Between late 2020 and early 2021, I bought a whole bunch of personal development and self-help books which I was extremely excited to read at the time of purchasing. However, if I’m being honest I have not read most of them yet. My excuses were that I was too busy and that work was draining me. *Cough – I spent my time admiring my collection of books from my bed while scrolling through my phone doing research about personal development and blogging and metal stamping and how to start a business and… yeah you get it.
Did you know that continuous learning without actually doing was a form of procrastination? I honestly don’t remember where I read that from as it was during my many hours of researching all and everything. When I think about it, I suppose it is true because why do all this work to not actually do anything? What’s the endgame?
See, my mindset was there but my discipline was not. I was motivated but not determined enough. And I’m not just talking about reading these books – I’m also referring to the many projects I started and never finished and scrapped. Yeah, I gave myself a lot of crap and often felt bad for not doing the things I said I would do. I mean I made list after list and planned everything from my reading schedule to blogging to crafting, exercising, meal-prepping, and working. So yes – it was quite disappointing when a year passed and I was still in the same spot.
Now thinking back I not only lacked discipline but the main reasoning to my results of nothingness was because of my fear and learned helplessness. At that time I was too scared and anxious, not that I’m not still feeling that now. I am learning to take things one step at a time and am really focusing on working through my underlying negative beliefs about myself and my life. It was just that back then I was able to fool myself into believing that I actually didn’t want to succeed as bad as I thought I did. They say that if you want something bad enough, you’ll work hard to get it. So… I guess I didn’t want to change myself for the better then. That’s what my mind concluded to and where I kept myself for a while.
I self-sabotage all the time and let my mind carry me away.
Over the years, I have picked up a few of my personal development and self-help books, and though they make me feel good after finishing them, I only quote my favorite lines. At this point of my life, I am reminding myself that that just won’t do it anymore. Now that I have a better understanding of my underlying beliefs about myself and my life, I do want to try again and see where I go from here. My fiancé say I need a lot of discipline and I totally agree with him because mindset doesn’t equal discipline or behavior.
It has been a slow progression but I feel happier and more hopeful.
My Journal Vault 