Instead I liken it to cleaning.  Big cleaning, like a road or driveway after a flood. (Think of it as a Pathway if you want.)  First time through you go to work with a front end loader.  The road gets cleared and you can make your way.  But if you look around closely there is more that can be cleaned.  You go after it with a shovel.    It all gets scooped up.  After a while the shovel doesn’t pick anything up anymore so you think you are done.  But if you look more closely at the path, between the bumps in the asphalt there are granules of dirt and sand.  Granules that could sometimes collect in areas and create bumps or slick spots where it isn’t as safe to drive the car or brake.   So you get a broom and sweep.  Now this dust comes up that the shovel never touched.

It may seem like you are going over the same area covering the same issues and stories as before, and, like you might have failed to do a good job.  (Careful about a judge victim story like that.  Wouldn’t be the first time someone fell for it though. )   Truth was that you are showing  up as a different person now looking at the same issues and can do a more detailed cleaning that you couldn’t do the first time.  It made no sense to start with a broom.  You needed a front end loader the first time.  Now the front loader won’t do the job for these details that were hiding between the cracks and bumps.  So you have to go back over the area of the same story,,, but in a different way this time.  You the cleaner can be more thorough this time with your broom in a way that you couldn’t do with a shovel.    That’s why sometimes these same stories/issues have to be revisited again.

In a way the thing that you are cleaning is your Self from all the false beliefs and false images you carry around in your mind.   At the same time You are the cleaning instrument.  The first time around you,,, the instrument, were still pretty clouded and so you probably didn’t clean your self up 100%.  So now, after you’ve done a thorough inventory and let go a great many beliefs, you are cleaner.  You also are a more finely tuned instrument.  So when you go back and you look at the same set of beliefs that you cleaned up a year or two ago, you see them differently.  You can find the distortions now that you couldn’t see before.  You see the dust in the cracks and can sweep those thoughts out.  When you were using a shovel you didn’t have the skills as the cleaning instrument to finish the job.  Therefore returning to the same topic more than once isn’t a measurement of failure.  Rather it is a progression of your skills to refine, grow, and be more thorough and complete in your changes.

How many times do we say we are going to do something, and then don’t to it?   How many times do we say we are going to do something, notice we don’t do it, and still don’t do it?  We are procrastinating.  Even when we are aware we are procrastinating, we still procrastinate.  It makes you wonder what is really going on with us. More importantly, how do we stop procrastinating?

I like the anecdote, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Procrastination is a pattern of good intentions.    As we dig deeper into the issue there is a natural follow up question, “If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then what is the road to heaven paved with?”   “Humility.”  Says James Garner in a line from the movie Ya Ya Sisterhood.  Humility, or a softening of our ego mind has a lot to do with eliminating procrastination.

What is humility?  I checked my Word processing program for synonyms and the one I like best is “unassuming nature.”  Let us take it to mean no ego nature; no mask of a false self-image.  Humility is being authentic and genuine.  It is what is left when you strip away all the layers of ego we carry around as a mask.  So what does this have to do with procrastination?   Procrastination is a product of the ego mind.  It is those false layers of self image that are the root cause of our bad habits.  When we strip away the ego mind we get rid of the root causes of our procrastination.

When we are humble, or without ego, we say what we mean, and we do what we say.  We don’t pretend to others, or to our self, that we are something we are not.  Notice that nowhere do I relate being humble to being meek, weak, timid, or small.  Real humility comes with a quiet confidence that is a source of power and resolve.

So how does humility help break the pattern of procrastination and get on with what we really want?  It all begins with awareness.

The ego and the false self images of the mind tricks us into procrastinating.  When you are aware of these tricks you can avoid falling for them.  To help develop this awareness we’ll start by looking at the your belief system and ego and see how they work.

Why Do We Procrastinate

Let’s first look at how and why the ego mind causes us to create procrastination.  The first noticeable action is that we make a declaration of a good intention for our self or someone else.  We’ll use the example of meditating.  We make a declaration, either in our thoughts or out loud to someone else, “I’m going to start meditating.”  In our imagination we create an image of our self sitting serenely.   We essentially make a movie in our mind with our self image as the main character.  We are doing something good, we are feeling good, and the most important thing is that we feel good about our self in our little mental movie.  Every time we think about meditating and say we are going to start we project that good self image in our little mental movie. It all happens in about 1.5 seconds.  Then it is done.  In our mind we have accomplished the task and we go on with the next thought the mind has.

What this imaginary movie does is satisfy the mind’s need for to control our attention for a little bit and give us a sense of identification with the character in our projection.  In the process we get a nice feeling as we identify with a positive self image in our mental movie.   It is the belief that we are the character in this mental movie that serves the ego and gives us a small emotional boost.

But the ego is not done yet.  It is a bit more complicated than just the singular image from one story.  We actually have many images or aspects from the ego mind that we identify with. One of the common mental movie stories we project is of failure.  Our mind projects a story of us failing or not measuring up in some way and casts a different self image in the starring role.  Sometimes this happens in 1.5 seconds also.   It happens when we think about failing, or other people judging us, or being told no.   In any imagined story like that we are again the main character but in this story we are a failure, or are rejected.  In these mental movies we identify with the failure image and believe that the projected self image in the mental movie is us.  When we are unaware and do not distinguish between our Self, and the image of our self in our mental movie out ego has effectively taken us for an emotional ride.  In this false identification we believe we are the character in our thoughts.   In fact, this is only a facet of the ego.

So far we have both a success image that is a facet of the ego and a failure image that is a facet of the ego.  In the procrastination scenario the ego’s success image gets reinforced by us telling our self we are going to meditate.  The failure image gets reinforced when we don’t meditate.

Each day we don’t meditate the mind projects an image of our selves failing.  Each time we imagine that we will meditating we identify with that positive self image.  Each time we think about meditating we project one of these two images and identify with the success image or the failure image, or both.  When we think about meditating and don’t do it but we reinforce both false images of the ego.  It is these false images of the ego that get served and become stronger.  The detrimental aspect of this is only seen when you are aware that the mental projection of self isn’t you at all.

