From Navel Gazing to inspired ACTION

HAVE YOU CAUGHT YOURSELF JUST GAZING at nothing; contemplating something; dreaming, momentarily watching the world go by; waiting for the next big thing; guilty of time wasting or as my husband says ‘you’re navel gazing’?

I’m an ideas person; solution driven problem solver; bouncing ideas around with others; as they say two heads are better than one; the go-to person for new ideas or inspirations. Anything is possible type of girl.

This is great as the head is full of daily inspiration, things pop in and out, you start recording things, writing it down, journaling, sketching, researching, browsing, dreaming of possibilities…. The head space.

AND then nothing really gets down. It’s not like you’re looking at everyone else, FOMO syndrome setting in, NO, maybe a little, but generally there’s just NO ACTION is applied, too many ideas, swirling around, somethings confusion, overwhelming, mixed up… nothing to show for all the thinking. You might call it dreaming.

Put a dream in your pocket and it will never go away. The Seekers, I lived by this motto as I was growing up. The axes where wheeling fiercely when I grew up. Put downs, bullying, intimidation coming from every angle of existence. I lived through the TALL POPPY capsule in my country. And still living in it. Sorry got a little side tracked here.

We all are creatives in some way and have great ideas for our businesses but sometimes it seems like we get nowhere. Round and round in circles we go just to find ourselves back where we started   days and weeks earlier. You hear inner doubts and just can’t get things up and running.

Back to the problem

That stuck feeling. You don’t know what to do next. You’re a creative with lots of ideas but which one  to work on first? Tomorrow’s coming. Tomorrow comes and a new thought. Another thought that takes the moment. Is this procrastination or is it lost in translation? Confusion sets in and don’t know what the next step is.

The right brain can feel very restrictive in planning daily movements to the minute, over and over, minute by minute, day by day. It’s suffocating for the right brain; the left brain is pinning the right brain down.  Get off me, you’re too heavy, give me some space why don’t you. I can’t think any more, I can’t breathe anymore. I’m drowning. I’ve lost my mojo. You start looking for a solution, an answer. 

You might be thinking right now, you know what the problem is;  you need a vision or maybe to set goals. Daily goals, weekly goals, yearly goals. The presumption that a list of goals turns into actions is debatably. Not action for everyone.

OK, let’s lists some goals. My mind says big. Go bigger, what are your dreams, what’s the bigger picture?

I did this exact task. I decided to list my yearly goals.

By the end of 2020 I will…

I wrote a list, it got longer and longer. Well that’s very nice I could come up with plenty of ideas, I’m a creative of course.

BUT I still don’t had the same problem, I just didn’t know what to do for tomorrow. What should I work on, what could I work on, what would I work on?

I didn’t know? How do you make decisions? It may come easy to some but for me, I couldn’t make a decision or find the focus, or if I did it felt a little adhoc-like. I’m spontaneous, I listen to my inner guides, they will tell me what to do.

THE PROBLEM WAS I was floundering. Day after day, week after week,  until I did something that made all the difference. This difference saw me jump out of bed most days with a sense of purpose.

What did I do? I broke down my dreams and desires into shorter time span. Rather then yearly goals, I listed goals for the next 6mths or even 3mths blocks. This practice reminded me of when I was in education and as a teacher we would have 10 week blocks to plan out our content delivery, assessment timelines, check-in points, reporting schedule, all within a tight timeline.

So I did some brainstorming of goals and desires for the next 6mths.

I wrote them down. I felt into this process and brought awareness around how my body was reacting and thoughts, ego driven or not. Asking my higher guides, how did these dreams make me feel? Which ones aligned with my vision; scratching out the ones that didn’t.

I chose five goals to work on over the next 6mths. I dissected each goal into what skills, habits, support team were required to achieve the goal. And most importantly what was the payoff emotionally, spiritually, physically and financially.

THEN I tapped into the left brain and asked it to wake up and to do it’s stuff it was good at; being the logical, sequential goddess of thought. I started mapping out the steps that were needed to achieve each goal and the timeframes needed for each step.

I printed a yearly calendar and started mapping out month by month the steps of each of the five goals over the next six month period.

I now started to see clarity in my weekly and daily journey. No more navel gazing and procrastination, it’s activation, inspired action.

So what did I do? Here is the process I used:

1. Dream big
2. Brainstorm what 2020 would look like.
3. Narrow your vision to what it looks like within the next six month period.
4. Pull out five overarching goals for the six months.
5. List the required skills, habits, support needed to achieve each goal
6. Identify the payoff to the business and personally if achieved
7. Identify the steps within each goal
8. Plot the steps of each goal across the weeks and months of the next six months
9. Daily meditation and visualisation for alignment/connection with the goals.