Action Paralysis and inner arrogance - my battle for a change

**norenberg** · Jan 3rd, 2013, 05:06 AM

Hello.

This is my first post in here. It is going to be a long post but I hope you like it.
I would like to share my battle for a change and would like some opinions.

I'm 27, and I think I've been always convinced that I can't have a "normal" life, I must have a great life.
I did act on some great things in my life: Moved to a another country alone and learned a new language (spoken English) by myself in 4 years. My skills that make me employed are self-taught (IT). However I'm still disgusted I'm in the slow 9-5 lane.

And I still think my problem is extreme lack of action. So about September last year I had a "that's it" moment and also coincidentally found all this material from Jim Rohn and learned the importance of setting goals. So I did.

By the way, a bit off the topic, currently I am a believer that the best way to get out the day job is going to Real Estate. Do you guys agree? This way you may have more time to work on your other business and life goals without needing to worry so much about being employed. So I have this "kinda" decision mindset and would like your opinion.

Back to topic, I have more than 100 goals there on my list. However, it is difficult to create clarity to result in action. So I began to study myself deeper and found my lack of action is due to internal conflicts, lack of certainty and clarity.

So first thing I did was to take a deep breath, relax, and find my core values. Here they are:

1. Love - ( to love and be loved )
2. Strength ( physical and emotional strength )
3. Respect ( Respect for and from others)
4. Sharing ( Share what I get and help the others, share my emotions and results )
5. Adventure ( travel the world, meet new people, party, discover my genealogy, the history)
6. Emotion ( cheer up, commemorate, cry, hug everyone, happiness)

After this, I started to research on how to find and sort my inner conflicts. So I found this great article:

TC :: Resolving psychological conflict through inner dialog

I found the main source of my action paralyses might be the inner arrogance I have. It is not arrogance to other people, but to myself. When I want to action, my subconscious says: "Why? You are comfortable now, have a nice job" or "Why? You already said you will be millionaire on the future, so why to worry?"

This last bit kills me. I am inclined to say the excess of willing to be successful is prejudicing me. Can this be true?

So I will paste here my inner dialogue attempt to sort the problem. It is quite personal but I don't mind sharing.

Problem: Lack of action

1.Description
a. Awareness: Turn to surfing internet, watching porn, youtube or news. Watch a comedy video or something else instead doing work. You are watching youtube, surfing facebook or watching porn, wasting your time on news and gets on a loop of surfing the internet for nothing.
b. You do other irrelevant things instead making progress on the real goals, like have a coffee, a shower, a snack. Procrastination on its full throttle.
c. Feelings: Inertia, foggy, in-consequence, “whatever”, disappointment, paralysis, unstoppable, self-arrogance, false pride, false feeling everything will be fine.
2.Ideal Solution Scenario:
a. Wake up in the morning with extreme positive feelings, motivation. It is like that day you are going for a trip or you have a surgery booked and you really will get the thing done. You don’t spend so much time on facebook, emails or youtube because you actually hate wasting your time there, you get disgusted of the idea of wasting time, you just do what is valuable to reach your goals and follow through all the agenda and lists, sit down and plan, furiously write a book, or read some pages of a book, learn a new skill, make a financial plan or plan the buying of a house. You get excited and ambitious, there is an excitement of seeing things moving and happening. You feel like you are fulfilling your values, you see the future of yourself travelling and enjoying friends and family becoming closer and closer, that cheering up and celebrate is becoming a reality. And the main thing is you know you are closer to be loved and to love, because you love yourself. You become a lover of yourself and the others, and therefore you get loved, that’s why you contribute and help the others. This will also get you closer and closer of the ONE girl you want. Because you become stronger and you look at yourself, you become more attractive, you don’t fear things anymore and you get to know more and more attractive people. You use your adventure value as a feature and a tool to grasp into places and meet people who are attractive because you clearly look after yourself physically and mentally. You are respected as man because you came to all of this by yourself and you are becoming more and more independent, you do your job very well and plan your finances very well so it is no way you will ever have a problem again in your life. That one more trip to Brazil and Europe becomes easier and doable more often, a reality you worked for every day. After everything has come into place, you start organizing your big event, things get easier and easier because you make them easy even when it’s hard, because you work furiously and there is no way you are going to stop doing it, there is no way you are going to take a rest because you are young and you want so much more than just a mediocre life. You then celebrate your great achievements with old and new friends look for your next goals like contributing and helping other people. And mainly, you get a proud mother and give her some comfort.

b. Things to do:

Wake up and breathe, with a smile.
Be HUMBLE and THANKFUL, but not naive.
Have CERTAINTY. Visualise the certain future you have.
Visualise yourself driving the car you want, speaking with the people you want with no fear.
Do incantations, EVERY DAY.
Read and remember your core values
Join Yoga, Pilates, Gym and Meditation
Join Toast Masters and/or Rotary. Maybe Free Masons
Do Hypnotherapy
You really want CERTAINTY! And what is certain is: I will be wealthy no matter what. And the fact is, you have all the possibilities to do it and the main immediate goals are: buy a development property, buy and sell a few cars on your spare time, finish you book! BOOK, CARS, PROPERTY!
Keyword: MORE action instead ENOUGH action. I want to be happily exhausted just like a guy on the gym, celebrating his healthy pain of growth. NO PAIN NO GAIN.
One thing at the time please! One internet tab at the time, one task at the time, one achievement at the time, just get the bloody thing done!