The Ego Mind on it’s Own

The failure image of the ego mind actually needs you to NOT meditate.  If you actually started meditating regularly, the failure based self image would have no basis for being.  We would no longer identify with the failure image.  If I say I am going to meditate, and then I do it, I have no reason to judge my self as a failure.  Of course the ego mind is likely to adapt in other ways.  Our mind will project that we should be meditating more, longer, our posture should be better, our mind should be quieter, and we should be having blessed out Samadhi experiences by now.  Since this isn’t happening the first week or month the ego mind will project that we are failing, and that we are doing something wrong.  This is just the false images of the ego mind trying in various ways for reinforcement by false identification.

When we don’t reinforce the failure image in our mind it makes the ego very uncomfortable.  The ego self image begins to feel like it is dying.  We might think that if a negative image were dying that we would feel better about our self, but that is not the case.  The collapsing false image in the mind creates a feeling that is very uncomfortable.  We go through all sorts of emotions as the false image that we believe is our identity is threatened.

When this agitation happens the mind becomes very busy with various mechanisms of distraction, deception, and denial trying to get us to not meditate.  It directs us to forget for a while that we said we were going to do it.  Then reminds us at a much later date that we didn’t do it so it can reinforce the belief we are the failure character in our mental movie.

When we think that we are going to sit down and meditate the mind senses the death of the failure image and comes up with numerous other things we could and should be doing.  Yes we got busy and the house is clean, laundry is done, bills paid, and the yard is looking pretty good.  Now there is no time to meditate, or we are too tired to meditate.  In this strategy the ego mind has won the game of distractions until we run out of time, energy, or both.  Then it waits an hour or a day, or a week, and reminds us that we failed to do what we said we were going to do.  It uses the situation to project a mental movie with us as the main character that failed.  If we identify with that failure character in our mind then the ego mind is not challenged and is comfortable again.  Yes we feel like an unworthy loser that has failed, but the ego mind is comfortable with that because it doesn’t feel like it is going to die.  Such is the challenge of not identifying with the images of your ego mind.

This article continued at Causes of Procrastination II

You can find practices and exercises for changing the core beliefs causing procrastination
in The Self Mastery Course on this site.

“I can’t see this working he said.” He said it with a tone and inflection both of inquiry, and hopelessness.   That’s what resistance will sound like sometimes.

“Neither could I when I started,”  I replied.   “You can’t see how it is going to happen. If you could, you would know what the change and experience was. You can’t see what the view from the mountain top will be while you are still standing in the valley.  You can’t see all the steps you will take and the turns you will make before you make them.”    He heard me and then he changed the topic….. more resistance.

Answering his questions didn’t make the resistance go away. Nor did it spur him to action. Maybe the question wasn’t the issue.    Maybe the questions were part of the problem.  So maybe we have to look at that part of our mind that asks the question or makes the statement of doubt.

“I don’t see how this will work.” It was a loaded statement. It was filled with an attitude of hopelessness and like beliefs. “This won’t work.  I’ll be just as unhappy after trying this as I am now so why even try.” The emotions were hopelessness, depressed, defeated, and that was before trying anything.    It’s like his attitude of hopelessness was in charge of his, questions, his decision making, and steering him away from any actions that would help.   It’s going to be a challenge when your belief state of hopelessness is determining your steps towards happiness.  The answers to the questions didn’t cure the attitude.

It wasn’t that the man didn’t have faith. He had a ton of faith. It’s just that it was invested in the conviction that the whole effort to change his emotional state was useless. That’s a lot of personal power spent convincing our self that we are powerless.

He got this. He understood what he was doing as I pointed these things out to him, but that didn’t stop him from changing the subject and continuing to do it. Resistance is like that. We ask useless questions that run a convincing internal dialog in our head while avoiding any action. The result of all that circling dialog is nothing. We end up where we started.

The important piece to acknowledge about resistance is that it results in staying where you are emotionally.    The questions about where the path leads, what turns will there be, how long will it take, etc are all keeping us from a step on our path.  Those endless intellectual questions keep us stuck.   Some of the smartest people with PhD’s are the best at getting stuck because they can ask endless questions.

What made a difference that day is when I asked  him how he felt. “What emotions are you feeling right now?” Are you miserable, unhappy, tormented by anxiety, fears, anger, jealousy, or other emotional reactions? Just look at how you feel. How long do you want to keep feeling that way?  “NO,  I don’t wan to keep feeling this way” he said.   “What do I got to do to change it?” Noticing how you feel is an action.  Taking the time to really feel it is an action.   With those clear perceptions, the motivation to change happened all by itself.    When we are in the midst of unhappiness we ask lousy questions.  Sometimes, the help we need, is just some guidance in asking better questions.

All I knew when I started taking my first steps was that I no longer wanted to be unhappy. I didn’t have a clue about how I would do it, what would work and what wouldn’t.  I just knew that I couldn’t stay in the emotional cycles I was living in.

I didn’t know how long it would take, what the path would be, or even if it would work. The only thing I knew was that I couldn’t keep living in the emotional drama I was doing. So that’s when I decided to take action.

If you find your self asking a lot of questions about a process that you can’t know until you do it for a while you are probably asking the wrong questions.   You are stuck.  The unhappy part of your mind is asking the questions it doesn’t know the right questions to ask.  Instead take a look at the emotions you feel and how often you do those same emotional cycles. Then ask your self how long you want to keep doing that. If that doesn’t motivate you to take action then you don’t need to go around in circles with questions.  Or maybe get with someone who is skilled at asking better questions and will cause you to find better answers.

No matter what you do to overcome your resistance, you can be sure it will be a different action.

You’ll find numerous actions to take in the Self Mastery Course and The Relationship Course that will help you break the patterns of unhappiness.

When you ask this question to someone else,,, you are opening the door to giving away your personal power and creating a victim mindset.   This is a dangerous question to ask.  At the same time guidance can be helpful.

In the early stages of our personal development we ask many questions.  In the beginning the questions are general, unfocused, and many times harmful.  We aren’t aware of how powerful a question can be at controlling our attention and occupying our mind with very limited ways of thinking.  Usually we are in a unhappy or confused state when we ask these types of questions.  And the types of questions that arise from this mind set act to reinforce the very emotions we are trying to get out of.       

What are some better questions to ask?

What is the kind thing to do?
What is the respectful thing to do?
What is the compassionate thing to do?
What do I not want?
How will I treat myself?
How will I treat others?
How do I want to feel?

