I am writing a daily blog to work through overcoming homelessness and detail the fresh start I am embarking upon with my family.
It’s my husband’s birthday today and we celebrated yesterday, hence the lack of blog writing. Lack of writing full stop, really. But we had a lovely day, and my husband seemed to relax a little which was good.
I have realised, though, that I am reluctant to write a blog today even. I’ve asked myself why and the answer is…because I am using this to hold myself accountable. Yes, I am reluctant to hold myself accountable to work towards achieving my dreams. I am self-sabotaging. Something I know I do, I have always done it, and now that I am calling it out, it is time to stop it. To let go of that limiting behaviour so that I can finally step forward.
I am working on the basis that if I continually write in this blog, if I keep myself accountable, I will eventually overcome my limiting behaviour, my self-sabotage, by sheer perseverance and along the way maybe achieve what it is I am trying to achieve. Yesterday was, as I say, a family day and rightly so. Because that is also a part of my dream future. I also spent time in the community – another part of my dream future. So, why am I being so harsh on myself? Trust me, internally I am beating myself up because I haven’t ‘done’ anything to my egoic mind. I haven’t completed some kind of a task.
In short, I haven’t magically re-written my trilogy overnight to make it the phenomenal success I want it to be. And to the perfectionist old me, it is not only unacceptable that I didn’t produce perfection in the first instance, but that I have not magically made it happen in the 48 or so hours since I read the final feedback. I have masked to myself how I feel about the feedback, quite expertly because it’s something I have done all my life. Keep smiling, keep smiling, keep moving forward. Anything else is deemed ‘self pity’ and that is also unacceptable. Or getting stuck in the negative rut, don’t examine the emotions just plough ahead regardless. The mantras from my childhood, combined with the perfectionism that became a part of me as I tried to fit in wherever I was. The drive to be perfect as a means of being accepted. It wasn’t until I was in my late ’30s that the realisation hit me – there is no such thing as perfect. I know that at a conscious level, I’m not sure my subconscious accepts it where I am concerned.
Holding myself accountable, therefore, is about shifting the paradigm of what I am holding myself accountable for. And to begin with, it is not self-sabotaging. It is to look at what I have done, how I have acted, what I have thought and seeing if that meets with the me I want to be in the future. And that’s paradigm shift in and of itself. If the change is about who I want to be, then that changes entirely what I do to achieve that. If it’s about being a writer, then yes it is about working on my manuscripts but it is about me being rather than doing. If it’s about me being connected and part of a community, yes there are things to do but equally it’s about a mindset. And if it’s about me being successful, that’s also a mindset shift away from self-sabotage.
And part of that being successful is showing up here. And accepting that the only times I don’t are when I am busy being with my family or being who I want to be. The doing part of working towards success is showing up even when we don’t feel comfortable doing so, pushing through the subconscious behaviours that keep us small.
This is proving to be another lesson for me. I did as I always do and approached this accountability thing in a gung ho fashion, not thinking through what it meant at the time which has forced me to confront my reticence at writing on here today. I have had to confront the sense that I hadn’t ‘done’ anything towards my goals, when in fact I had and I am. It’s just that my goals are different than ‘to be a CEO’ or ‘earn £10k per month’ kind of thing now. I don’t have a vision board with the image of a house on it anymore, the images of those tangible things. Been there, done that, achieved what was on the vision board, and then lost it. I’m focusing on the feeling from now on, not the thing, which makes accountability very different.
And while I’m at it, I am going to focus on the feeling of being fit and healthy to become that way again. And be accountable on here to that. Be accountable to me.
Because I am soaring. I am thriving. I am successful. And I am inordinately grateful.
Louisa Simpson 