How to Begin to Follow Through

This morning I did an inventory of all of the things I have started (or thought about starting) since the world stopped. Happily, many have been completed or are in progress, although many others remain suspended.

There is evidence of my good intentions and bad follow-through all over the place:

The beautiful new set of watercolours that has been opened, smelt, felt and admired, but not been touched by a brush or water.
The sourdough starter – birthed and given to me by my brother – that sits in the fridge, forlornly waiting to be woken up and baked into bread.
The pile of books on my bedside table and in my Kindle; all waiting for a time when I feel up to reading anything other than candyfloss.

The Pandemic is without doubt contributing to a lack of sustained concentration and focus and I know that this is at the root of many of my whimsical ambitions over the last 18 months.

But I also know that “difficulty following projects through from beginning to end” is a very common trait amongst people like me (and quite possibly like you) who have extremely high expectations of themselves, who are others-centred, and who have short attention spans. We start – or think about starting, or plan to start – things with great enthusiasm but then we get side-tracked, or bored, or scared that we won’t do it well enough. So, we stop thinking about finishing one thing and start thinking about starting another.

As endearing as it may sound, it is also very frustrating – even exasperating – for us and for everyone around us. Our homes are littered with the detritus of good intentions and there’s no escaping the evidence of how we don’t allow ourselves to succeed.

If this sounds a little too familiar for comfort, I’m happy to say that there is hope! You can learn how to see things through, how to choose projects that you will be committed to bringing to completion, and how to allow yourself to shine. Even in the midst of Covid Fatigue and Pandemic Exhaustion it is possible to learn more about yourself and change how you are so that, when the time is right, you can write that book, paint that masterpiece, get that degree, start that new business, create that special relationship…or anything else that you yearn to do.

And if it feels too overwhelming and exhausting to even think about anything other than getting through the days, then give yourself a break: hide the evidence of your good intentions and know that this, too, shall pass.

There will come a time when we are able to bake the bread, read the books and paint the pictures again.

Smash Your Own Glass Ceiling is an online coaching programme designed to help you to do this. Enrolments are open for the next course which begins on 27 July.