Here’s my pattern:
Have a dream, have an idea.
Think: I can totally see it! I can totally feel it!
Fall in love with it.
Jump in, wildly enthusiastic.
Get midway into the details and grind.
Think really unhelpful things that seem true, “maybe I don’t want to do this. I don’t know how to organize this. Maybe I bit off more than I can chew. Maybe this is the wrong thing to do. Maybe this is a terrible idea. Maybe I am delusional. Maybe I am not the right person to do this. Maybe I’m not good enough to do this. Maybe someone else could do it better – in fact, I can think of 1/2 dozen of them right now…”

I have the replacement thought of, “Just keep going.” That this is like traveling – sometimes you go through a desert but you don’t think, “the desert is bad, it’s just different,” and you keep going.

For this particular project, I will keep going. I need to see what is on the other side of this. And as soon as I remind myself that I am committed, then I realize what I’ve been avoiding – it’s a lot of grief, like I am anticipating, dreading the terrible way I will think about myself and feel if I keep going and my results aren’t as good as I had envisioned.

You mentioned on something I listened to recently about how no longer self-loathing but loving yourself has been a key to your success. I know I need to love myself no matter what, it’s just when I get to this point in the process of something, I feel debilitated by a depressing, sad, paralyzing kind of emotion.

Do you have any advice about how to make it through this part of the process and see this all the way through?

Thank you, Brooke! xoxo