#356 Don’t be guilted into discipline

Day 20 of my daily publishing experiment. What I’ve learned (or remembered) so far:

• Self-trust is built by taking action. On some days I woke up stressed out, thinking “I have no clue what I’ll post about today”. But then I start writing, and the post reveals itself on the page every single time. After experiencing that several times, the fear of posting (or not being able to write anything) is fading away. In other words: action defies excuses.
• Starting to journal (Morning Pages) over 600 days ago led to an explosion in creativity. Starting to publish a daily insight is giving me a similar boost.
• In the past, I leaned towards bigger, longer writing projects that required a lot of energy and thinking before I produced something “valuable”. I now see there’s power in consistently writing short posts about ideas and insights, no matter how insignificant and no matter how imperfect the writing. Because through the writing, I understand them better. I remember them better. And I’m confident that over time, from all these small insights, bigger ideas will emerge.

In short, a pattern I’ve observed many time in the past years is playing out again:

When I start defying my own excuses by taking action, no matter how small, my self-trust grows, my self-image shifts, and I become more of the person I want to be.

Which begs the question:

Where else am I frustrated, holding on to a static identity of the past that I could prove wrong by taking action?

All behavior is inspired by avoiding pain or gaining pleasure – and since you usually act on what your brain perceives as the most intense of the two.

So if you think you desire something, but then “sabotage” yourself so you never get what you desire, that means you have mixed feelings about desire (and thus inner conflict): deep down, you feel that desire will give you more pain than pleasure.

In other words, it’s not self-sabotage: it’s your brain protecting you from pain it perceives as stronger than the pleasure you might get from reaching your goal.

Maybe you desire more money, but deep down, you feel money will corrupt you, or make you lose friends, make you feel guilty, or make you lose your drive.

Maybe you have a desire to write or create, but you feel the pain of judgment or rejection is stronger than the pleasure of creating.

Maybe you want to get in shape, but deep down, you feel you’ll give up anyway before reaching any meaningful results, so you’d rather save yourself the pain of future disappointment (a classic self-trust problem).

Maybe you notice a certain destructive pattern in your relationships, but you believe going to therapy and “opening up that can of worms” will be even worse than perpetuating the current situation.

If you keep sabotaging yourself, it might be worth to ask yourself the question: what pain am I avoiding? What am I afraid of? In my imagination, what’s going to happen when I reach my goal; both positive AND negative?

Or even better than just asking: journal about it.