Will You Stand Up For What You Really Want? Or Let Your Dreams Wait For Another Day?

One thing I’m sure of about the path of creating a life you love is this: there’s a lot of learning about yourself to be done along the way!

No matter whether you’re pouring your heart into creating the business of your dreams, working at creating a beautiful home and family, or doing all you can to get your health on track…

…there are sure to be OBSTACLES. And many of them.

Some of those obstacles will appear in the form of friends, family (and even strangers) whose well-meaning advice and opinions causes us to stop in our tracks and to doubt the path we’re on.

But often we’re the ones ourselves who seem determined to get in our own way.

Maybe it has to do with fear of success. Or fear of failure.

Or maybe it has something to do with the sense of unworthiness that so many women seem to experience. So many of us don’t REALLY believe that we deserve for everything to work out for us. Or don’t believe that we have what it takes to see our dreams through to fruition.

And so, just as we’re beginning to make progress with those goals that are so important to us, we fall back.

We fall back into the familiar, well-worn habits, the comfort of where we were not so long ago.

And in momentarily losing our grasp on our goals and dreams, we take hold again of the feeling that we can never make it work. And so give ourselves permission to stop trying.

It’s a process that you possibly know well. I know I do!

Self-sabotage.

It’s not pretty. There’s nothing inspiring about it (except in the overcoming of it!)

And unfortunately, recognizing self-sabotage for what it is doesn’t guarantee that you won’t continue to repeat the process.

My own glaringly obvious experience of self-sabotage (for this week!) happened only a few days ago.

For two nights, I’d worked on finally beginning to clear the paper piles that seem to have made a permanent home for themselves on our family room floor.

The papers in these several piles are mostly related to my hubby’s business – with a few personal bills and school notices, and a number of books, also hiding in there somewhere.

These piles have been a daily reminder to me of the ‘To-do’s’ that are currently overwhelming and of the constant tug-of-war between those things I ‘have to’ do, the things I ‘should’ do and the many things I love and truly want to do.

So with a goal in mind of having at least one room in the house where home is separated from business, I spent several hours sorting, tossing and creating a filing system that I was incredibly proud of.

But more than that, creating space. Clear floor. And a huge feeling of relief that I was on my way towards my goal.

I’m ashamed to admit what happened next, but maybe you’ve had a similar experience and will understand!

When a delivery truck turned up at our back door, with 40 boxes of newly printed books to drop off, I was surprised. This was the first driver to ever bring books around to the back entrance of our house – the door that opens onto our kitchen and family room.

I could’ve asked him to take the car around to the front of the house. (The front room and entrance are so full of books at the moment that we’d hardly notice another forty boxes in there.)

I actually considered it. There was a split second of awareness there, a moment when I made a choice: “No, don’t say anything. Just let him bring them in here”.

I think I even knew at the time that my decision was about to sabotage all my best efforts to create my one work-free room in the house.

And still, I chose not to speak up.

I now have a few less paper piles on the family room floor. And 6 piles of boxes in front of the kitchen bench!

On my journey towards achieving my goal, it’s a setback. Not a disaster, mind you. And I have learned something valuable from the experience. But I now not only have paper piles to clear, I have a whole lot of boxes to move as well.

I keep thinking of the Law of Attraction idea that if you throw out the clothes you don’t love and don’t wear in your closet, you’ll be making room for more to come your way.

I wonder if I sent the Universe the wrong message!

But I suspect it’s really a whole lot more about the messages I’m sending myself.

And so this week, I’ll be reminding myself that my dreams and goals, the things that feel important to me ARE important. Those things are worth fighting for, worth standing up and speaking out for.

Even when it’s myself that I need to stand up to!

What about you? What’s your experience of self-sabotage? Are you aware when you do it, or do you realize later what you’ve done? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Brigid

8 thoughts on “Will You Stand Up For What You Really Want? Or Let Your Dreams Wait For Another Day?

  1. Funny that you are writing about this! Today i had a parent teacher interview at school and it was about our younger son 🙂
    It is the first time ever that i have stood up for what i believe in and not cried! I was polite but I was firm, and I knew what I was saying was something that I wanted to say – first time I have ever done that…and it felt so damn good!
    Cheers
    Lisa

    1. Hi Lisa! Good on you for standing up for what you believe in. You should definitely feel proud of yourself!!
      Crazy that it’s often so very hard for us to do that it can reduce us to tears. I think we women and mothers are so used to putting everyone else’s needs before our own that we can feel ashamed to ask anyone to consider our needs.
      Make sure you remember how good it felt – for next time! I’ll be remembering how bad it felt to NOT stand up for what I wanted – and will hopefully have an outcome more like yours next time!!

  2. My main problem is having too much to do, then taking on new projects anyhow! Where will it end? Of course I always have a good reason for taking on those additional projects, but it is so hard to get anything right when you’re scrambling to do everything.

    1. That sounds so familiar to me, Linda! I can definitely relate to your experience of finding it hard to get anything right when you’re trying so hard to do many things. I’ve just changed my work ‘schedule’ and it looks like that might help, but I keep having so many new ideas of things I want to do – when already there’s that battle to fit it all in!!

  3. My main problem is probably wasting too much time on social networks. Every morning, I wake up knowing that I have lots of things to be done. However, I keep spending more than 1 hour (sometimes it takes 2 or even 3) on Facebook and Twitter. At the end, I didn’t know how time has passed. Of course, my “to-do” lists is getting longer and longer everyday.

    I am trying to figure out a way to escape this “rat race”, but I still don’t know how.

    1. Robert, knowing at least that you want to escape the “rat race” and having this as a goal is a great start – even if you’re not quite sure yet how you’re going to do it!
      As far as spending too much time on social networks goes, that can be a huge trap when the work you’re doing involves sitting at the computer. I’ve had some success breaking those unproductive social media habits using the “Pomodoro Technique”, which involves setting a timer and working for 25 minutes on one task, followed by a 5 min break (that’s when I check twitter or Facebook!). Another thing worth trying is the idea of choosing 3 “MIT”s (Most Important Things) that you intend to do for the day, and work on those things before anything else. You can read more about this at Zen Habits: http://zenhabits.net/purpose-your-day-most-important-task/
      It’s not easy I know, so good luck with trying some ideas that might break the bad habits and help you move forward!

  4. OMG! Thank you so much for sharing. I self-sabotage my dreams all the time. There is always a ” wait for another day” to work on my dream! Bridgit, when you talked about obstacles it hit home. I have had millions of obstacles along my path in many different forms; for many years I allowed peoples opinions and lack of vision to affect me and my dreams. learning about my self everyday had make me stronger, but still hard to overcome all the stories I created with the only purposed to sabotage my happiness and dreams. It’s a constant feeling that i’m in the middle of a battle and i’m fighting agains myself, to unfold the stories that keep holding me back in creating the life I dream and want. Your message gave me the push and strengh I needed it to work one more day in my lifetime dream. Thank you may God Bless you .

    1. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here so honestly Monica! It really made my day to know that this post was so helpful in keeping you on the path to your lifetime dream. I suspect the battle you describe is something that most of us experience as we try to pursue our dreams. But as long as we keep the spark of our dreams alive, and continue to move forward (even if it’s slowly!), I’m sure we will get there. Hope the message helps you through more than just a day. I’ll look forward to hearing more about your lifetime dream and your progress towards creating the life you want!

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