Why are you half-assing ________?
Last week, I asked us to ask ourselves this question…
”Am I half-assing my life because I don’t like the one I have?”
I asked you to make a list of the things that you thought you may be half-assing. Hold on to that list. I am gonna ask you to use it soon.
Yesterday, I started an article explaining a method to start changing the way we think about our things in our lives when it hit me that it might be helpful to think about WHY we are half-assing something in our lives.
Today’s question…
“Why am I half assing _____________?”
Mentally fill in that blank with something from your list or jot it down.
So why do we half-ass pieces of our lives? Let’s look at a few of the most common “reasons”.
1. Comfort Zone
We all have those places where we feel comfortable. Both physical places, like a cozy reading corner or a favorite table at Starbucks, and also relationship places, job places, mental places, etc. Sometimes the comfortable can hold us back from stepping into something else we may want.
There is another place we can get comfortable. I know this is going to sound strange. At times, we can get comfortable in pain. What?! When we are used to pain, we can become “ok” with it and even comfortable. We may hear ourselves saying, “At least it’s not as bad as…” Or maybe even, “I’ve always dealt with this. It’s fine.”
Even when we know we have something more we want or need to do, we often choose comfortable.
2. Fear
Let’s be honest. Trying something new or “stepping into the unknown” is not always easy. In fact, sometimes it is downright scary. There can be a fear of failure, letting people down, saying the wrong thing, and countless others. Fear can legitimately keep us from danger. It can also cause us to avoid what we need to do and what could take us to that beautiful new level of life we really want. Fear brings about that fight, flight or freeze response we’ve heard about before. We can fight with our inner voice and not do what we need to. We can flee and go in a completely different direction than we need to. Or we can freeze and put ourselves in that “running in circles” mode that only keeps us from next level beauty.
Even when we can feel there are new steps to take, fear can jump in the way and be that roadblock that holds us back.
3. Control
We like control. And we are taught to be in control of many things in life, our money, our emotions, our time, etc. Making sure we have the money to pay the bills and take care of our home is important. Doing our best not to be reckless with our emotions is important. Managing our time to get the most out of our day is important. Can our level of control get to a place where it seems to hold us back from stepping into that “something more” we have been wanting or needing?
Control can start to turn on us. When we try to control a situation too much, we stop being in control and become anxious. Author Elizabeth Gilbert said, “You are afraid to surrender because you don’t want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety.” Let that sink in a little. I think we’ll come back to that another day.
Even when we have that piece of us that wants to take the step, big or small, into something new, that piece that still craves control, can hold our feet back from taking that step.
Last week, we asked “Are we half-assing our lives?” This week “Why are we?” Next week we’ll start looking at those practical steps to stop.
If you could benefit from having someone help you take some next steps and want to see what life coaching would look like for you, set up a Connection Session. You can get a taste of coaching and start making some bold steps.
