As we approach a new change in the lockdown situation here in the UK, I have noticed lots of women on social media talking about wanting to change jobs or wanting to “do something different”.
Often the ‘conversation’ goes “I want to change, but I don’t know what I want to change to”
or “I want to change, but I’m too scared”
or even “I want to change, I know what I want to do, but can’t motivate myself to do anything about it.”
Sympathetic posts come in reply, but none of them hold the woman to account for not taking action, offer to help identify what she really wants to do, or give her support to overcome her fears.
And so, the women do nothing at all. They stay exactly the same. Stuck
I have a similar problem getting back into running. In the last few weeks, there have been a few ‘Memory Reminders’ from Facebook showing me running regularly a year ago. In the 12 months since I haven’t been running at all! Initially, this was due to injury. Now?
I’ve run through the usual excuses of ‘it’s dark, raining, cold’.
Except, the clocks have sprung forward so the evenings are much lighter. The rain is intermittent, and the forecasts have been pretty accurate, so I could time the run around the rain, and to be honest, the temperature has risen now after a cold early Spring.
Why am I avoiding it? What is holding me back? What is stopping me?
You know, don’t you? It’s the same reason these women on social media don’t take any action to implement the changes they want – it’s all the fault of the Procrastinator Sprite And the Procrastinator Sprite is a powerful and influential little beast.
He (always a he. Don’t know why?!) stops us from doing so many things, doesn’t he? I imagine him sitting on my shoulder, scoffing chocolate (the evidence is all round his mouth), saying with his mouthful “You don’t want to do that… You want to find all sorts of other distractions. You don’t want to take action, because if you do, it’ll be scary, and the change will be painful and you won’t like it and you might fail…” and so he goes on.
But actually, I DO WANT to go out running. I really do. And these women do want to “do something different” and they do want to “work out what different might look like”,
What is the solution? There’s no one size fits all certainly.
I personally have to dig very deep and speak very loudly to myself to stop procrastinating about getting out that door to go running.
You may have to do the same thing to persuade yourself to start looking for a new job or “do something different”.
Ask yourself three important questions to get yourself started, and once you start, you’ll be on your way:
• What is causing you to want to change jobs/careers?
• What is important to you in a job (Brainstorm this. Every idea is valid)
• How will you feel when you know you have found the right job for you? Visualise this. Write down the feelings. Be specific.