3.Embrace the distress and internal dialogue:
a. Why do I lose focus, is that because I feel on a comfort zone? Is it because some money will be on my account by the end of the fortnight or month? Is it because I expect tomorrow will be better? You can’t hope things will be better. YOU must get better.
b. ARROGANCE or SELF-PRIDE. Once I lost my dad at 9 I felt a bit released from being told what to do, so I turned against my mother. I fought against having to go to the church all the time, or be what she wanted me to be, I WANTED TO BE MYSELF. I was in constant conflict because of my privacy and wanted my independence, even thought I loved her. I was also constantly being asked by family members “when are you going to figure out yourself” or “you should do this or that” and I was mad about being told what to do. So I finally exploded and left the country mainly because I wanted my world, my life. Now as a result, I'm maybe arrogant when confronted to my tasks: I think I don’t need to answer for tasks when is not strictly necessary to survive, but hey, it is only me now! I feel like now I achieved independence I’m done, but I’m not! Why do I need comfort, luxury, long sleep and laziness now? I will never really need it in my life. I will only use it as deserve and not as a need.
I subconsciously think that I’ m done or will be fine and don’t need to do anything to be fine. But I'm NOT done. Is the certainty about my present and future backfiring on me?
c. I did not make my financial plan for the year 2013 yet because I feared the results. I know I have perhaps 3 tough months ahead. I feel like life should give me comfort immediately. But it DOES NOT WORK like this. So why do I fear the results? Because I know I will have tough months yet and I don’t want to remember about it? C’mon you must face it. It is much better to plan what you have.
d. Or is it because I always remember I don’t have a lover yet? I see all these people settling down and what about me? Question: is settling down good or not? I want to have the 20’s I did not have yet. I did not meet enough nice girls during my lifetime. Because I feel alone and all those years I still alone when talking about girlfriends, thought I had a couple. So what’s got to change?
e. Or is that because I fear I will be sucked into the same employment comfort zone once again with my new and improved day job?
f. I seem to check Facebook to look for the life of the ones I wish to be like. I wanted the comfort of the Facebook life. But this is NOT REAL. I also look for news, looking for what? Same every day? It is good to know the news but only a few minutes a day. What about music and youtube? I don’t need to stop doing my things in order to watch a bunch of funny movies and cool videoclips!
g. Why do I want to see that facebook alert? How it is going to change my life really? Facebook will not bring me sex and good life. If it did, it would be because of external factors, and Facebook being just a tool of a result from the real world and not the other way around. It is OK to check it once or twice a day but I don’t need that open for the entire day unless this was giving me tons of money into my account!
h. Do I feel like my mind always needs to be stimulated with a bunch of philosophical thoughts about a huge number of subjects? Most of them will not make a wee change on my life. So why do I spend so much time looking and discussing facts with strange people on the internet while much better is to be on action and then discuss a bit and then action again? Focus only on what will bring you results! Leave the rest for the other people.
i. Do I fear failing when I take action? What if I don’t take any action? Much worse, isn't it? I took action on getting a new job and this is motivating! I MUST be motivated! 4 years ago I took action on coming to a new country. It can be done!
j. When I do take action, then my body asks for a break. “Have a coffee, take a shower, have some water”. But it is too early. WHY this? I don’t want this, what I want is the “pain”, furiously! I want to get it done! And only after it is done (this 1 hour or 2 hours of things) then I have a deserved break. I want the break to be deserved. I don’t want more breaks than actions!
4.Accountability (still to be done)
a.Start the change process
b.Resolve the internal conflicts
c.Resolve the substantive issue leading to conflict
d.Ask another human being to see how you’re going
e.Imagine yourself in a “full action” situation. You get a pay rise faster and you get to buy a house faster. You get the income from a book sooner and you get to travel much sooner.
--------

If you read up to here, you are a champ! I'd like to know what is your opinion over my inner dialogue and if you had the same problems as me, how did you sort it?

Happy 2013!

**Dezzamondo** · Jan 3rd, 2013, 08:12 AM

Good for you norenberg!

That's a lot of conflict and plenty of things to work through, but you'll get there. Try listing everything in prioroity order and work your way down the list, one bit at a time.

Originally Posted by norenberg

This last bit kills me. I am inclined to say the excess of willing to be successful is prejudicing me. Can this be true?

If success is important to you (and I'm sure it is!) and you want to become a millionaire, give yourself some way of measuring that success. i.e. How much? By When? How? etc. Otherwise, it's just left in the background, never really getting anywhere. Take Action!

Originally Posted by norenberg

want to be happily exhausted just like a guy on the gym

Go join a gym, or go for a run / walk / row / bike ride / mountain climb / somehting physical. No time? Get up earlier. Struggle to get up early? Go to bed earlier!

Just whatever you do, do SOMETHING!

Good luck, and welcome aboard!

**Twiki** · Jan 3rd, 2013, 09:47 AM

Hi, you've obviously thought alot about this. I think that's the problem. Take a look at your "Things to Do" list. There is very little actual "doing" in your To Do list. "Be humble and thankful"? "Visualize success"? "Have certainty"? Even "Join a Gym Yoga Pilates Meditation and Toastmasters" isn't really "doing". It's joining. Also, consider how curious it is to have "meditation" on a To Do list. In the time it takes a person to put that on a list, they could do it.

Worst of all I think is the emphasis on needing Certainty. This is totally unnecessary, counter-productive and I believe is simply a product of the horrible aspects of the self-help industry that push confidence and self-belief as the magical secret to success. People who cling to a need to feel confidence and certainty before doing something, are guaranteed to never do anything worthwhile. I think they should stick to the Slowlane, at least they're guaranteed a check... until they get laid off or something.

Notice you are aware of how your subconscious seems to reject action because it already figures "Hey, you're already going to be a millionaire, why worry?" Then in your To Do list you have typical things like "visualize living like a millionaire". Did you know: there is research which shows that people who spend a lot of time visualizing success in a specific goal, are less likely to achieve that goal, probably for the reason you identified.

Jim Rohn is great. He would do pushups every morning, no matter what, in whatever hotel or city he happened to be in, no matter how tired he was. Goals are great, for certain people. But for others I think they become procrastination devices and add to mental clutter. Here's a suggestion: get rid of ALL the bulletpoints in your head. Have one goal: do 20 pushups every morning for 1 week. Then it's a binary thing. You either did it, or you didn't. This could tell you whether or not you have what it takes to actually live the live you say you want, or if you're actually just fooling yourself and whining about your crummy job like so many people do.

**Driven28** · Jan 3rd, 2013, 02:17 PM

Originally Posted by Twiki

Goals are great, for certain people. But for others I think they become procrastination devices and add to mental clutter. Here's a suggestion: get rid of ALL the bulletpoints in your head. Have one goal: do 20 pushups every morning for 1 week. Then it's a binary thing. You either did it, or you didn't. This could tell you whether or not you have what it takes to actually live the live you say you want, or if you're actually just fooling yourself and whining about your crummy job like so many people do.

I think you're pretty much right on here. I find myself feeling like the OP a lot, and I think one of the primary reasons is that my list of goals and interests is FAR too long. I get paralysis by analysis... as soon as I start to take action towards the completion of one goal or interest, five others enter my head and vie for my attention and I think to myself "oh yeah, that probably would be a better use of my time". This drives me insane (almost daily).

You ever look at that one guy who's really successful and say to yourself "man... seriously? How in the world did someone so ignorant/dumb/whatever achieve what he has so quickly?" It's because that guy focuses on the one or two things he knows to the exclusion of ALL else, creating a hyper-focus. It's also often due to their ability to have a singular idea/goal, and immediately execute on it because they don't have the ability/sense/whatever to create the thoughts of doubt that cause so many of us to think that our idea isn't "ready" yet, or won't work, or won't be liked, or will take too long, or that a different idea is better...

With that said, some of us have minds that are just cranking so fast and so often that it almost feels like a disease -- like it's impossible to get our heads to shut up long enough to focus and get anything worthwhile done. Shiny ball syndrome, ADHD, or whatever else you want to call it can be debilitating and depressing... just adding more fuel to the fire already burning in our heads. Aside from drugs (which I'm still not sure I believe in for this sort of thing), meditation is a great way to start trying to regain control. As is proper diet (whole/raw foods, eliminating sugars, processed stuff, etc), and physical activity.

If you aren't familiar with James Altucher -- I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend his blog, newsletter, and his TDP routine. But be warned that it will likely cause the next several hours to be consumed by reading.. but I think it's worth it.

Anyway tangent there... I agree Twiki -- focus focus focus. Choose one or two things that you're really clear on and focus on those to the exclusion of all else until they become second nature, before adding anything else to the mix.

Now I just need to take this advice too.

**Rawr** · Jan 3rd, 2013, 02:32 PM

Nothing is as easy as our mind imagines - real work takes longer and is more challenging. More and more people are tricked by today's media that good life is as easy as getting lucky at the right time - that you already have everything you need inside, and you just need to SHOW it at the right time. No, that inner stuff has to be earned, has to be developed through discipline daily, that grind, that ability to get through pain (which, let's face it, unless you are in a 3rd world country you don't have much pain) in order to get where you plan to get, all with hard work and determination, no matter what your mind tells you you must feel, to still act on what you must act on - that is the brilliance of the person. That is the real stuff.

Hence, goals that are SMART (specific, realistic, measurable .) that you simply boringly take knowing that THIS is the only way you WILL have the life that is better than the one you have now.

**The-J** · Jan 3rd, 2013, 02:39 PM

Doing nothing is often linked to not knowing what exactly to do. If the path is not clear, you won't take it. That's normal. I'd say focus on making your path a bit clearer. This way, you'd have less analysis paralysis.

**Twiki** · Jan 3rd, 2013, 04:02 PM

Originally Posted by Driven28

If you aren't familiar with James Altucher -- I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend his blog, newsletter, and his TDP routine. But be warned that it will likely cause the next several hours to be consumed by reading.. but I think it's worth it.

Altucher is fantastic. He wrote one of the greatest things ever about how to get going: he recommends going to a playground, getting on a swing, and swinging up and down. He explains it thus: your brain floats around within your skull, floating in a liquid bath of sorts. When you swing, your brain sloshes around in that fluid, and goes "Wheeeeee!" According to Altucher, this makes your brain happy. His stuff is genius.

**norenberg** · Jan 3rd, 2013, 06:35 PM

Wow, great replies!
Thank you for that, everyone!

I am clearing up my goals and making sure they are measurable.
Is clarity different from certainty for you?

About doing push-ups each day, I did set a similar goal which was doing my bed every morning (I would never do it before), which proven me good effects.
I had great weeks but still would struggle with action, then I decided I should really get to understand my mind. I believe is much clearer now that my main goal is real estate, it is been lying around for a long time.

I'm reading through James Altucher stuff and it really seems amazing.

Will keep posted!

**Omerta** · Jan 3rd, 2013, 10:21 PM

Own your choices. If you want success, you have to own your mind.

I can relate to your post. I've always had a hard time with motivation. There is 3 key components that you need to cultivate to accomplish your goals. Focus, self-discipline and willpower. Learn to use these tools regardless of your emotional state. Also, you need passion.

Self-discipline is not built in one day. It takes repetitive action. Start where you are, even if it is very low, it can grow, just like a muscle.

**Twiki** · Jan 3rd, 2013, 11:24 PM

Originally Posted by norenberg

I am clearing up my goals and making sure they are measurable.
Is clarity different from certainty for you?

About doing push-ups each day, I did set a similar goal which was doing my bed every morning (I would never do it before), which proven me good effects.

You have a good attitude, I can tell already. I think there is a difference between clarity and certainty. Clarity is important, and having an excessive grocery list of goals, subgoals, and to-do tasks can just cause an overwhelming paralysis, not clarity. But even clarity about exactly what you want isn't necessary, I think. Because as long as you are actively doing things and clearly observing feedback from your actions and learning along the way, I think that kind of clarity is more important than having a crystal clear vision of some planned ideal future. Does that distinction make sense?

The making-the-bed thing that you did is a good example of why this type of seemingly minor goal can be a lot more useful than it seems (especially something that will have the side effect of getting you physically fitter and stronger, which by itself will probably enhance your confidence and personal interactions). Just by following through with that type of simple goal it subconsciously builds your self-image as someone who does what they said they were gonna do.

If you think about what you've achieved already (moving to a new country by yourself at a young age, learning the language and self-teaching IT), then maybe consider how you accomplished those, especially the self-learning of IT skills. I would bet, that you accomplished that by just trying different things out, solving one little "problem" at a time, looking stuff up if you needed to. I would bet, that you didn't think that you needed to understand everything about the OS or CPU or network protocols, that you didn't sit there reading the PC manual from end-to-end, and that you didn't spend time visualizing being good at IT --- you just went ahead and did it and figured it out.

**norenberg** · Jan 5th, 2013, 02:42 AM

Originally Posted by Twiki

If you think about what you've achieved already (moving to a new country by yourself at a young age, learning the language and self-teaching IT), then maybe consider how you accomplished those, especially the self-learning of IT skills. I would bet, that you accomplished that by just trying different things out, solving one little "problem" at a time, looking stuff up if you needed to. I would bet, that you didn't think that you needed to understand everything about the OS or CPU or network protocols, that you didn't sit there reading the PC manual from end-to-end, and that you didn't spend time visualizing being good at IT --- you just went ahead and did it and figured it out.

What can I say? Great advice! I never really thought that way.
Thank you Twiki

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