Learning to ask better questions is a skill.  Like any skill it can take time.  However the more we are aware of the questions we ask, the less automatic they are.  The more aware of each question our mind asks, and the automated way our imagination and emotions respond the better we will get at asking questions.

The most common of beginner question is, “What should I do?”   Why is this such a poor question to ask when we are wrapped up in emotional issues?  That question can lead us back into the same negative belief structure that asked it.

The question implies or assumes that there is a particularly “right” answer.  Whenever we are looking for the “right” answer our mind flips into a mode of duality and looks at things in a right/wrong split.  All answers that are not the “right” answer are classified as wrong.  There can be one thousand wrong.  You can imagine a poor outcome with any action you take thereby making the action appear wrong.  All of these with any possible negative outcome are classified as “wrong.”  It is assumed that the “right” or “should” action will result in everything being right and everyone being happy.  It’s a very high standard of perfection that is implied when we use the word “should” or “right.”  

This very high, and often unreasonable expectation sets us up for feeling like a failure.

Having an image of perfection or an expectation in and of itself isn’t the really bad part.  It could even be good when it motivates us to take action or inspire creativity.   The bad part is that the mental construct of an image of perfection sets you up for two rounds of self judgment.

Once you adopt this mental construct of what you “should” do, you also build a self image of the kind of person you should be.  So now there are two images of perfection.  One is of the action that leads to the perfect outcome.  The second image of perfection is more personal. It is of who you should be.  There can be more perfection images in the mind such as, how everyone else should feel, that can complicate this even further, but lets keep it simple for now.

With these two imaginary images the voice of the inner judge now has two concepts it can use for comparison.  With its typical method of comparison there can only be two outcomes.  The best outcome possible is that you meet the expectations of your belief system.  No praise here.  All you did was what was expected of you.  With your greatest effort you broke even by meeting expectations of your belief system.

The second outcome isn’t that kind.  For any lesser action, even the emotional reactions of another person that you can’t control, the inner judge criticizes you.  “I could have (should have” done that differently.”  The second judgment follows the first.  If you didn’t succeed in achieving the image of perfection outcome then you failed.  If you failed, then that means you are a failure.  It’s a simple duality based conclusion the judge and victim voices in your head do automatically.  The result is self rejection in the form of a self judgment.

This self rejection happens in your own head and can be emotionally powerful.  When we are preoccupied trying to answer the question, “What should I do?” our attention is so wrapped up in the importance of figuring out the right thing to do that we don’t see this set up to self judgment.

Why is our attention so wrapped up with figuring out the “right” thing we “should” do?  Somewhere in our sub-conscious belief system we sense that the painful self judgment will come if we do things wrong.  We are afraid of the painful self judgment from our inner judge and we seek to avoid it.   We feel the pressure to get things “right” but don’t notice that much of the motivation is really about avoiding the pain of self judgment that is going to be generated in our imagination.

We feel the pressure from the voices in our head but don’t notice that this is just our imagination and belief system at work.  It usually takes a person a while to realize that this emotional self abuse is optional.   We are so used to self judgment by the time we are adults that we accept this as an unchangeable reality.  Then the only solution to avoid the punishment that we perceive is to get the answer “right.”   And “right” means perfect where everyone is satisfied.  Of course we don’t notice that this standard assumes that everyone will interpret the action and the outcome free from any judge and victim perspectives.  (not likely)

It can be very helpful to seek help, guidance, and support.  However we can help our self more when we are mindful of the questions we ask and how their underlying assumptions can be setting us up for self judgment.

Be Mindful When Asking for Help

I’m all for advice.  I like to pick the brains and perspective of seasoned individuals that have proven results in an area.  It can save us a lot of time in learning so we don’t have to figure everything out on our own.  What I am not in favor of is collecting of images of perfection that the inner judge uses as an expectation to measure our self worth.  The next time you ask someone, “What should I do?” take a moment to notice whether your inner judge might use their answer in a conspiracy of self-judgment against you.

Please don’t ask me to give you advice about what you “should” do.  I probably won’t answer you directly.  If I answer your question in the format you expect, then I am providing you with an image of a perfection for an outcome that may or may not be achievable.   You are asking an image of perfection that the inner judge can use.   I’m probably going to try to do you the favor of not feeding this structure of beliefs.  My answer might come back as a question or redirect your attention to looking at the situation differently.

Some people will have a reaction to this.  They will get upset because I haven’t answered directly.  They are so fixated on getting things “right” that they feel cheated when avoid the trap their belief system is making.   I know that person is upset because their only hope to avoid painful self judgment is to get the answer of what they “should” do.  And any delay in getting that answer has them slipping further into the jaws of the self judgment for getting it “wrong.”

I apologize for not answering directly.  But I’m not trying to satisfy your hope of getting things right.  I’m actually trying to save you from a much bigger problem. The bigger problem is that painful self judgment and the fear it creates drives the mind to believe that the “right” answer is the only hope.

Please don’t ask me to conspire with the trap your belief system creates with  self judgments.  At the same time, it is okay and even advisable in most situations to seek counsel and guidance.  Just do your best to be aware and avoid this trap of self judgment.

If you have another question,,, a better question,,, I might give a more direct answer.  Look back to the beginning of this article for some ideas on how to ask a better question.  If these questions don’t apply, then ask other questions.  If you can’t come up with another question then ask, “What questions should I be asking?”    There are lots of ways that you can get help, support and guidance from people through sticky situations without building images of perfection that the judge will use.   
There are lots of questions that I work on asking that will help you to look at the situation differently.  There is a lot that can be done with perspective and inquiry that is extremely helpful without anyone telling you what you should do.

So if I don’t respond to your question of, “What should I do?” in a way that you expect then I hope this explains it.   I’m not trying to give you ice cubes so the pain from the fire stops.  I’m trying to help you put out the fire that you are sitting in.

Some people define faith as a belief in something for which they have no evidence for.  Others think of faith as a set of religious beliefs.  These are limited uses and understanding of faith.  Faith is a force.  Think of it as a life force energy that you direct, consciously or unconsciously.  It is a force you use every day.   People and use faith every day in ways that are very real and practical but hardly notice.  This force of faith that you use has profound impact on your thoughts, emotions, and behavior.

People use faith when they exchange money. A dollar has value largely because people believe it has value.  People have invested faith in the idea that dollars can be traded for food, gas, clothing, services, and other things.  Because other people also have faith in this same use of money it works and appears to be truth.

