February is here and it’s reality time for our 2023 New Year’s personal resolutions and the quarterly plans and goals in our businesses.
I make personal and business plans, but I don’t accomplish everything I set out to every month or every year.
Occasionally I underestimate (or over-goal) what it takes to get it done.
Sometimes the world changes and the plan doesn’t make sense anymore.
Every once in a while it just wasn’t the right time for it and it was better to let it go.
But after all that, most of the time, when I don’t get something done that I had planned to do that I could have gotten done, if I’m honest with myself…
It isn’t because of some outside force, bad planning, or underestimation. It’s because I avoided it somehow.
There was something there that my brain didn’t want to actually to do.
It created some conscious or unconscious bad vibes. Some fear or other negative story I am telling myself under all of that avoidance.
My best intentions hit a negative self-story. Sometimes the story wins. Not always, but the “didn’t get it done list” is all about the negative stories my mind is telling me.
If there’s something I’m not getting done that I could have, there’s simply a negative story under it.
I know this. You know this. There are a million self-help books and coaches and apps that help with this. I get a lot done overall, even new big things.
But when I’m not getting things done, and I know it, I know there’s work to be done on my habits, systems, schedules, and those darn stories I tell myself.
I have good habits and systems and schedules and all of that. I have been doing personal and business plans and getting things done for over 30 years. I’m kind of a fanatic about those things.
The stuff I’m not getting done is all about me and my mind.
“We have met the enemy and it is us,” as Pogo said in the famous Walt Kelly cartoon.
I know this and I’m working on it. I have my ways.
That’s how I see it. I know I’m not alone.
How do you identify and deal with what’s under the stuff you aren’t getting done?
