Emotions High, Intelligence Low...
This past Sunday, I woke up and was gripped by fear. Fear that I couldn’t manage our family’s overseas move. Fear that I’d gone in over my head by wanting to launch my online programs just a month before the move.
I was afraid that I would have nothing to show for all the time, energy and effort I put into both work and home fronts, hid under the quilt and declared that I would put off my online course indefinitely!
I even went into my website backend and took the whole damn thing down. I basically was going off the rails like this babe...
My husband, bless him, who knows me very well (he'd better, after 26 years!) looked at me calmly and said, "You know you don't have to do that..."
After about 45 minutes of alternating between refusing to talk about it, throwing the blame on anyone and anything that came to mind, and just wanting to give up and hide under the covers all day, we finally went down to our family whiteboard - seriously, every family should have one of those - and started to work backwards.
It was at this point that I realised how much I'd been swept up in the excitement and fun of creating, that I hadn't even gotten CLEAR on my outcomes. The foundation for the course is already there, but because I didn't have a very clear vision of what a "LAUNCH" looked like, I'd been setting myself up for major stress and... yes, you've already heard it, that meltdown.
"What does the launch mean?" Dany asked me calmly (which did nothing to calm ME down). I kept quiet...
In my head, there were visions of this massively successful program reaching millions of people. No wonder I was stressed out.
So I took some deep breaths and started thinking a little more clearly... because as the title of this blog article says: when emotions run high, your intelligence goes low. And that's when my self-sabotage instinct kicked in.
Maybe some of you can relate?
You work hard toward some goal or other, and just as you are about to turn the corner, it feels a little... too... much. So what do you? You self-sabotage, that's what.
Maybe you do something to halt it dead in its tracks. Like, major tire squeal and skid marks.
Or you prepare to walk away and justify your actions.
... It's too hard.
... Not gonna happen anyway...
... So many other people have tried and failed... who am I to do this successfully?
Most times, I might wallow in self-pity for a while and say “Well, this can wait”. But life has its ways of teaching you the lessons you need... OVER & OVER AGAIN, UNTIL YOU FINALLY GET IT!
When you’re committed and the stakes are high, the universe listens…
This time, the stakes were higher. I have people counting on me. My life work is finally being made into something I can call my own. I have the support of amazing family and friends who are so finely attuned to my thoughts and feelings that they show up to keep me on track.
Case in point, an Insta post from a friend that showed up Sunday mid-meltdown, about how Alex Beadon's online programs only took off after several YEARS, not months. This gave me the clarity that the pressure I'd been putting myself through was completely unwarranted.
The funny thing is I hardly ever check Instagram, let alone the messages! So, divine intervention was at work (through my pal Gladys).
The Insta message from my friend Gladys that came exactly at the right time!
So this time is different. I took my deep breaths. Applied my own "And what I saw was ADD VALUE. All I need to do right now is focus on the value that I can add. It won't be perfect. Not even close.
It may not even be VERY good. But it will be enough. For now... And I'm not one to rest on my laurels, and so anything that I put out there and offer to you and the world will be tested, measured, refined and tested again.
As many of you can probably relate, I have been tripped up time and again by not being satisfied with “good enough” , and it has taken years of working on myself to accept that any launch (within reason) is better than no launch.
Self-sabotage is meant to be helpful but…
This self-sabotage instinct is also the brain’s automatic mechanism to protect you - from negative emotions: failure, embarrassment, sadness. It’s the brain’s job.
But it is OUR job to get a grip on that instinctive monster, and see it for what it was meant to be. If it is to protect us and push us into fight or flight for survival, we can make a more intentional mindful choice about what we do with it.
A few deep breaths later, I gathered myself together and put that course back on the website. Fear be damned…I got this, and I will get through this.
Having higher stakes has meant that it’s no longer about me. It’s about that someone out there who might have a glimmer of insight from the course, or an interaction with someone in the community being build, or just having opened someone’s eyes to the possibilities in their life. And that’s what will keep me going, beyond my emotional hiccup.
Where in your life have you thrown in the towel or pulled the brakes on something you were working on, or toward, just before you got to your ideal outcome or goal? And what were your strategies to get through it?
I’d love to hear from you!
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