I have been working on a book for four months now. It is something I am very excited about, and yet I find myself feeling discouraged because I am not making progress as quickly as I’d like.
Do you ever find this in your own life? You set a goal and even make regular progress, but it feels like you are advancing at a snail’s pace?
This is often the moment, when you feel discouraged and defeated, that people give up. I have been there and done that so many times. All the negative scripts go through my mind: “Why are you even trying to write a book? It’s not going to be good enough to get published anyway.” “You don’t have enough experience to do this.” “At this pace, it will never get done.”
My favorite line of all has to be this one: “Who do you think you are?” That snarly little bitch of a phrase has wormed its way into my mind more times that I can even count. It has tried–and very successfully so for a long time–to get me to believe that I am not worth of pursuing my goals and dreams. This doubt has made me succumb to quitting early on in many projects and pursuits.
And that of course is the problem. This negative self talk will go on and on in my mind and it has one single goal: to stop me from stepping out of my comfort zone and trying to be better than my former self. It is trying to keep me down in my little comfortable corner, safe and warm and dry. But now I finally–after many years–recognize that this little voice of negativity is only as powerful as I let it be.
I now finally recognize that it is not my job to cower and listen to that voice (because it is so powerful and booming that it must know best, right?). It is my job to stop that voice. And if I can’t stop it, it is my job to crush that voice and move forward anyway.
When that voice threatens to stop you in your tracks and make you retreat to your safe haven of familiarity, remember that you have the ability to tune out that voice of self doubt. It is trying to keep you safe because it is scared. But it is your responsibility to show that inner voice that you can move forward despite your fear. One of the greatest feelings in the world is doing something we are afraid of and getting to the other side of that fear.
Don’t let the little voice of negativity control you. When you hear it, remember that you have the ability to control your thoughts. You will have to start feeding your mind new scripts and new beliefs. Refuse to let that voice run the show. It will take time to retrain your brain to not respond to every line of negative self talk, but it is imperative to your growth to do so.