We put our money in a bank because we have faith that a bank is a safe place for our money.  When people have fear and doubts about the safety of that bank their faith dissolves. Or, more specifically, they invest faith in the idea that the bank is unsafe. Then they withdraw their money.  If enough people withdraw their money from a bank, it can collapse.  Even if the bank is solvent it can collapse because people no longer have enough faith in the bank. You could say that the strength of a bank is more dependent on faith of people than the actual balance sheet of the bank.

The price of a stock is largely determined by faith.  People will value and pay for a stock dependent on what is their BELIEF.   Faith is the force that makes that belief strong.  If people lose their faith in that company, then they sell their stock.  The action of selling stock is determined by where they invest their faith.  The value of a stock is determined by the faith people have in the value of a company stock.  You could say that the whole stock market is held up by the power of the faith people have in its overall worth.  That’s why prices of stocks and the whole market can change so quickly.  When people shift what they have their faith in things can change quickly.  When you change what beliefs you have invested faith in your life can change very quickly.

The value of stock, a piece of real estate, a dollar, euro, or peso is largely a matter of faith.  They are worth what people “believe” they are worth.  Only when other people believe the same thing does that belief appear real.   When people no longer put the force of their faith behind the value of a stock the price falls.   More precisely we can say that they have taken their faith out of the “idea” that the stock’s value.  People don’t invest their faith in a stock, but rather in the idea of a stock’s value.  Then they put their money in the stock based on how much faith they invested in the idea of value for that stock.  If you see this relationship it becomes clear that our actions are based on the power of faith we have invested in ideas.

Faith Impacts How We Feel

Faith in yourself can give you a feeling of confidence. If you believe that you can do something, you have faith in your ability and you produce a feeling of confidence.  When you doubt your ability, you are also investing faith.  You invest your faith in the ideas and images that you will fail, and that people will judge you.  When you put faith in those ideas and images you create emotions of fear or insecurity.  In both cases, you are expressing the energy of faith.  It is just that you express it into different conceptual ideas, outcomes, and self-images and this produces different emotions.

Suppose you did something in your past and later wish you hadn’t done it. If you invest faith in that idea then you will create emotions of guilt.  If you invest faith in the idea that you are a bad person for what you have done then you will create emotions of shame.  Guilt is an emotion based in something you have done, while shame is an emotion based in a belief about what you are.  The strength of the emotions you feel will depend on how much faith you have in these ideas about your self.   With the force of faith you can create these emotions within your self even if the story is not true.   But by creating these feelings the story will feel true.

Most everything you feel about yourself derives from the faith you invest in various ideas about yourself. Two people could have the same experience of hardship and failure, but invest their faith in opposite interpretations about what would happen next time.  One might believe he will fail again, while the other person might invest faith in the idea that she will do better next time because of her commitment or what she learned.   Failure didn’t determine how a person felt, but rather what ideas they invested their faith in did. Each person is using the energy of faith and investing it in one belief or another about themselves and the future.  Each creates a different belief system, and produces different emotions.  One person will become more focused committed and feel confident,,, the other will generate insecurity.  The action that each person takes from then on will be congruent with where they have invested their faith.

If you are feeling emotions of fear, shame, guilt, and unhappiness, it is because you have invested faith in conceptual ideas that create these emotions.  The ideas that are in your head and your self images are not the truth.  But if you invest faith in them they will produce emotions and create the feeling of being real.  The emotions you create with your faith are real, but the images and ideas of your beliefs are not.    If you want to change how you feel one of the things you will have to learn to do is divest your faith from these false beliefs.

In recovering the power of your faith from these false beliefs not only will your level of happiness change, but your actions and behavior will changes as well.  Another benefit of recovering your faith from these false beliefs is that you will then have the personal power to choose a new set of beliefs and take the actions to create a new life based on what you really want.

Learning how to gain control over the force of your faith is something that the Self Mastery course will help you do.

The simple answer is Love.

Love is not only a beautiful feeling, but an incredibly transformative force.  When we express love we create a feeling of happiness.  When we are filled with love there is no room for fear or the emotional pains that come with self judgment.  Love can be a powerful experience that leaves no room in the mind for that chattering internal dialog that can keep us up at night when we are stressed.  Love can displace all that chatter and keep you in a state of quiet peacefulness.  That’s the simple answer.  Of course it’s not that simple.

If you desire to make changes in your life because you are not happy,,, then you aren’t starting in this state of love.  Where you are more likely involves fear, self judgment, insecurity, anger, and lots of stressful dialog that can keep you up at night.  At that stage of the process Love is foreign and doesn’t mean anything and just having it suggested to you can make you more angry.   So maybe you can’t feel any love and the best you can manage is to just reach acceptance of where you are.

Of course when we consider acceptance the big judge in your mind can jump in and complain about how this whole situation is unacceptable.  Maybe it points out that we’ve done so much self help type of work that we should be way past this.  We shouldn’t be having emotional reactions like this any more.  The victim story in our mind is afraid to accept this situation because it interprets it as defeat and failure.  So maybe at this stage acceptance isn’t much of an option and the best we can do is just refrain from drama as best we can.

Of course this to refrain from following into the emotional drama behavior our mind is projecting  is challenging.  When that is the case then the most important thing is Will power.  We need will power to refrain from acting on the drama stories.

Of course if you haven’t been breaking down your false beliefs very long it is unlikely that you’ve recovered much will power to have at your disposal.  In that case the most important thing is to get some will power.  You need to break down some of the false beliefs in your mind and recover the personal power that you invested in them.  To do this you need some skills and techniques at breaking down false beliefs.  At this stage the most important thing you can do is identify and dissolve false beliefs in your mind.

If this is challenging it’s probably because you haven’t yet adopted a neutral observer perspective.  This is the first step to changing beliefs. Maybe you can’t do unconditional love, acceptance, or will your way out of the emotional reactions, but you can observe the story of the judge, the victim, and all the emotions and chatter in the mind.  Then that is what you can do and that is the most important thing to do.   Trying to do more than you can do won’t help you at this point.

Of course in order to shift your point of perception to being a neutral observer you will need to have the desire to do so.  That desire has to be big enough that you make a commitment to make changes in your sabotaging emotional behaviors.  It’s no longer about just wishing they would go away. It’s no longer about waiting for other people to change before you will be happy.  You make a commitment that you will change the false beliefs and negative thoughts in your mind and you will be happy no matter what. So if you haven’t started really observing your self then the most important thing you can do is to make a commitment to do so.

