Reconnecting...

Hi everyone,

Firstly, I must apologise (mainly to myself) for neglecting this blog for a number of weeks... A combination of parenting, university and a full work schedule have left little room for creative endeavours.

Time to reconnect with writing!

Now, on to today's post. What should I write about... (I haven't planned this post yet again!)

One thing I've struggled with over the last few weeks is getting started. I've kept meaning to write this blog, but I've always had an inner voice convincing me that "now isn't the right time."

I've come to realise, we all have this inner voice telling us that now isn't the perfect time to do something we want to do. Being able to master control of this voice and "get started" will get you far closer to any goal. I've done this tonight by writing this blog. I had 20 reasons not to. I have housework to do, university assignments to write and an endless to-do list that could easily be prioritised over this. However I told myself "I'll just write for 5 minutes and if I see no progress, I'll stop and do something else"

15 minutes later and I'm in full flow, writing this article. I don't have an end point just yet, I'm just writing whatever comes to mind, laying the tracks as I go along.

Inertia is what stops us from getting started, once we start, usually it's much easier to keep going. What works for me is telling myself to just start something for a few minutes, not pressuring myself into an hour long task. Usually I'm far more productive when I set myself small, achievable goals rather than ones that feel like climbing mount Everest, where the inner voice in me has much more power.

So my advice is this - if you find yourself putting a task off, it's likely due to the bar being set too high. The perfectionist inner voice within you is telling you that you haven't got everything you need. But try doing something related to the task and get started for just 5 minutes. If after 5 minutes you don't feel like continuing, don't! Go and do something else. But I'll bet that more times than not, you'll get yourself into a flow state and achieve far more than you thought possible!

Speak soon,

Rory