If I already know WHAT I need to do… WHY am I not doing it?

Tell me the truth, how many times did you see an article that starts with “how to…,” you quickly scanned it, “liked” it on Facebook, shared it with your friends, mother, cousins and sister, recommended everyone try it out… and you… DID NOTHING with it?

You’re not alone. We all do that. We collect books and articles, we enroll in courses, workshops, and classes, and we clip out the recipes and exercise routines that appear in magazines… Ready! All set! Now we know what to do. So… Why is that we’re not doing it then?

What super-powers do I need, to finally do what I intended to do?

It turns out you need to use your 3 super-powers:

1. The Power of Knowing WHAT to do:

You need to know what to invest your energy on, and how to do so in the most efficient way, in order to achieve your purpose.

2. The Power of Knowing what NOT to do:

Once you’ve decided what to do, you need to find out how it is that you sabotage yourself from actually doing it. Surely there are things you do, of which you are currently unaware, but that interfere and hinder your journey towards your goal. Here is where self-observation will become your greatest ally.

Knowing what to do and what not to do are the first steps. However, for you to finally do what you set out to do, you’ll need to use a third power:

3. The Power to REMEMBER what it is you want to do, and what you don’t want to do, when it really matters:

All your self-observation and analysis will be pretty useless unless you remember to make use of the information you gained from your observations and conclusions. Most of the times we don’t do what we intended to do the problem can be traced back to our INABILITY TO REMEMBER OUR OBJECTIVE! You need to make it a priority. Your brain needs to know that this activity is important to you. If not, it won’t be on the lookout to remind you what your real purpose is, when another activity threatens to interfere with your original objective.

So, it’s all very nice with words but, for this information to be really usefeul…

DO SOMETHING CONCRETE WITH IT:

If your objective is to do more physical exercise, but you’re finding yourself unable to stick to your plans…you need to investigate what sort of challenge you’re facing:

1. KNOWING WHAT TO DO: If you don’t like exercising, perhaps you need do re-define your relationship to it. In this article I tell you a little about how you can do just that.

2. KNOWING WHAT NOT TO DO: If you like to exercise, but you’re finding it difficult to do it with any degree of constancy, you need to investigate what’s causing the interference in your flow. Are you too tired? Are you afraid of looking ridiculous? Is it pain? Are you lacking basic technical knowledge? Is it the group, the teacher, or the venue that is putting you off? The sooner you discover what the hurdle is, the sooner you’ll be able to find a solution to it.

3. REMEMBERING: If you have already re-defined your purpose to get moving, you’ve chosen form of exercise that motivates you, you’ve already fished out the obstacles that were stopping you and have taken steps to remove them, but you still find yourself doing something else when the time comes to go workout… you’ll need to help yourself REMEMBER your purpose.

You need to turn i tinto a priority: put reminders on your phone, fridge, computer, highlight and circle out the time slot in your daily planner, leave everything ready way in advance. Do anything and everything necessary to tell your brain that, “This is IMPORTANT to me, so PLEASE remind me about it when I’m about to fall into my old habits.”

This is all for today. Now you’re free to go “like” the blog on Facebook, share it with your friends, tweet these recommendations to the tweetosphere. But don’t forget that YOU also need to do something with this… and then tell me in the comments box below how it worked out.

See you next week.

Victoria