It's Too Hard, Let Me Tell You About It

Written by Susan Dunn, MA Psychology, Emotional Intelligence Coach


Whining. It’s such a waste of time. It’s also one of those things that feels good while you’re doing it, but not afterwards. So is commiserating. If you’re involved in this futile loop, it’s time to get out.

What do I mean?

Well, let’s say there’s something you must do you don’t want to. This could be so many things – de-clutteringrepparttar garage, writing a thank you note, going torepparttar 123168 DVM to get your license renewed, taking that pile of clothes over to Goodwill, turning in your expense account report, or writing a performance review for an employee.

Each of these tasks I’ve mentioned could take you an hour or two. If you talk about it, however, it could extend into infinity. If you’rerepparttar 123169 whining type, you could call everyone you know and fuss about what you aren’t doing, and each phone call could easily take an hour.

If you’rerepparttar 123170 commiserating typerepparttar 123171 whiner knows they can go to, you could easily devote an hour to their whining, which would allow you not to do what you should be doing, and then go whine to someone else.

The payoff isrepparttar 123172 connection with people, and not having to dorepparttar 123173 nasty chore. We all like sympathy, emotional connection, empathy and “understanding.” After all, no one’s going to argue with you that going torepparttar 123174 DVM ranks right up there with a root canal.

There are procrastinators and then there are blackhole procrastinators. I have one friend who procrastinates on tasks he doesn’t want to do, but he’s generally happy about it all, and he doesn’t call other people and complain. He also occupies himself keeping busy with things he likes to do, and there are many. He limits his ability to succeed by this habit, but it’s somewhat contained and he doesn’t bother other people with it too much.

Then there’s Erin, who’s a blackhole procrastinator. She sucks things into her negative energy. Get around it and you could disappear and come out in an alternate universe. In fact it IS an alternate universe. While she is putting off what she should be doing, she is gobbling up other people’s time, and sucking away their positive emotions with her complaining.

Because this is a habit to her, her list of things that are “too hard,” “awful,” and “unfair” goes on forever. It’s so long I know she’s CAPABLE of being organized and efficient, because I would have to have a written list of allrepparttar 123175 things to complain about.

Yes, I limitrepparttar 123176 time I’m willing to listen to her complain. But as I prematurely terminaterepparttar 123177 phone call when I hearrepparttar 123178 laundry list of whines about to happen, I know she’s got her hand onrepparttar 123179 dial ready to callrepparttar 123180 next person who will listen to her.

The thing is that complaining doesn’t make a difference. Now, if you had a parent where complaining worked and got you out of doing things, smart child that you are, you developedrepparttar 123181 habit. It worked. You’d have been dumb NOT to use it.

Nothing ever stays the same.

Written by Graham and Julie


Nothing ever staysrepparttar same. Onrepparttar 123166 one hand we despise change yet onrepparttar 123167 other we don’t want to stagnate and become boring. Yet our habits keep us locked into a course of action day after day, year after year. The way we think,repparttar 123168 way we behave,repparttar 123169 way we experience things,repparttar 123170 way we react to incidents, all are dominated by our habits. They are so strong that most of do not even know what they are. Whatever our habits are they keep us fixed in a particular perspective or behaviour. They stop us reaching our potential. Our habits are basically involuntary acts we perform unintentionally and without thinking. We just are them. Yes. We are our habits. Whether, you lack confidence, find it difficult to make decisions, always arrive late for an appointment, can’t say no …, feel lonely, feel stupid, think others always know best…… these are all habits. That’srepparttar 123171 bad news. The good news is that you can change. Change is based on choice. Once you realise what your habits are, you have more chance of changing them. It may not be easy. It may be painful, sometimes. But it is also fun and rewarding because you are changing your life. You are opening yourself to seerepparttar 123172 possibilities of your potential. What you are capable of. History shows us that there are four key ingredients to successfully change habits: Reflection, Realisation, Resolve and Sustained Effort. In other words all you have to do is imagine you arerepparttar 123173 gardener of your life: Reflect onrepparttar 123174 state of your garden. Realise what are weeds and what are flowers. Removerepparttar 123175 weeds Replacerepparttar 123176 weeds with flowers and make a sustained effort to keeprepparttar 123177 garden clear of weeds you don’t want. So. What isrepparttar 123178 largest weed in your garden? Which habit causes you most pain?

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