3 Reasons We Don’t Start and How to Overcome Them

We have a lot of ideas and good intentions, but often fall short of acting on them. Starting and finishing fuels more starting. Here are three common reasons that we don’t start:      

1. Busy

2. Change

3. Fear

Let’s break each down and get more starting in our day.

Busy

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.” – Thomas A. Edison

Busy is the most common response we get when we ask others “how are you?” It’s the new badge of honor and measure of worth. It is also the primary excuse for not pursuing meaningful goals and aspirations.

There are so many hours in the day and we can’t do it all well. Being busy is very real, so jamming more into the day is not the answer either. We need to make better choices, pay attention and invest our finite time carefully. We need to get off the “busy roller coaster” and start asking and answering “what am I busy doing and to what end?” Too busy also leads to overwhelm.

In her article How to Deal with Constantly Feeling Overwhelmed, Rebecca Zucker states, “The cognitive impact of feeling perpetually overwhelmed can range from mental slowness, forgetfulness, confusion, difficulty concentrating or thinking logically, to a racing mind or an impaired ability to problem solve. When we have too many demands on our thinking over an extended period of time, cognitive fatigue can also happen, making us more prone to distractions and our thinking less agile. Any of these effects, alone, can make us less effective and leave us feeling even more overwhelmed.”

She offers some strategies to deal with overwhelm:

1.       Pinpoint the primary source of overwhelm – if it’s unfinished – finish, if it’s too big, break it down into small steps;

2.       Set boundaries on your time and workload – say “no” more;

3.       Challenge your perfectionism – good is good enough;

4.       Outsource or delegate – put your effort into what’s the best use of your time and talent;

5.       Challenge your assumptions – limiting beliefs keep us stuck – step back and look from a different angle.

“Creating change in the area of busyness can offer us improved physical health, greater peace and joy, and better, more connected, relationships. Having time for others and ourselves can offer us that sense of safety, value, and connection we were once looking for by being so busy.” Jodi Clarke, MA, LPC/MHSP says in her article on How the Glorification of Busyness Impacts Our Well-Being.

Health, wellness, creativity and increased productivity are worthy outcomes of overcoming the “busy” hurdle.

“…in order to expose the quality of our imagination, there has to be a time of silence. A time when everything gets shut out for the duration of your creative session. Blocking all potential distractions will encourage a more productive and creative you. It maximizes your abilities to see what you’re really made of apart from all the noise and feeds that clutter your mind. In the end, you’ll discover more ideas than you ever could before because you were willing to do what most people aren’t.” – Kevin Horton

Change

“Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.” – Stephen Covey

Brain science can explain our aversion to change as well as how to overcome it. Change is inevitable and if we allow, it leads to growth and development.

“Change is constant and our aversion to it is wired into our brain. Most of our daily activities including many of our work habits are controlled by a part of the brain called the basal ganglia. These habitual repetitive tasks take much less mental energy to perform because they become hard wired and we no longer have to give them much conscious thought. So it's no wonder that the way we've always done it not only feels right, it feels good. Change jerks us out of this comfort zone by stimulating the prefrontal cortex, a section of the brain responsible for insight and impulse control. But the prefrontal cortex is also directly linked to the amygdala and that's the brain's fear circuitry, which in turn controls our freeze, fight or flight response. And when the prefrontal cortex is overwhelmed with complex and unfamiliar concepts, the amygdala connection gets knocked into high gear. The result is all those negative feelings of anxiety, fear, depression, sadness, fatigue or anger,” say Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.

She offers some strategies to deal more effectively with change including:

1. Make change familiar – repetition move a new concept from the prefrontal cortex to the basil ganglia. When it’s more familiar, it’s less threatening;

2. Pay attention – the greater concentration on an idea, the higher the attention density which facilitates long-term behavioral change;

3. Don’t underestimate the power of emotion – logical reasoning is no more that a way to justify emotional choices;

4. Emotions are infectious – be positive!

In Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey define “competing commitments” as psychological forces undermining an individual’s efforts to achieve an objective. They outline four critical steps for overcoming emotional pitfalls and arrive at true transformation:

1. Get goal-oriented;

2. Clear out obstructive behaviors;

3. Confront competing commitments;

4. Challenge your big assumptions.

Download a Mapping Your Immunity to Change Worksheet.

Fear

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” – Plato

In his Ted Talk Smash Fear, Learn Anything, Tim Ferriss says “Fear is your friend. Fear is an indicator. Sometimes it shows you what you shouldn't do. More often than not it shows you exactly what you should do. And the best results that I've had in life, the most enjoyable times, have all been from asking a simple question: what's the worst that can happen? Especially with fears you gained when you were a child. Take the analytical frameworks, the capabilities you have, apply them to old fears. Apply them to very big dreams.”

In The Only Thing You Need to Do to Overcome Fear, According to Neuroscience, Mareo McCracken sums up how to overcome fear based on MIT neuroscience professor and cognitive specialist Earl Miller’s research, “Commitments are not decisions, commitments are not preferences, commitments are not ideals. They are stronger and deeper, they are steadfast and immovable. Once you commit to something, nothing else matters. If you want to take action, which will eliminate fear, the only thing you need to do is make a commitment. Why? Commitment means an action is taking place and your brain is focusing on something else besides the fear. Commitment always leads to confidence; it is a cycle. Action creates success and success will create confidence. If you don't have confidence, take action, and the confidence will come because you will find success because you will not be thinking about fear. All fear is neutralized when commitment is proven through action. This is how your brain works.”

Taking action can help you overcome fear, so do it afraid!

When we understand our obstacles to starting and apply strategies to overcome them, we can focus our time on daily activities that move us to the finish line. Dig in and move beyond your excuses of busyness, change-aversion and fear so you can get to the finish line of your becoming.