We all face this problem from time to time when we know what is important to do, but we don’t want to do it. And a certain part of people lives this way all their lives, constantly finding excuses for their inaction in the outside world. So why is the desire to leave everything as it is and to postpone the implementation of some actions until later is so strong that we give in to it, despite the fact that we know for sure how important and necessary this is for us? A number of factors play against us at this moment, we will consider them in order.
What is self sabotage?
Let's immediately determine the very understanding of the "importance" of action, is possible only when we have no desire to do it. If we want to do something or get pleasure from it, then we do not need to assign a status of importance to any of our actions. The very concept that something is important or necessary to be done, a person applies only in order to increase the significance of this action for himself in order to perform it. And they can be divided into routine actions and new ones, which lead to exit from the comfort zone.
Routine actions while maintaining the status quo.
All the actions that we perform or just want to perform, our brain evaluates the enormous number of parameters. And it is precisely what decision our brain will take as a result of analyzing all these parameters and will determine how much we have the desire or, let's say, the motivation to do something. And no matter what we think about our “willpower”, “iron” decision or an inspiring goal - for our brain, safety comes first.
And this is normal in most cases of our life, because it is this feature that allows us to survive and very quickly adapt to changing conditions. But at the same time, if the brain is confident that we are in a comfortable environment and a safe environment, it will do everything to preserve the status quo.
Respectively, all that supports us in the current comfortable atmosphere, is assigned the status of very important, even if we do not want to do this. The simplest example here can be unloved work that we do day by day in order to earn money for our existence. The importance of these actions is extremely high, although the desire to perform them is extremely low.
Often, both the very importance and the need for such routine actions is false, or at least greatly overestimated, but note that since our brain recognized their high importance, we make them almost automatically, forcing ourselves every day.
New actions or hurt now, well then.
But besides routine ones, there are one more actions to which we assign particular importance. These are action calls. Something that we usually do not do, but for some reason we believe that they can improve our lives. And here the situation is exactly the opposite.
In most cases, we all know perfectly well what we should doto change your life for the better. At the same time, we can “perfectly know” like this for a very long time, if not for the rest of our lives, because deciding to do something new or very new is very difficult, even if we recognize the high importance of such actions.
Such actions, which can somehow affect the course of our ordinary life, the brain always perceives very wary. And despite the fact that in the future such actions can lead to an improvement in our standard of living, safety, comfort and we can understand this very clearly, it can be very painful to perform such an action-call. Moreover, the "pain now," almost always overpowers "good then." Moreover, a little pain now in most cases also overpowers the desire to avoid "big pain" afterwards.
for example, high-calorie food for people who are overweight. A little pain from refusing to eat some harmful, but tasty food now, in 99.9% of cases, wins even when a person is sure that in the future this 100% will bring even more pain in the face of overweight, diseases related to this, the attitude of other people towards fat men and so on. If you submit to your brain, go on about your short-term desires, then "pain now" always wins, carefully guarding the current state of our life.
Since we are pushing the limits of our comfort zone with new actions, our brain will always oppose this, because there is no 100% guarantee of success.
Fear of failure is the main excuse for not doing anything.
We can deny it, say that it doesn’t matter that we are ready for failure, that it’s just another experience that will still benefit, that next time we will be smarter knowing how and what not to do. And this is all true, but this does not negate the fact that we will always be eager to avoid failures and defeats.
If the fear of losing begins to dominate a person’s lifethen this causes heightened insecurity in oneself, one’s strengths, one’s own abilities in principle to achieve something. They say about such people that they surrendered, scored on their lives, because they made for themselves the decision not to even try to change anything. And if you constantly deny yourself the opportunity to do something in a new way, try to change something, the end will always be this one.
On the contrary, constantly expanding our comfort zone, even if it leads to mistakes now, we generally win in our lives. It is this skill that is often the main one to achieve success, to enjoy overcoming your fear of error and move forward no matter what.
Such habits, skills can be developed over the years, doing personal growth, self-development, reading promotion books, and you can hire yourself a coach. But there is another, seemingly simple, but very effective method to motivate oneself to perform important actions and move forward no matter what.
Environment is an important success factor in life.
Our future is not only what we are doing now, but also who we are with. Our environment, the people with whom we communicate, the things we surround ourselves with, shape our life much more than you can imagine.
After all, if relatives, friends for any of our conversations that we should try, let's do business or sports, stop smoking or anything else that can change our lives, they say that you will not succeed, there is a crisis in the country, all people goats, you can not believe anyone, you can not overpower yourself. You can always find excuses for doing nothing. And if the environment is toxic, then it will, sooner or later, convince us that it is right. After all, there will be failures, and with such an environment these defeats will serve as yet another confirmation of their views on life.
On the contraryif the environment is promoting, if it is people who act, make mistakes, learn from them and continue to act further, then all our conversations about how hard it is for us, how we don’t want to do something, will push us to actions. Think of the 5 people who inspire you the most, and think about what would have happened if they were your friends and supported you. This will immediately give an understanding of what the environment can do.
If you still think what to do, to make important decisions in your life, to act without stopping, then try to find other people who now want the same. They need you as much as they need you. Supporting each other, you will never again have a question why we do not want and do not do what is important to us.
