Can willpower be developed?
In a word, YES!
No One Follows Through
It’s easy to get frustrated when we perceive someone else as not following through on something they’re expected to do, whether professionally or personally. Let’s look at why that happens and how to correct it.
When Fear Feels Real
Oftentimes our fears feel very real to us and simply dismissing the fear as made-up seems trite. How can you use your fears as a starting point to a greater you?
The magic lies in the experience of fear, itself. When we feel fear it’s our opportunity to slow ourselves down and explore the starting point for that emotion of fear and then reframe and move past the fear so we’re no longer in our own way.
Procrastinator as Protagonist
You aren’t a procrastinator.
Procrastination isn’t a “thing.”
Procrastination is nothing more than a story you’ve made up (or believed someone else’s story) about yourself to explain your reason for not doing something you just don’t want to do.
If something keeps getting pushed to tomorrow’s To-Do List, that’s simply an opportunity for you to slow down and gather more information.
Ask yourself:
Why am I not completing this task, project or assignment?
Answer yourself honestly.
You will uncover the reason behind your procrastination story and that reason may look like this:
it’s not fun
it’s tedious
it’s too big
it’s not my responsibility
it’s hard
it’s complicated
Or any number of reasons I’ve left off this incomplete list.
Next ask:
How can I love this project?
How can I have fun with it?
How can I change my story about this task?
When we slow ourselves down long enough to truly look at what’s not being done we see we are not the problem. Our relationship with our story about ourselves is the problem.
Rewrite your story so that the protagonist is the conquerer of tasks and not the other way around.
Happy endings are a choice.
But only every time.
Phantom Fears
Saturday morning cartoons were the routine at my house. We happily jumped out of bed early to help ourselves to bowl after bowl of cold cereal while we sat for hours, eyes glued to the television, until Mom made us turn off the tv and go outside to play.
Scooby Doo, Where Are You! was a family favorite. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, allow me to give you the major plot outline of every single episode:
Four friends and a dog named Scooby Doo drive around in a van and solve mysteries that always turn out to be not so mysterious when they arrive at their big reveal in the concluding scene.
Thinking back on the many episodes I watched, there was a regularly-occurring scary creature: a phantom, who would especially terrify the gang. I vividly remember experiencing fright every single time at the sight of that phantom lurking in the dark recesses of the (usually) abandoned building the friends were investigating.
And every single time it turned out the phantom wasn’t a phantom at all because phantoms, as it turns out, aren’t real; they’re imagined. There was always a logical (and not at all mysterious) explanation for whatever phantom appeared to be lurking in the dark.
Our fears are just like those cartoon phantoms: entirely made up. Our phantoms can assume a wide variety of forms:
- Fear over what another person thinks
Fear of a conversation
Fear of trying something new
Fear of appearing different
Fear of sharing an opinion
Fear of failure
Fear of success
Fear of perceived risk
Fear of a new computer system
Fear of asking for what you want
Fear of submitting a proposal
Fear of following up
Fear of being overlooked
Fear of (insert your own)
Our mystery can be very un-mysterious because the mystery to be solved isn’t why your phantom is lurking, but whether you imagined it in the first place.
What if instead of further convincing yourself the phantom fear is real, poses a real threat and prevents you from going into your dark and scary place, you flip on the light and ask yourself the following questions:
1. Do I absolutely know the phantom is real?
2. How do I feel when I believe the phantom is real?
3. Who would I be without that phantom in my life?
Then be number three.
Stuff I Have to Do
Once we’ve paired down our “to-do” lists to the essentials and the things we truly WANT to be doing — where do we go from there? Because even that can feel overwhelming.
Busy With No Time
Who HASN’T felt the overwhelm of busy? (That’s gonna be a small queue.) Let’s look at a simple solution.
Moving Past Fear
Here’s one way to look at fear and why it stops us from moving forward.
Ask Arminda Intro
Let’s play a game!
You have a question about your life or someone else’s life and the way everybody shows up?
Ask me.
You’re wondering how to move your happy meter higher so you can experience happiness the majority of the time?
Ask me.
Why would anyone get a life coach?
Ask me.
My most embarrassing childhood memories?
Ask me.
You’re creative and have your own questions?
Ask me.
Trust the Bus
My friend Marielle introduced me to an experience I’ll never forget.
Together we boarded a repurposed school bus in a small country town late one Saturday night. No money was asked of our participation; this would be a free ride. The bus was completely packed with people AND there was a caravan of vehicles following behind because there wasn’t enough space for everyone who wanted a seat.
What transpired over the next two hours I could never have anticipated and I’m not sure I can — or want to try to — explain to you what happened.
Perhaps what I experienced is irrelevant.
And yet I never would have had the experience if I hadn’t gotten on the bus. Oversimplification? No.
We don’t have to know where the bus is heading to take the ride.
We don’t even have to know who else is on the bus.
My experience on the bus wasn’t identical (or probably even similar) to Marielle’s or to anyone else’s riding the bus. It was only my experience being created.
The adventure is made in the taking of it.
We can’t have an adventure we’re not willing to take.
You can’t create an adventure if you’re not along for the ride.
Be in action in your life.
Get on the bus.
Just go.
Trust the bus and test the experience.
p.s. — if you had a previous ride that didn’t create the experience you thought it would, don’t allow that non-existent past be the reason you never get on another bus to test a new adventure.