Breaking Through Excuses: Practical Tips for Taking Action

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:02]:
This is episode number 274. If you are someone who tends to think or say, I don't have enough time, or if you're someone who is hesitating when it comes to getting things done, meeting your goals, expanding your own potential, then this episode is for you. I'm going to break down my ideas and thoughts about what resistance is, how it operates in our daily lives, how it's so human for us to experience the need for resistance to delay and avoid, but also some wonderful, simple strategies for getting back into play again so that you can build the beautiful life that you deserve. Let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:00]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success Podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:43]:
Welcome, welcome. Thanks so much for being here on the Make Time for Success Podcast. I want to first thank you for having the podcast in your ears right now, whether you're sipping your morning coffee or at the gym or taking your dogs for the walk. I just really appreciate the fact that we are together. And I'm so grateful for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you today about how to avoid resistance. And I have a lot of thoughts about resistance because when we're not being productive, we are in resistance. So this is a part of our lives that has a substantial effect. It is the part of our lives that causes us to stay in between our intention and our result.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:33]:
It's that in-between space. And so much of life is just figuring out where are we headed next. And my interest today in putting this content together for you is to help you shorten that period of time where you're in the middle, where you have that thought of what you wanna do and where you wanna get to, but you don't exactly know how you're gonna propel yourself to the finish line, to the space, to the identity, the place where you wanna land. So that's today's topic. I'm gonna share with you my ideas about conquering resistance. The first main idea that I want you to understand is that if you are procrastinating, You are in resistance. And if you are procrastinating, your nose is headed in the wrong direction. Let me explain.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:26]:
You might understand that just from those simple words. Where your nose is pointed is where you're going to go. That's something that I decided to use as a descriptor long ago for figuring out what direction you're headed in. Wherever your nose is pointed, that's where you're headed. So if you're procrastinating figuratively and sometimes literally, your nose is pointed in the exact opposite direction from where you would like to end up. And is that fine? Of course that is fine. We're humans. Avoidance is a perfectly available strategy for us to cope with stress.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:09]:
To cope with something new, to cope with the idea that we're not good enough or that this is not the right time to accomplish this goal. The thing is, so often we procrastinate instinctively and immediately without thinking to ourselves, is this really worth turning in the exact opposite direction than where I want to go? And being the procrastination coach and being a long sufferer of procrastination and being in recovery from chronic procrastination, I these days want to make sure my nose is pointed where I'm headed. And it doesn't matter that I'm taking steps forward or not, but that I want to make sure I'm not literally going in the wrong direction by procrastinating. I hope this makes sense to you. It's a really important concept to know that procrastination, although done in little bits and pieces, is not gonna harm anyone. But when you're doing it chronically, when you're doing it instinctively, when you're doing it immediately, every time a new idea comes to your mind or a new challenge comes onto your to-do list, then what's happening is your life energy is being consumed by resistance, delay, avoidance, nerves, stress, and non-accomplishment because you're not headed in the right direction. So I want you to understand that core principle of where your nose is pointing, because without that, any other strategies I could give you will probably go to waste, and I don't want that to happen either. So Now that you know what procrastination really is doing to you, I'd like to keep going.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:02]:
So let's say you have a goal and you sense some resistance. You're thinking to yourself, I don't have time for that, as an example. So that thought is your resistance. When it comes down to it, whenever you're thinking you don't have enough time, I want you to think again because all we have is time. What you're probably lacking in the moment is a strategy or commitment to actually making sure you take some action towards your goal. But I digress. We're talking about you have a goal and you're saying to yourself, I don't have time for that. Let's for this episode make the goal that you want to declutter your closet.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:47]:
You want to just go through it once. Take out the stuff that's old, tired, worn, and not your style anymore. And you keep telling yourself, but I don't have time for that. That's the resistance. So then I would love for you to say to yourself, I've got a conflict. Dr. Li told me on the Make Time for Success podcast, this is resistance. Let me take a look at what is actually happening.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:13]:
And it is likely one of two things. Is happening. Maybe two things are happening, but the first one is you have an actual roadblock. So in the case of the closet and the clothes, if you're attending a wedding as a guest, that's a giant time block. You're not in your house. You're literally blocked from going into that closet and decluttering. That's an actual roadblock. When you have an actual roadblock interfering with your plans, I want you to do one of two things.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:48]:
Do a targeted removal of that roadblock. In the extreme case, you would say, I can't go to the wedding, or I'm going to cancel this appointment because I've got a date with my closet. You don't have to cancel any weddings, by the way. I love going to weddings. So what you need to do is decide, what am I going to do to eliminate this actual roadblock? One idea is to cancel things. One idea is to schedule it in your planner. We're not typically used to scheduling these things that we're avoiding in our planners, but when you do, you can teach yourself, oh, I actually do have time for this thing. David Allen taught me that in the book Getting Things Done.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:28]:
You want to schedule your time carefully and you want to use your planner as a real instruction guide for how you're literally going to use your time. You're no longer going to write in your planner and then completely ignore what you've written. So you could literally write, I'm going to declutter my closet, 3 o'clock on Tuesday. And by doing that, you've removed the roadblock. You've removed the time roadblock because you actually do have time to do a 15-minute clean out of your closet. The other thing that you can do if you have an actual roadblock is you're going to figure out a detour. You're going to figure out how to get somebody to help you. You're going to figure out how to think differently about the problem or the challenge or the task so that you can actually fit it in in the time that you have available to you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:20]:
