Week 3 – Trust the Process….and Life is a Process

Ah, some progress and some challenges this week for sure.  I think the fact that I am cranking this blog out at the last minute before going to bed to work early tomorrow morning instead of Wednesday when I had planned it is evidence of that….but the fact that I am cranking it out and meeting my commitments is what is important.

I think the BIGGEST positive I see so far is a reduction in my procrastination and tardiness.  I have procrastinated my whole life…and I would like to note here that I am also being MUCH more mindful of my words now because as my good friend, Kevin, pointed out to me, which is reinforced in this course, words matter.  In the past, I would have said I am a huge procrastinator, and almost wore it as a badge of honor because I could always pull it off and highly succeed, especially in school.   I would have been tying my identity to being a procrastinator rather than having procrastination be a behavior that I could change.  This course is helping me realize that I got addicted to the adrenaline rush of coming down to the wire to get things done, a big challenge.  It was simultaneously stressful and exhilarating.  But, doing things at the last minute means that even if I pulled it off well, I could have done it better, and it was very mentally and emotionally taxing.  Repeating “Do it Now” over and over has, it seems, led me to taking care of a lot of tasks right away that I would have put off in the past.  I have also been early to several appointments this week, which never happened in the past.  I was well known for being late.  I read somewhere that people who are chronically late are often optimistic people who always think they can fit in more than they actually can in the time allotted.  Aww, how nice to think me being late meant I was optimistic!  And, while that did ring true, it is NOT who I want to be (the procrastinator part, not the optimistic part!)!  So, instead, this week, if I was about to put off leaving early to fit one more thing in, I said “Do it Now” and left right away.  It was BIZARRE to arrive places early!  But so much less stress not feeling embarrassed or frustrated at myself for being late.  I was really excited!

Other positives…I am realizing that all growth and change is a process, and processes are hard.  When you are doing something hard, you likely aren’t going to be 100%.  And for me in the past, I tended to be all or nothing.  Either I was eating SUPER healthy, or I had a “screw it” day and practically deep fried the waitress, dipped her in sugar, and ate her, too!  And along with that came guilt and a “I’ll start back 100% tomorrow…or maybe Monday”.  I was either all in or I gave up, but I have been fighting that here because I WANT and WILL HAVE what this course has to offer me, what *I* have to offer myself!  So, while I haven’t been 100% with my commitments to this class, I am doing my best.  I missed a day of sitting here, I forgot to read my Greatest Salesman in the morning there, etc., but I am doing my best to follow the process for change, even when my Old Blueprint says things like, “It’s super late.  Missing one night of reading your assignments it isn’t going to make a difference”.  I may be really tired and read the chapter fast to get to bed, but I get it done.  Also, it has been REALLY hard not to turn the TV on after I am done to fall asleep.  I found out this week a close relative has Stage 4 cancer, and my mind has been racing (it usually races anyway, which is why I HATE the sitting exercise and dread it each day).  The TV helps divert it so I can sleep.  But, Mark stressed the importance of no TV after your nightly readings, so again, I thank Kevin for sending me an audio sleep track to put on to help me count my way to sleep without the TV.

Lastly, since this blog is already way over the recommended limits and I should end this written diarrhea soon and get to bed, two more things.  One is that I struggle with believing what I am telling myself with this course sometimes.  I KNOW the power of the subconscious mind, have experienced it myself, and still I have days where I struggle to keep my belief up with my DMP or these other things, feeling afraid of putting myself out there with all the HOPE and FAITH I can muster and having it still not work out.  Fortunately, those are just days here and there, and I keep reading the books and keep pressing forward and keep doing my best to build my faith and belief EVERY day.

I also wrote a schedule for my week.  Turns out I thought I was conservative with what I planned but I WAY overestimated how many things I could get done in a day.  In the past, this would have lead to feelings of failure and frustration and feeling overwhelmed and unable to relax.  However, now, I was more objective now (after some thought and effort) and looked at it as a process where I am learning how to be truly productive with my time, how to set realistic productivity goals, but also how to let it go and not beat myself up if things don’t go as I planned.  And, of course, learning how to work when it is time to work and relax or have fun when it is time for that.  Balance is so critical and so lacking in our society.  We feel guilty if we aren’t constantly getting something done, but relaxing is a very important part of that getting something done…I supposed that is evidenced in our sitting assignment!  Ah, I get it now.  I feel guilty when I relax so the sitting is hard for me because I am not used to it!  I am improving.

And here’s a picture of my dogs just because I JUST finally noticed the button that everyone is using to add pictures. Figuring it out was on my list of things to do. CHECK! 😉

Last last thing is I learned this week to trust what the mentors are telling me and not try to go all overachiever on things.  They said do a SIMPLE chore because it didn’t matter if it was big or little, your subconscious just knows that you did it and kept your promise.  Well, my first week, I didn’t listen and made my chore a 1.5 hour closet cleaning project I had been wanting to do for months.  That felt SO GOOD to accomplish that, and days earlier than the deadline, that I thought I would also schedule my chore for this week to be a BIG paper sorting project that I had been wanting to do for months.  Well, a lot of things have come up this week and I have not done the chore yet because it will be very time-consuming and a huge mess if I stop in the middle of it.  So, instead of my subconscious being super excited for getting a chore done as I promised and way ahead of schedule as a bonus, I am frustrated that I am going to be again down to the wire doing it the day before it is due.  I thought during the week about changing it to something easy like they’d said, but then I’d have been lying to myself that I promised myself much of the week I would do that project and then quit because it got hard.  So, I will suck it up, get the project done tomorrow, which is still within the time frame I promised myself, and next time I will LISTEN to what they are telling me and follow the process exactly as they say to set myself up for maximum success.

SUPER tired and just want to go to bed but time for my nightly reading because “I must not, I do not, break this habit of daily reading from these scrolls.”  Move over, Og!  I’m comin’ to bed!

P.S.  Apologize for the slap-happy tone of this post.  It has been a very physically and emotionally taxing week and it’s time to stick a fork in me!