The average person makes over 35,000 decisions a day and goes to bed at night feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. Balancing work, family, friends, finances and on and on can be a challenge for even the most organized of us. Even being on top of everything doesn't guarantee that we will be happy, and it's easy to get stuck feeling like we're on a hamster wheel just going faster and faster.
Your life isn’t an accident. You’ve been making choices your entire life and those choices have brought you to where you are today, but you didn’t come this far only to come this far. You want to see changes, but you aren’t sure where to start.
Here are the top 5 reasons I have found in my practice why people stay stuck:
I DON’T HAVE TIME.
Time is our one finite resource. We each only get so many hours in a day and no one gets more. The average American spends roughly 5 hours a day on discretionary activities. When you add up the 3 hours of TV and 2 hours of social media, the time we spend on ourselves is frighteningly small - almost none or none for most of us. Aren’t you worth moving ‘you’ to the top of your ‘to-do list’?
I CAN’T AFFORD IT.
Most people have limited resources and we make decisions every day on where we will spend those resources. After the essentials, most the of the money we spend goes into momentary ‘pic-me-ups’. One of the most common is shopping. It feels good in the moment, but that initial thrill of a buy disappears quickly and most of those items end up in the back of the closet, in a landfill or out of sight in a storage unit (almost 10% of American households have at least one storage unit). Where are you investing in you?
I DON’T BELIEVE I CAN CHANGE.
We all have beliefs about how things are. We learned them from people in our lives, things we went through and our interpretation of the world around us. These beliefs are often inaccurate and are one of the main reasons people get ‘stuck’. They drive our decision making and leave us with a life that is less than we want it to be. If we don’t change what we believe, we can be certain to stay right where we are. Isn’t it time to break free of the chains of your limiting beliefs?
I CAN DO THIS ON MY OWN.
We would all like to believe that we can do it all. We can be the best boss, employee, spouse, parent, friend, sibling…you get the idea. Asking for help in our world has become the same as admitting defeat, weakness and vulnerability. By depriving yourself of the gift of asking for help, you can expect to get more of what you’ve always gotten. After all, your best thinking got you here. Are you willing to look at things from a different perspective?
I’ll DO IT LATER.
Procrastination has grown to epic proportions in many of our lives. We have so much going on that we believe must get done now, that it is easy to put off the things we really want or need to do. We can sometimes unconsciously (or even consciously) fill up our schedules, so there isn’t any room or us to get our own needs met. Unfortunately, tomorrow often turns into never and we stay right where we are, or things get worse. Tomorrow will soon be today, so don’t put off the things that may be tough but will plant the seeds for a better tomorrow.
These are just a few examples of the things that hold people back from building the business, career or life of their dreams. I have no doubt that you can make your life anything you want it to be. But if you’re waiting for it to come to you or for someone to rescue you and do the work for you, I’m afraid that isn’t going to happen.
Here’s what I know to be true. Success rarely happens overnight and most people go through their lives via a series of coincidences and circumstances rather than intention. It takes thoughtful planning, hard work and the right support to craft the life you want. It's out there and it's possible, but you have to make the first move. No more excuses. Your life is waiting for you.