don't give up!

I know I've written a lot lately about goals, and reaching for what you want, and all that good stuff, so I thought I'd share with you part of an article on motivation that I got from another savvy coach, Nancy Fox. (Visit her at www.thebusinessfox.com) The whole article is more in-depth, but the part that resonated most with me broke down the stages of decision-making:

1. "Action/Decision - you take some new action or make a decision
2. Relief/Excitement - this provides relief or excitement - You look forward to the new.
3. Doubt - the relief or excitement is short-lived. Doubt for your decision or about your action sets in.
4. Fear/Overwhelm - Doubt is immediately followed by fear or a feeling of being overwhelmed.
5. Remorse/Regret - You begin to regret your choice or action. (This is what is commonly known as "buyers remorse.")
6. Projecting Blame - You immediately start seeking who you might blame for the feeling of remorse. You see it as a force outside of yourself. Ex. Your partner was a bad guy anyway, your boss never told you what he/she really expected, etc.
7. Seeking Shelter/Safety - Here's where you want to pull back or go back to old familiar ways. Ex. You want to stay in your current job vs. making a change to one with greater potential.
8. Relief - You feel a short-lived sense of relief.
9. Lowered self-esteem - Right below relief is an experience of lowered self-esteem because you have not made a decision from a powerful stance but from a fearful one."

I love the way this breaks down because I can see myself in every one of those steps. (I've gotten a lot better about #6, though!) I've definitely made decisions, gotten excited, doubted, gotten scared, and started to change my mind. For me, the "seeking shelter/safety" is extra powerful, because it leads to that blessed, almost instantaneous relief of not having to do anything.

However...

When the change is important to me, I build in safeguards to ward off steps 5, 6, and 7, and therefore avoid steps 8 and 9 all together.

Nancy's suggestions for safeguards are the following:

1. "Accepting Full Responsibility - for your situation and for your results. No excuses. Gives you a huge sense of power.
2. Adopting A Can Do Mindset - Listen to your language. Are you telling yourself it can be done, or it can't? Either way you'll be right. Your choice.
3. Trusting - In yourself and your ability to generate the right results.
4. Seeking Support - Hang around with supportive people, hang with the winners.
5. Positive People, Positive Life - self explanatory.
6. Daily Consistent Actions - Put the right structures, right routines in place and adhere to them as if they are the law - your law.
7. Focus on your WHY - By focusing on your real purpose, why you took the action, you will be motivated to stick to it."

I think these suggestions are spot on, and will affect different people in different ways. For example, #4 is crucial for me -- I'm a talker. And I can talk myself out of fear just as easily as I can talk myself into it. So combining supportive people with consistent, daily actions, often helps me overcome my fear in a plow-ahead-like-a-freight-train kind of way. Sure, it's scary, but if I do #7 and ramp up #3 (possibly via #2 and #1), I can make it through.