I have a dirty little secret to confess… I am addicted to personal development and business books. But I don’t read them. I have many, many books that I should read, but I just don’t. As if their wisdom somehow magically is transferred to my brain while they are gathering dust.
I guess just owning them gives me hope and a feeling of opportunity and potential. And on the pretty rare occasion, I do open the front cover, I might read a couple of pages, get utterly bored, start to fall asleep, and never ever finish them. I rather read chicklits.
Here, I said it.
Those romance novels with a muscled rich bad guy, a beautiful girl, a disaster to happen, and a happy ending. I know, pretty embarrassing as the international high-end professional that I am.
Shiny Object Syndrome
I do see many other women do the same though. They buy all the books, the programs, the coaches.They are true course junkies. And never finish them. Sometimes not even start.
They procrastinate, find excuses, and rather watch the latest Outlander and Bridgerton episodes on Netflix. And feel guilty for not doing the work. For investing and not committing. We all know the shiny object syndrome.
Even just owning the promise of that course, book, webinar, or coach makes us feel good. And as long as we know that the book that will give us 10k months, the course that is promising dream clients, and that program that has the key to a fulfilling life, is at our fingertips, it gives us hope.
And by actually reading the book, following the course, and doing the work, we run the risk that hope can be crushed. We can feel disappointed. In the book, in the course, in the coach, and mainly in ourselves. Again something that didn’t work…
Escape and procrastinate
And we want to protect ourselves from this pain. As we have an unconscious system that wants to go away from pain to pleasure. Or from most pain to less pain. And this system wants to keep us safe. Not happy, fulfilled, or successful… just safe. And anything that gets us out of our comfort zone, into new levels, is labeled by that system as potentially unsafe.
And as a consequence, we start to self-sabotage and procrastinate. We start to binge-watch on Netflix, read those chicklits, and scroll endlessly through Facebook and Insta. To have a break and escape from continuously thinking and learning. And feel just too tired of having to soul search more, dig deeper, and grow higher.
Then we come to the point though where we start to be so frustrated with ourselves. Feel stuck, unmotivated, bored, unfulfilled, unhappy. So in slight panic and anxiety, we start to push ourselves. Punish ourselves. Force ourselves. We start to do the work and do damage control. And driven by guilt and fear work even harder. And in this way we enter into a nasty Feast and Famine Cycle.
Feast and Famine Cycle
The Feast and Famine Cycle is a cycle where you do the work, get exhausted, bored, disappointed, start to procrastinate, feel fear and guilt, and start to work hard again. This cycle is fuelled by negative emotions, like fear, guilt, despair, and limiting beliefs about yourself, such as not good enough, not worthy, an imposter, a failure.
The key to breaking this Feast and Famine Cycle is not doing more. Not working harder, not buying more books to start to feel hope again. It’s breaking through your negative emotions and limiting beliefs. Through your inner sabotaging (intergenerational) patterns. As the secret to true success, growth, and fulfillment is not found outside you, but inside you. It’s not found in doing more, but in being more.
You can’t outperform your mindset
Because your business and your life can only ever grow to the level of your mindset.
Because you can’t outperform your mindset, the answer to growth lies deep inside your head, heart, and soul. In the unconscious, hidden mental and emotional programs that run your daily life. In the deep underlying inherited patterns and root beliefs that fuel all your experiences, decisions, and steps in life.
So are you ready to break the cycle once and for all? So you are able to binge-watch and read romance novels, not because you want to escape and procrastinate, but because you choose to, coming from a place of self-love?
Let’s have a chat in a personal -no strings attached- Transformation Plan call. We will map the gap between where you are right now and where you want to be, and create a Transformation Plan with assured results. Schedule your complimentary meeting by clicking this link:
