Tuesday, October 5, 2021
If you are overly cautious, and you like to spend time ruminating about your decisions, all of that thinking might feel like progress, but it’s a stall tactic. The mind hates risk of any kind. It tires to mitigate the variables, eliminate the obstructions, and essentially take the path of least resistance. But you’re simply avoiding effort. We all do this. The delay of effort is disguised as “discernment.” An inability to make a decision, take an action, or to make a change in your life comes down to being lost in the mind’s obsessive overthinking.
It’s a strange phenomenon, the idea of “thinking about it.” Soul searching is good, but there will never be a feeling of absolute certainty. If you are looking to feel certain, you can forget it! There’s no such thing as certainty about the future. The present moment is the only true certainty there is. And it’s in the present moment that all action is initiated. The future is murky, but living comfortably with that fog is something that life teaches you, through experience. Avoiding experience, under the guise of thinking about it, only keeps you from feeling connected to your greater purpose.
Contentment and satisfaction usually come after an action is initiated. The mind will resist any form of action because it will only think of what could go wrong. That’s it’s job, after all. The mind is trying to protect you from harm (or from work!), but as they say with the lotto, “you’ve got to play to win!” Resistance to action is miserable. Making a move, fully engaging in the world, putting forth some effort is what changes your life. Thinking about it just feels like playing games. The real game changer in life are the actions that you take and the attitudes that you deliberately embody. Stop being afraid to make a move or to make a change. Effort is really what you’re looking for, so why not make a move?
Start each day by learning something about yourself!