Of course that kind of change is generally resisted.  The decision making process in the mind is wired such that the very beliefs that are causing all the emotional drama, also have influence in how we go about solving them.  They tend to point us in the direction of:  Trying to change other people,  Building a more positive self image and trying to become that image,  Intending to will our self not to do the same emotional reaction again, (even though we haven’t changed any of the underlying causes),  Or the preferred distraction of ignoring the problem.   So before you make a determined effort to change the underlying dynamics of your belief system you’ll need to become tired of all the excuses, distractions, and denial that makes up the resistance.    What this means is that you eventually have to become tired of being unhappy.

At a certain point the misery of unhappiness just becomes too unbearable and you have to do something about it.   You decide to change what you believe.  Misery, unhappiness, and emotional suffering is the mother of commitment to change.  And when you are just starting out, a commitment to change is the most important thing.

Unhappiness will continue until you are tired of it and you decide that you are at the bottom.  No one tells you that you are at the bottom.  You have to decide where it is.  From there you decide to make changes in your belief system and your life.  With authentic desire for emotional change a commitment is naturally declared.  With that commitment you begin to take the action to become the observer of your thoughts, fears, emotions, and false beliefs.  You take the action to develop the skills to dismantle the false beliefs that you find.  As you dismantle these false beliefs the power of your faith previously invested in those beliefs returns back to you.  As you recover your personal will power you are better able to refrain from the emotional drama.  The critic of the judge and the internal victim don’t seem as believable from your new observer point of view.   It becomes easier adopt an attitude of acceptance for where you are.  From that new plateau of acceptance,,, you begin to experience Love.

And some times all of this is just a bit overwhelming.  There are ten things on the list of important things to do to be happy and you don’t feel that you are very good at any of them.  We’ll at certain junctions of the journey the most important thing you can do is to show up and ask for help.  Show up in the presence of someone that is going to love you unconditionally.  Show up in the presence of someone who will accept you just the way you are.  Show up in the presence of someone who doesn’t judge you.  Show up in the presence of someone that will help you break down the big fearful beliefs into smaller ones that you can manage.  Sometimes the most important thing you can do is to find a good guide that can help you on your Pathway To Happiness and show up where they are.

So what is the most important thing?   It depends where you are in your process that day?  This process of doing the most important thing depends on how much awareness, will power, skills, and acceptance and love you have that day.  It depends on how strong the emotional reaction is that you are dealing with.  It depends on how much suffering you’ve experienced and whether you believe it means that things will never change,,, or you decide to believe, “That’s enough.   I’m going to do the most important thing.  I’m going to do what it takes to be happy.”

For practical insights on and actions to take on changing core beliefs, developing personal poer, and creating happiness in your life I suggest you listen to the Free Audio Podcasts and practice the exercises in the Self Mastery course.

Most New Year’s Resolutions fail.  After a few months a person is back at their old habits and routines.  One reason well intended resolutions fail is because we are already overloaded.  Our mind is already full of things to think about, our daily schedule is full, and our energy spent on existing routines.  With our attention, time, and energy spent, we don’t have enough resources to successfully implement anything new.

That’s way by the end of the day we just want to sit on the couch and watch TV.  At that point, we lack the energy necessary to get to the gym and push our body through a work out, a night class, or other things that we seriously intended over too much champagne.

Once your new routine is implemented it can bring you more time and energy in return.  However, it takes some personal power to implement the new mental, emotional, and physical habits before you get that energy back.

Some people think it just takes a serious commitment and/or discipline.  However, the energy we put into the commitment and the energy to keep our selves focused has to come from somewhere.

If you are finding making changes difficult, consider that recovering your attention over your mind, some energy, and time, will be a helpful start.   For long term change to be successful you will first want to prepare the ground to make room for new habits.

Less is More

Before you implement something new you must first free up some resources for it to be successful.  Instead of making a New Year’s resolution that adds something to your schedule, make a resolution to detach from something.  Begin to simplify your life by deleting things from your daily or weekly regiment.  Once you’ve freed up some energy, start putting in place small positive changes.

Why make small changes first?  A huge plan for change can overwhelm us, and set us up for failure which leads to self-judgment. To combat this pitfall, start with something small.  Besides, large scale change is really just a lot of small changes added together.

Implement one simple thing.  When you have integrated a small change into an easy habit that adds positive energy to your life, then make another small change.  Depending on the change you are making, 4 to 6 weeks is enough time to build a new habit.

Example:  Do Less for your Body

Refrain from making your resolutions about adding something such as “eat healthier.”   This is an additional, “to do” item that takes energy, and adds stress to the mind.  Instead, make a resolution to eliminate something or do less.  I call them NON-DOINGS.

Delete soft drinks or high sugar or fructose corn syrup from your diet.  If you are already drinking diet soft drinks with artificial sweeteners, delete them.

Put less of that stuff in your body.  Your body will thank you.  You don’t need to think about this as something to do, but rather as something you no longer have to do.     Thoughts in your mind might disagree, but that thought/belief can be deleted also.

Adopt “Non Doings” as a way to change

Think of it as not spending money on unhealthy drinks.  Think of it as not picking up something at the grocery store.  One less thing you don’t have to carry to your car, put in your refrigerator, keep cold, or throw in the recycling.  Your liver and organs have less toxic materials to purify from your body as well.  One simple Non Doing leads to less in other things.  Water is an easier and healthier substitute to sugar and artificial sweetener drinks anyways.

By breaking just one habit, you created a little more time in your week, more money in your pocket, and more energy in your body.   As you learn the art of Non-Doing, or refrain, you find that you have more.

Compounding Change

With your added resources and personal power implement the next “Not Doing.”    After that habit is an easy and natural way to live, refrain from doing something else in your life that bleeds off your energy    With the personal power that you recover from these habits, it is much easier to break each additional habit.  As you recover additional power each time you break an old pattern your speed at making changes in your life grows  geometrically.   The important thing is to start with something small and build.

Do Less with your Time

Perhaps you want to work out at the gym a couple times a week.  Where are you going to get the time for the gym if you don’t eliminate something else first?    What are you spending time doing that you are going to do less of?  If you don’t free it up from somewhere, then you will try to do too much.  Eventually you will become overwhelmed and tired.  When you are tired your mind will begin to return to old habits and you’ll skip the gym workouts.   Perhaps eliminate television or some internet surfing.  We got rid of cable this past year.

