...continued from Part 1
Let’s say you are a procrastinator. Not just an occasional need to put something off for a while, but at a more fundamental level. Let’s say you are a perpetual procrastinator, and it’s getting in the way of taking your leadership to a higher level, or interfering with the results you hope to achieve.
You’ve taken responsibility for it, and have defined a vision of your immediate goals, or “Point B,” that is both exciting and rewarding – namely, let’s say, that a year from now, you are no longer procrastinating the projects required for that big jump in business growth, and that you have completed it and are astounded with the wonderful results.
You have enlisted someone to help reveal what’s in your blind spot, and as a sounding board to support you on an ongoing process as you make changes.
Yet here you are again, putting off starting that daunting project, lining up the dollars or people. With increasing effort and frustration you force yourself to try and do it, and you find yourself exhausted. You try again, and lose focus or interest. Next you are cleverly avoiding it altogether, keeping yourself occupied with other things. You finally give up, and ask “Okay, what am I missing? I should be able to do this!”
So here we are still at Point A, having made a number of willful attempts to begin our journey to Point B, but to no avail. “Okay, thanks a lot, now I’m even more convinced I’m a procrastinator, now what?”
The answer: effort and attempts to control the project (and yourself) need to stop right now.
That’s it: stop trying. By deciding not to fight, not to do it the “hard way,” and instead, choosing to swim with the tide, you will get to the right answer, even though doing so seems to be a complete contradiction.
More self-will is going to lead you to more of where you are already – exactly back to your Point A. So it’s critical to face facts: exerting self-will is the problem, and not the solution.
If you were procrastinating before, and you haven’t broken through it, and it stands in the way of your goals, then either consciously or not, you are procrastinating about your procrastination. You are behaving like the drunk who drinks more to quell his depression about his drinking. Your stripes will not change because you wish or will them to do so, and even if they do for a time, they will revert back. Indeed the answer is to swim with the tide, let go of the effort, and open yourself up to the solutions that are trying to get your attention.
In the example above, what would be different if you were to accept that no act of self-will could make us stop procrastinating? Remember that acceptance doesn’t mean approval – that is, we aren’t approving of our procrastinating ways. Instead, we are simply recognizing that we are the way we are; there’s no mistake. In order to work with it, rather than through it, and make a sustainable change, we must allow it to be true, and allow the answer to come after acceptance, rather than more self-will, painful attempts, or bluster.
When you accept you are wired for procrastination, the effort you save from giving up fighting it frees you up to notice other answers. Then you can then make smaller, gentler corrections in direction, even as your ego fights for the idea of control.
Yes, your ego says “it’s all about me – I’m everything.” So it’s not about to allow this surrender-to-the-tide thing without a fight.
Yet acceptance is the key to addressing the ego’s big lie, which is that you yourself can change things outside of your control with enough teeth-gritted, white-knuckled self-will. Again, maybe you can do for a time, but you will eventually be pulled under in the effort.
Ego Keeps Us In The Same Old Action-Result Loop
The ego is the culprit, single-handedly holding our unwanted beliefs or behaviors in place.
If we let go of the mistaken belief that an act of powerful self-will can break through and control things outside of our control, shaping events to come out as we wish, the ego sees itself as potentially unemployed. It is very attached to its job. Letting go of the wish or hope to control ourselves and others around us, surrendering to the flow of events and life, makes an enemy of the ego.
It uses very simple tools that operate below the level of conscious awareness. It tells us we can do it our way. It tells us that by letting go, we are being weak, or lazy, or stupid, or useless. Such negative “self-talk” keeps us doing what we were doing, and getting what we got.
In the example of recurring, unwanted procrastination that gets in the way of a significant business initiative (again, we’re not talking about the occasional putting something off!), your ego encourages the notion of control and effort: “What’s wrong with you? Just DO it!” It also says “If you stop trying so hard, you’re a loser.” So we keep on trying by exerting self-will, which is fighting our fundamental hard wiring
Like anything we wish to change, the ego has good intentions that, if left unchecked, we take too far, without even noticing. In the ego’s case, it evolved (or was created, depending on what you believe) to distinguish self from other. Without it I would perceive you as just a part of me. Functioning in a healthy way, it is meant only as a kind of boundary marker: this is me, and that is not.
However, when taken farther, it makes us believe that we are, or can be, “in control.” For narcissists, of course, it goes far beyond that, all the way to “it’s all about me.”
Principle Three teaches us that control or the attempt to control is not the right way to convert unwanted beliefs or behaviors into strengths. In fact, it asks that we “right-size” our ego, downsizing our use of self-will, so that we see clearly what changes we can make, at a reasonable, measured pace, that are within our control, and stop trying to fight against things that are beyond our grasp.
Following these principles helps make peace with and accept the things we can’t change, find the courage to change that which we can, and develop greater discernment to know one from the other.
Paradox? By letting go of the illusion of control we get results …
We are creatures of habit, and there’s a good reason for it. Despite the old saw “familiarity breeds contempt,” we actually crave it. We stick with what’s familiar because it’s reassuring, and less confusing than breaking new ground.
So if we believe that a show of force can make us stop doing something we want to stop, or change something familiar, we are going to keep trying.
Yet the minute we let go of the illusion of control, and stick with what seems natural and easier, such as smaller changes or more measured actions, with our sights on a vision of a future far better than the present, this strange paradox begins to operate. That is, less effort creates better results.
It is an enormous effort to try and fundamentally change our wiring, or to recreate people and situations around us to suit the outcome we may have in mind. It doesn’t create sustainable results, and, indeed, over time it can lead to all kinds of negative consequences. The moment we stop the effort, what we have created will fall apart.
It is far more effective to create our desired outcomes within the context of who we are, how we are wired, and the people and situations that impact us. By accepting them for being no mistake, instead of liabilities, these things become the bedrock on which we rebuild our unwanted pattern into something that can give us the best of what we want, and deliver it in a way that is sustainable without anywhere near the ongoing effort it takes to fight the tide of what is beyond our control.
...continued in Part 3
David Peck
Comments are not only welcome, but invited!--click the comment link, below.
