RetainingEnthusiasm and Removing the Barriers to Succeeding

A friend told me an interesting story about himself Monday morning. He is pursuing similar studies to my own, and also had started a blog. He e-mailed some friends, they read his posts and gave him warm and positive feedback.

The next day he had writers' block. In fact, he spent the whole weekend working on other projects, he found he had SO MUCH he had to do right then. He felt a lack of interest in writing anything. He felt emotionally removed from his recent enthusiasm and determination, to write once and maybe twice a day. This is a very disciplined person here. He was a little puzzled at his feelings, but kept too busy to think about it much.

After he got to work Monday morning, he had time to sit and think, and he reflected on the lapse of interest in his blog and article writing. He did an exercise I had learned from a Paul R. Scheele course, to feel what you are feeling and acknowledge it. This we often don't do, we keep a feeling hanging around in the background, in our mental waiting room. A faint anxiety may remain, because the message being presented by our feeling is being ignored.

My friend felt that he could not do much better than the writing he had recently done, and discovered that he was operating on a programmed idea that he should always improve upon the last thing he did. If it wasn't going to be better, then he could not proceed.

Having already put forth true effort to write good articles and posts, he just stopped.

This all came to him in a bubble of thought and popped silently, and the various components of the situation orbited around his mental sphere as he examined them. He suddenly remembered a few other projects he had abandoned in the same way, drifting away from them with the same loss of interest.

He felt very invigorated at viewing his syndrome. He now realizes that he doesn't have to follow the rule of improving EVERY time he writes, and that he will improve at a reasonable rate just because of the volume he is putting out.

He has now removed a barrier to his persistence toward success.

I have come to think that many feelings that are less than enthusiastic may be from some old program, and are to be dealt with only for the purpose of moving forward. No labeling is required, just acceptance of them, and observation. Then can come a decision as to whether they have any present relevance.

I am not talking about overwhelming post-traumatic emotion here. I am talking about writers' block and similar conditions such as organizational blocks, time mismanagement habits and that kind of thing.

I thought this was an interesting story, and how he could have just given up his dream of internet marketing, working a business from home, good results, and eventual financial comfort. Instead he gave himself a little time to feel, without judgment, and had a good outcome.