Look at where you spend your time and attention that is least worthwhile.  Commit to less.  Changing this behavior doesn’t take much effort.  Actually, because you are doing less of it, it takes less effort.   You actually get some of your attention, energy, time back

If you add something to your schedule without eliminating something first, it will put stress on your mind.  Your mind will feel overloaded and that will affect your emotional well being. It seems like you are doing more, but you feel less about it.

Of course don’t eliminate the valuable stuff like listening to the audio on my site.  But you can play my podcasts on your CD player on the way to the gym or your iPod while working out, so no problem there.

Make Room in Your Mind

In order to break a habit or behavior, you will sometimes have to change the belief in your mind that drives that action, or behavior.

Part of why we waste time on things like television and internet games is that we have beliefs that support the behavior.  Those beliefs fight against the conscious and reasoned thoughts of it being a waste of time.  A belief is a mental construct that we accept as true, and then gets expressed as a behavior.  It usually remains unconscious to us until we raise our awareness and put our attention in it.   We can have thoughts and tell our self one thing, but we act and behave according to our beliefs.

As long as you have a supporting belief about a habit or behavior, it will be difficult to break that habit or behavior.  You will often be able to push away the behavior for a while, but since the mental construct is still in your mind, the behavior will tend to creep back in.  To make a complete and permanent change in behavior, you will have to change the belief at the root of it.

What does a belief look like?

One place beliefs hide is in justifications.  A comment like, “I just need to watch TV for a bit to wind down” is a justification that hides a belief.  At the same time those words are so automatic that they are a habit as well.  The word “need” exaggerates the desire as if it were food, shelter, or water.  This is a distortion that we accept as true when we use such strong misplaced words.  From our dialog and thoughts it then appears that we have not choice.  We NEED television.  When you put your attention on these distortions in this way, you no longer believe your own justifications.

How many ways can you wind down and let go of your stress of the day?   If you only come up with one, then you have found a limiting belief.  If you come up with several, but only actually do one, you found a limiting belief.   Your actions are a big indicator of your beliefs.

Limiting beliefs take up space in your mind, drain your energy with wasteful habits and defensive justifications.  When you begin to do less television, internet surfing, or drinking pop, you will find these agreements poking at you.  They will attempt to pull and poke you back into old habits.

Your old beliefs will propose lots of justifications for going back to your old habits.  This is where awareness comes in handy.  If you have awareness when these thoughts tempt you, you can avoid being hypnotized by them.  Awareness is your best defense against the dark arts of sabotaging beliefs.  It gives you the power to perceive the distortions, exaggerations, and lies behind those words.     With that awareness it is easy to say no to temptation before you fall into an old behavior habit.

Why most Resolutions Fail over time

Most resolutions fail over time because people attempt to change the behavior, but don’t address the belief in their mind.   If you don’t change these lingering beliefs eventually they are likely lull you back into old patterns and habits one day.  Our beliefs are often below our conscious radar of what our mind is doing.  We are not trained how to look at them or even that we should.  To change these beliefs you will have to LEARN how to look at your thoughts and see the beliefs that support them.  The audio program in Self Mastery will help you to do this.

Begin with Less

Begin your resolutions this year with detaching from something that is taking up your attention, time, and energy.  Your emotional reactions and emotional drama can be some of the things you detach from this year.  Once you have carved out some extra time and energy for your self, then consider what you want to do with it.

Before you add something healthy to your diet make room by deleting something unhealthy.  Before you create new beliefs that will add to your happiness, break some old beliefs that create unhappiness.  Breaking old beliefs will free up the power you need to make future commitments work out.

If you want to grow a garden you must first clear the ground of weeds.  If you don’t, those weeds will take the nutrients and sunlight from whatever you plant.  Clearing the space makes it possible for your new creation to grow.  To make effective changes in your life begin by clearing away what doesn’t work.  Then in the empty space that you create, build something beautiful, nurturing, and beneficial to your self and your relationships

May each new year of your life be happier than the last.

I wish you the happiest year of your life.  At least until 2010, when it gets better.

We don’t always get to see those critical moments of decision coming. We can’t prepare for them once they arrive. If we are to make wise decisions in those moments we will have to prepare for them before they arrive.

To give yourself the best preparation for those moments of milliseconds, develop your awareness so you make better choices. Awareness will allow you to maintain your perspective of important strategic goals in moments where you would otherwise react.

Being able to maintain perspective in potentially life changing moments is what can make the difference between success and failure, or between happiness and regret.
I’ll use an example about basketball to make my point. It’s a bit of a long story but I think it illustrates how you can destroy a lot of hard work in a matter of milliseconds.

In game 4 of the NBA basketball playoff series between the Phoenix Suns and the San Antonio Spurs there was an incident that changed the course of the Suns playoff chances.

The Phoenix Suns had the win in hand and only 18 seconds left when Robert Horry of the Spurs flagrantly fouled Steve Nash of the Suns. It was a senseless hockey check of Nash into the scorer’s table. It cost Robert Horry a two game suspension.

But in the spark of a moment, what the Phoenix Suns players did to themselves with their emotional reaction was far worse.

Seeing their floor leader get hip checked, Boris Diaw and Amare Stoudemire got up from the bench and headed off to engage the enemy. Diaw and Stoudemire are two of the Phoenix Suns top players.

They caught hold of themselves shy of any confrontation and returned to the bench area but damage was already done. By leaving the vicinity of the bench during a court incident they had violated a well known NBA rule to prevent brawling. Both Boris Diaw and Amare Stoudemire were suspended for critical Game 5 of the best of 7 series.

Without the play of Diaw and Stoudemire the Suns were crippled in game 5. They lost and went down 3 games to 2 in the series. The next game was in San Antonio where the Spurs had the home court advantage that helped them win the deciding game and close out the series.

The San Antonio Spurs are headed off to play for the NBA championship. The Phoenix Suns will sit in front of their televisions and watch other people live out what they dreamed and worked hard for an opportunity to do.

What’s the difference between playing for the NBA championship and going home early? Milliseconds.

What does NBA playoffs and championship basketball have to do with you and your life? Milliseconds.