So when you have an actual roadblock blocking your way and it's not some other type of resistance, you either do a very specific removal of the roadblock or you figure out a detour. Very pragmatic, very doable. You've got the brains to figure this out. Go ahead and do that. The other type of resistance that we run into is the much more daunting and terrifying category, if I may say that. And of course I can, because this is my podcast. And that category is imagined or emotional Avoidance. These are thoughts like, I am really drained right now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:05]:
I don't have the energy. So that's emotional because our energy is emotional and we're feeling like we don't have the energy even though we're still able to walk and have snacks and watch TV. We're thinking we don't have time or energy for the closet. So we're feeling unenergized. We're worrying whether we're going to succeed at the task. With the closet, you might be terrifying yourself by saying, well, if I go in there, I'm just going to create a greater mess and then I'm going to get upset and I'm already stressed out by the day, so I'm not going to do that again. You may have a worry about what other people are going to think. Are they going to complain that there's a mess in the bedroom now that you've tackled the closet and there's more of a mess because you're in the middle of tackling? The closet? Are other people going to want your time and you're giving over your time to them instead of really taking care of what you really desire to do? That can be part of resistance, as we all know.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:08]:
We can think we're doing great things for other people, but what we're actually doing is also resisting our own tasks and projects and things that we really want to have done in our lives. You might also be thinking emotionally there's some risk to trying the thing that is our goal. In the closet example, the risk might be, oh, I've got stuff stacked to the ceiling. I'm thinking that if I go in there, I might hurt myself. I might hurt my shoulder again. There are all these reasons. It's all resistance. And then finally, there's the broad category of just plain anxiety.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:45]:
You're feeling too stressed. You're feeling like you are completely overwhelmed. You can't even see straight. Because you're thinking about all the things that are undone, all the open loops, how you're not feeling great about this, and it feels like decluttering would just be a giant mess on top of how you're already feeling. So those are examples of how your emotional state could be the resistance to you getting stuff done. In reality, decluttering your closet could probably take 15, 20 minutes, half an hour. But you're setting yourself up to say, I have a conflict with that. I want to stick with the status quo because I don't feel ready.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:30]:
I don't feel like I have the time. I don't feel like I have the energy. I don't feel like I'm going to like what I see when I go inside the closet. I don't know if I'm going to want to part with my mom's old sweater since my mom has passed. Those kinds of thoughts are going to flood in. And you know what? All you have to do is chuckle. You probably didn't expect me to say that, but you have to chuckle that your brain is so good at keeping you safe. That is all that this resistance is.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:01]:
It's actually not about the clutter when it comes down to it. It's about your brain and body keeping you safe, but it's keeping you safe by convincing you that you don't have energy, you don't have time, you don't have the wherewithal, and everybody is going to not like you because you've started taking action for yourself. And I'm here to be the other voice. I'm the voice on the other side of the other shoulder. I'm on the right shoulder. And I'm here to remind you that you're the boss. You have power. You have energy.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:33]:
You will have time once you schedule it. And you have this desire to do things like declutter your closet. There are things that are on your to-do list that really have no business being there. Because they could be done. And this is not a guilt session. No, no, no. This is a possibility session. This is the 15 minutes you spent with me today that is going to help you create much more time throughout your day.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:00]:
This is what we call an investment in your time and energy. When you invest half an hour in your closet, you're going to get hours back going down the road because your clothes are going to be the clothes that you want to see, because you're going to be able to walk into your closet without tripping, because the people who live with you are going to notice your better energy because you've succeeded instead of staying still, stuck, anxious, and stressed. So I want to see everyone who's listening to this episode, although I can't literally see you, I want to feel your energy. I want you to feel your energy renewing. I want to see you understanding your resistance at such a high level that you understand that you don't need to spend much time, if any, in resistance anymore. You could just open the door and declutter, as an example. So what are you gonna do with your day today? If it's the morning, what do you have planned? If it's the afternoon, what have you already conquered? Can you celebrate what you've done already? If you've broken through some resistance, can you tell someone so they can be motivated for their own tasks and challenges that they might be resisting? I really feel that our energy rubs off on other people, that we can borrow energy from other people, and we can get inspiration from just about anywhere. So I wish you the best of days today.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:31]:
I wish you success against your own resistance. And when you really tackle it, when you really observe it, when you really take pen to paper and write down one column on the left, my old self would say, and then on the right-hand column say, my new self will do, you're just gonna crush it. You're gonna crush your goals, you're gonna crush your day, and you're gonna go to bed just feeling so peachy. And that's gonna be Awesome. If you would like a wonderful worksheet that will help you to overcome your resistance and will remind you of the strategies that I've spoken about in today's episode, I invite you to go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/resistance. Again, it's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/resistance. And We'll meet again right here next week for another episode of the Make Time for Success Podcast. Thanks so much.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:28]:
Go crush your goals. Bye.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:30]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success Podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:11]:
Talk to you soon.