soothing mechanisms. But these are often unhealthy and ultimately keep us stuck, in an almost cyclical fashion. The only way out, in my experience personally and professionally, is discipline.  Discipline, then, is the ability that we have to feel all of these things, but rise above anyway, and in spite of them. I read, recently, that motivation does not have to precede action… It’s strategic and whole-hearted decision that is an absolute requirement. Not a corresponding emotional state. We can choose a particular course of action, even in the absence of buoyant desire to do so. And this is where discipline is instrumental. And so very, very valuable.

In Sum:

• We are often the only thing standing in the way of where we are now, and where we aspire to be.
• We blame other factors (some of which have merit), but, for the most part, we self-sabotage our success journeys by believing that we are victims of these circumstances.
• Choosing to grow and change and be more is risky. It’s risky for practical reasons, but it’s even more risky because we have to tolerate all the self-doubt that we feel on the journey up.
• We need this emotional discomfort, as it challenges us and sharpens character through the process of constantly choosing to tolerate the discomfort, rather than to check out of it with compulsive behaviour.
• Discipline is a very key factor, especially on the days where we’re nervous, emotional wrecks. Discipline is choice-based, rather than emotion-based, and can see us through until the feelings pass. The feelings always

In Reaction:

Think of one area in your life where you are in your own way.

Get out your journal, and write about that goal. Write as though you have already achieved it; as though you have ‘arrived’. Allow yourself to fantasise about what life will be like when you’re no longer stuck, and you’ve challenged yourself and your status quo, and stepped into ‘the more’ that you can be.

Now list the thoughts and feelings that usually hinder you.

Acknowledge, for a moment, that neither these thoughts, nor these feelings, are facts, but are simply transient reactions that can be silenced as an act of your will.

Get out of your own way by feeling the fears – and acknowledging them – but by choosing to do it anyway!