You and everyone else you know makes decisions in milliseconds. Sometimes they are snap decisions. Often they are emotional reactions where the bigger consequences are not considered. The direction of your life changes depending on what you do, and what you refrain from doing in those milliseconds.

In the period of milliseconds two players lost their perspective and ran on the court to fight for their friend. Did Steve Nash need their intervention? No. The hip check was over and the opponent was walking away. Referees were on the scene to put things in order. Trainers were going over to check on Steve Nash. Stoudemire and Diaw’s involvement wasn’t going to improve anything about the situation. But they lost the perspective in the heat of the moment to consider any of that.

I understand helping and protecting team mates and friends. But what I wouldn’t want to do is jump in unnecessarily, get suspended, and cost my team mates an opportunity to win an NBA championship. That’s not helping my team mates. I’m not sitting in judgment condemning what they did from my vantage point days later. I’m just using the incident to make a point about the difference between choices and reactions in your life.

By losing their perspective they lost the ability to make a better choice. That loss off choice for a split second added to season ending consequences.

It’s easy to see where milliseconds matter to NBA players, but where do milliseconds make a difference in your life?

What happens in the moments leading up to firing a comment at your boss or an employee that sets the relationship off balance? It might send you looking for another job?

What happens in the milliseconds that lead up to an angry outburst? What if you could shift to a different point of view and make a different choice in that instant?

What happens in a moment of emotional reaction like jealousy when you say something you regret? Perhaps you say something that you can’t take back.

What happens when you are considering asking someone out, but then tell your self, “No they probably wouldn’t be interested in me?” In those milliseconds the mind creates a feeling of insecurity, and then that feeling determines your actions, and inactions? You talk your self out of taking action for what you want.

What happens during those holidays with family where in milliseconds a family gathering can turn into an emotional blow out?

In milliseconds reactions happen that cause relationships to break up. In flashes family members decide not to speak to each other and are estranged for years. In milliseconds people quit their jobs.

Paying attention to milliseconds may not seem like a big deal until you see the chain reaction of consequences for years afterwards. When you see the link between milliseconds and consequences, the milliseconds become as important as years of your life. You discover that you want control over what happens in those milliseconds.

The more self awareness you have heading into those unforeseen moments the less chance emotional reactions have to overpower you. When you learn to manage and master the choices made in milliseconds, everything else about your life becomes much easier.

For an excellent read on understanding decisions and reactions made in milliseconds is the best selling book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Malcolm Gladwell does an amazing job of detailing the process of choices made in an instant.  He points out that with practice you can change how you react and make a better choices.

For exercises awareness so that you can gain control over those milliseconds I suggest the Self Mastery Audio program. The first few sessions are free for you to sample. They will guide you to focus your attention on those critical moments and prepare you to choose more wisely.

All of life happens in the smallest of moments. The opportunity to change the direction of your life lies in the smallest slices of time.

I wrote to you about a week ago about how my jealousy issue and how I have a problem with my girlfriends past, and how that is very hypocritical of me because my past is less pure then hers. I have taken your advice and picked up “The Four Agreements” and “The Voice of Knowledge”. I am half way through “The Four Agreements” and I am very pleased with it. I have also listened to the “Gratitude” and “Abdication of Power” audio lessons. Once again very pleased.

The question I have is about the “Abdication of Power”. I understand that when I am getting angry, jealous, or frustrated to take a look at what exactly is going on in the current situation in the way you describe. But what I don’t understand is why take a look at a situation as to where I’m happy? Why break down that situation to change my emotional state?

For example I just got off the phone with my girlfriend and like usual we get along and we love talking to each other and this of course makes me happy. So why break it down to get away from being happy. When I am mad, jealous or angry I want to break the situation down to get away from that…so pretty much kind of confused..
Thank you for your time, SK

Hi SK,

First of all email is a really poor communication medium. It’s too easy to misunderstand what you are specifically talking about, and then too easy for you to misinterpret my reply.

As I understand your question, why break down where all the happy feelings come from? I don’t think I directed you in the Power Sessions to do that. (maybe I’m wrong cause I haven’t listened to them recently.)  But basically happiness comes from expressing love. No problem there.

Making sure I hit the point, I don’t think anywhere did I mention to get away from the happy feeling.  That’s not the direction I’m suggesting. If you got that impression from somewhere let me know and I’ll go look at my material and make the clarifications.

Don’t try to understand or dissect what isn’t broken.
Apply the exercises to the emotional reactions that you don’t enjoy for starters.

Understanding all the sources of our happy emotions is a bit more challenging and should be done later. Why would you even do it later?

One advantage of doing it is that you discover that you express love and are happy from certain triggers. Suppose someone says to you that are very smart and good looking. If your reaction to that compliment by way of your belief system is to feel good then your emotional state of happiness is dependent on compliments from other people. By this belief structure you are likely to feel poorly if they comment to you in derogatory way.  This isn’t a very empowering way to live.   You will be at the mercy of having to fish for compliments from other people. If they are having an emotionally down day then they won’t be as likely to serve them up.

We are then trapped because our happiness relies on that trigger from other people verbalizing their opinion. This can make us a slave to other people’s opinion. Maybe we do it just a little bit, but why do it at all.

But this is all a bit more advanced. Start with the emotional reactions that are unpleasant. You will be more motivated to dissect and find the false beliefs behind those emotional reactions.

Not sure if I’ve clarified the questions you might have. This is my long range stab via email. It’s much easier to address these types of things in a session over the phone.

Gary

It was many years before I began to find a different kind of courage. It was a kind of courage that wasn’t easy to spot at first. It wasn’t the kind of courage that inspired external actions or would result in any medals or awards. I think of it as real courage.

From my point of view real courage is that attribute necessary to face and challenge our own inner demons. Real courage is that gumption to go face to face with your fears, anger, insecurities, and the voices of sabotage, doubt and judgment in your mind. It is a willful act of personal strength that you draw upon to deal with the conflicts in the mind and make peace within. Many people have fought wars with enemies outside of them. It is a rare kind of courage to take up the fight to make peace within.

To face that critical voice in your head and tell it that you will not believe its criticisms isn’t an easy thing to do. Oddly enough it isn’t even something that many people consider doing. They just go along with the less than favorable opinions they have of other people. They go along with the unkind and even self abusive opinions about themselves. Why do we fail to stand up to these self abusive comments? Why don’t people stand up against the tyranny in their own mind? Perhaps it doesn’t occur to us to challenge those thoughts. But perhaps it doesn’t occur to us because we are afraid of what will happen if we challenge those inner demons.

