Allowing Ourselves to be Successful – Guest Post by Alex Fayle

February 25, 2009 · by Joanna Paterson · in

Last week I had the most amazing five days. I did everything on my to-do list every day and had time during the day to putter around, watch some TV and do some minor house repairs.

I never used to be like that. I never used to have tenacity. I’d get all excited by something shiny and new, jump into it, and find my interest trailing off in direct proportion to the amount of work or length of time required to finish the project.

So I’d let myself get distracted by whatever new shiny object caught my eye and off I’d go again.

However, I got tired of not completing projects. Yes, I wrote a novel and got it edited (where it’s now out doing the agent rounds) but I did that while I wasn’t doing anything else, so it was easy to do.

Now I have a whole bunch of projects on the go with slow progress happening in each one and years of work ahead of me before significant success arises from any of them.

A recipe for walking away, no?

Yes, especially given how much I don’t like hard work (my sister, the Urban Panther is the same way).

But I really love what I do and I didn’t want to give it up, however tempting it might be to walk away.

Fortunately Kelly from Maximum Customer Experience recommended a great book called Get Clients Now! by C.J. Hayden.

So I bought it and started the program it lays out. But it wasn’t the book or the program that taught me tenacity.

Determination by pixelposition on Flickr

It was one tiny little piece of one worksheet—two pages of text in the entire 230 page book.

Hayden reminds us that everything we do is a choice and how when faced with work, we often choose to head off in a different direction. Instead of telling us to get over it and get to work, she talks about something she calls “Special Permission.”

Special Permission is a sentence directed at whatever normally blocks us from being tenacious. It’s not harsh. It’s not a command. It’s permission.

Here are some examples she uses:

I have permission to ask for what I want.

I am able to do things I fear.

I deserve to be successful.

I can make a good living and still have time for fun.

At first I considered ignoring this part of the worksheet. After all, these sorts of things are just games we play with ourselves. I’d do fine without it. Then I started thinking about the self-sabotaging behaviour I’d exhibited in the past which left projects unfinished. So I gave it a try and this is what I came up with:

It’s okay to be consistent.

That’s it. It doesn’t look like much, does it?

For me, however, this one sentence completely and utterly changed how I work and how I see myself. I no longer beat myself up for veering off in twenty directions at once. I no longer look at my to do lists and then go watch the entire first season of True Blood in a single day (two weeks yes, but not one day ;) ).

When I’m tempted to change my focus, I look at the check box on my worksheet that asks “Did you use your special permission today?” and I remember that I’m not a teenager rebelling against authority.

I chose all these projects and it’s okay to work on them. I don’t have to fight against the challenges I face.

I can simply be consistent and work on them bit by bit every day.

And from that little bit every day, the successes are piling up exponentially.

So how about you? What blocks you from being tenacious with your dreams and what special permission will you give yourself to get past that block?

* * *

Alex Fayle from Someday SyndromLet me introduce you to Alex.

Alex Fayle, of Someday Syndrome, is a former procrastinator who uses his visionary ability to uncover hidden patterns and help people break the procrastination obstacle so they can finally find freedom and start living the life they desire.

I first got to know Alex through the remarkable Karen Swim, and now enjoy following his work at Someday Syndrome and his musings on life, work, procrastination at much else besides on Twitter, @alexfayle.

Photo Credit: Determination by pixelposition on Flickr

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