What will happen if we look face to face at our anger instead of just expressing it? What will happen if we look into all the justifications for why we are angry and say, “I don’t want to justify and defend feeling this way. What will happen if we look directly at our stories of insecurity, stand up for our self and say, “You have no power over me”?

Why does challenging the voices and rationalizations behind our unhappiness take such courage? Part of the issue is that we have come to unquestioningly trust our mind. We trust it to make decisions for us and to keep us safe from physical pain and emotional hurt. It has structured a giant list of rules to follow in order to keep from getting hurt. It constantly reminds of these rules with its “should” and “shouldn’t” chatter. We learned follow our thinking mind blindly. Yet it is those same voices that can keep us up at night with uncontrollable chatter driving us to fear and anxiety with imagined stories of terrible outcomes. Oddly we trust this very same mind to guide us to happiness.

So what is so scary about challenging the beliefs, thoughts, and opinions, in the mind that it needs real courage? Very simply, if we can’t trust our mind then what can we trust? This notion of not trusting our mind to tell us what to do can push us towards a fear that we will want to avoid.
A person needs real courage to challenge the thoughts in their head because without that mind in charge what are we going to trust to keep them safe from emotional pain? We have come to rely on every thought from our mind as being true that we feel we need it there to guide us. We trust our mind to keep us free of emotional pain and yet it is the principle means by which we generate emotional pain and anxiety.

There is a slight shift you can make to help begin the journey. It is to make a difference between trusting your mind and trusting your self. You can learn not to believe in the thoughts in your mind and still believe in your self.

What are those rules in our mind that are driven by our inner demons of fear? Fear tells us, don’t fall in love or you will get hurt. Fear tells us, that if we start that business we might fail. Fear tells us not to speak up in the meeting because we might look foolish. Fear tells us not to do something for our self because we don’t want to be labeled as selfish. Fear tells us not to climb too high we might fall. Those thoughts are rules that are supposed to help us be better off emotionally. Of course each rule requires loading our self down with a fear.

Challenging your demon thoughts and beliefs is like letting go of a hand rail that we have hung on to for safety. Our fear says that we should hang on or else we might fall and get hurt. Our fear has been reminding us ever since we fell down on the play ground as a little kid and got hurt. It has been pounding the message into our being until we don’t let go of any handrails. Learning to hang on to the handrails may be a good idea when we are little and haven’t fully developed our balance and muscle control. However when we get older we still follow the advice of fear in our mind. Fear has become our adviser in making choices in our life.

You can’t run very fast or far in your life if you don’t let go of the handrail of fear.
We sometimes fool ourselves and think that we are gripped by fear. The reverse is true. We hang on to fear as a trusted adviser gripping it as if it were going to keep us from getting hurt emotionally. We cling to all its advice in hopes that we won’t get hurt. We don’t realize that hanging on to these beliefs and fears extracts its own kind of emotional price. Fear becomes our mythological god. We follow its counsel, we trust its words. When we obey those voices of fear in our mind and serve our personal god of fear and all its laws.

What happens when we disobey the god of fear? Perhaps we hold the belief that bad things will happen to us if we disobey the rules of the god of fear. Perhaps that god of fear will judge us for being stupid and not following its advice. There is the fear of being punished or feeling guilty for disobeying. There become fearful consequences for challenging our fears. Imagine that, fear of breaking free of agreements of fear.

To challenge your personal fears may feel like taking on a whole nest of inner demons. It’s more than just letting go of the hand rail, it’s fighting off the fearful reactions in the mind that happen when we break the rules in the mind. That takes real courage. We are also risking the possibility that people will react differently when we act differently. We are stepping into the unknown. To challenge these inner demons and step into the unknown consequences takes a different kind of courage.

In my last post I shared that what we typically think of as courage often has larger fears at the foundation. What looks like a brave act may really have deeper personal fears as part of the motivation. What I have come to realize is that it takes a real kind of courage to challenge these deeper internal fears at the foundation of our behaviors and actions. To challenge the inner demons and fears in the mind is a truly heroic act that only few dare take on. That is why it is often referred to as the mythological journey of the hero.

What is different about facing your fears and inner demons is that there is no public glory in it. No one will notice that you are reflecting on your own behavior, emotions, and reactions. No one gives you medals, and hardly anyone recognizes the kind of courage it takes. There is no one rooting you on. You go on this inward journey alone. This solo adventure that you don’t do for anyone else and don’t do with anyone else is part of why it takes a different kind of courage.

It also makes for a kind of courage that doesn’t get corrupted with the self importance of getting attention and recognition from others. It has a kind of humble integrity that is independent from other people’s opinions and how they measure you.

Having the courage to take this kind of inward journey beyond your own inner demons has no external rewards, at least not in the beginning. However the internal changes and personal freedom gained is its own reward. To be free of fear, to no longer be subject to the emotional reactions of anger, jealousy, and insecurity is a reward. To no longer have to prove your self to any one, even your self is an incredible relief. To have immunity from fear of what other people think of you is an internal reward that can’t be externally measured. To slay the voices in the mind of doubt and criticism and create peace within is a completely unseen reward.
To challenge your inner demons and win over your fears is a heroic feat. It is truly a hero’s journey to face and win the war within. It is a feat that requires a different kind of courage.

I’m in awe of anyone who even tries. To me it is not important to win. We don’t know how long we have to live, maybe just a week, or month, or year. We can not count on winning over our inner demons when we don’t know how long we have. In any case this Hero’s Journey it is not about winning. If we make it about winning we are also making it about losing, and perhaps the fear of losing becomes another one of our demons. The journey is more about letting go of the fear of losing and the fear of failing that so often corrupts the desire to win or succeed.

In the challenge against our inner demons of fear and judgments winning and losing is not important. It is only important that we find the courage to try.

RELATED MATERIAL
For a step by step process on dealing with your inner demons listen to the session in the Self Mastery Audio Program

For guidance on challenging your inner demons and recovering your integrity see the Workshops and Spiritual Power Journeys events page
MP3 audio podcast on Overcoming Fear

The Courage to Live Consciously by Steve Pavlina