Is there something that you really love to do but you find that you rarely make the time to do it? I think that’s true for many creative, sensitive people. In this video, I talk about why I think we do this and what we can do about it. Continue reading Why We Don’t Do What We Love to Do: EFT for Procrastination and Perfectionism
Category Archives: Perfectionism
Why Do We Procrastinate? Three Basic Reasons…
In this video, I talk about the three basic reasons why we procrastinate. It’s important to get clear about what’s going on inside you when you’re avoiding doing something. Once you know what’s happening within you, you can focus on clearing the underlying issue with EFT. Continue reading Why Do We Procrastinate? Three Basic Reasons…
EFT for Procrastination, Perfectionism, Fear of Failure, and the Need for Love and Approval
In this post, I’ll show you how to let go of negative thoughts and feelings with EFT. I’ll give you some ideas for how to use this technique to let go of procrastination, perfectionism, fear failure, and the need for love and approval of others.
In several posts I wrote recently, I talked about how procrastination is generally a mask for an underlying perfectionism. Perfectionism is an underlying mask for a fear of failure. And a fear of failure is masking a need for approval and love of others which we think that we need in order to feel happy and worthwhile as a human being.
The Essential Problem
When it comes down to it, this belief that the approval and love of others will bring us happiness reveals that we are focused in our minds, that we are not connected to the unconditional source of well-being within us. And that’s the essence of the issue.
What to Do about It
In future blog posts, I will be covering a lot of different techniques that I have found to be helpful for letting go of issues like these, but today I’m going to be talking about using EFT to help you release these issues and return to your natural state of unconditional well-being.
How to Let Go of These Negative Thought Patterns with EFT
EFT is a powerful and easy-to-use tool to let go of negative beliefs and feelings. Here are the basics of how to do it; I’ll go into more details below. All you need to do is simply tap on the nine key acupressure points of EFT as you think about any issue that is dominant in your mind at the moment. Follow where your mind takes you. You can use my How to Do EFT Video to guide you if you like.
As you tap on any issue and clear it, it is likely that new layers and aspects will emerge that point you deeper into the negative beliefs, feelings, and painful past memories for you to release. As you do, you will be releasing old habitual patterns of conditional thinking that you have probably lived with for a long time. Once you let go of these conditions that you are placing on your well-being through EFT, you will naturally begin to feel that wonderful experience of well-being that’s always available to you beneath your negative thoughts.
Some Ideas to Tap on to Let Go of These Issues
I’m going to make some videos to help walk you through using EFT to let go of procrastination, perfectionism, fear of failure, and the need for love and approval. Look for those in future blog posts or on my YouTube channel. Until then, here are some ideas for topics that you could tap on to let go of these issues:
- Not wanting to do this thing.
- Procrastinating on the next step.
- Feeling like I need to be perfect.
- Fear of failure.
- Fear of rejection and ridicule.
- Worry about what other people think of me and what I do.
- Feeling like I’m not lovable and not worthy unless I am perfect.
- And any other conditional thoughts or painful memories that emerge from your mind as you go through the process.
I think that gives you a general idea in a place to start for your own tapping. As you tap away these issues, you’ll be tapping into your unconditional well-being.
So that’s enough for now. As I said, in future posts, I will go into other effective ways I’ve found to help us to come back to the natural state of unconditional well-being within us. Look for those new videos soon, too.
Also, my self-help program, Your Inspiring Life, has 22 EFT recordings that help you easily let go of all of these limiting beliefs and more. I designed it to help you let go of all the internal barriers that are holding you back from fulfilling your dreams. It helps you feel inspired and motivated to take action to create a life that truly fulfills you. You can learn more about my program here: Your Inspiring Life
In my next post, I’ll talk more about how to use EFT as a doorway to access your unconditional well-being in each moment.
Perfectionism, Fear of Failure, and the Need for Love and Approval of Others: The Secret Issues that Hold Us Back
In this post, I’ll continue discussing the issues that hold us back from really going for our dreams, from really pursuing the things that we know will inspire and fulfill us. In my previous post, I talked about procrastination and how it relates to perfectionism. In this post, I’ll go deeper into that discussion, revealing the layers beneath our tendencies toward procrastination and perfectionism: the fear failure and the need for love and approval of others.
Two Kinds of Desire for Excellence
In my last post, I talked about how perfectionism is often a mask for us to avoid the anxiety of finishing something that we’re working on and putting it out into the world. At this point, you may be saying to yourself, “Well, I just want my work to be the best it can be before I consider it done and ready to share with others.” That makes sense, to a point. However, there are two kinds of desire for excellence that I’d like you to consider. One is motivated by a creative impulse, the aspect of us that gets an inspiration, an idea in our heads of something that we want to create and we want to realize that vision and bring it into the world. This feels exciting, inspiring, and it motivates us to action.
The second kind of desire for excellence/perfection comes from a need for approval, love, and appreciation, from ourselves and from others. We hold a standard up for ourselves and we tell ourselves that once we reach it, that’s when we’ll actually be worthy of love and acceptance; that’s when we’ll actually be worthwhile as a person. This is the slippery slope, the tricky part that you should really be aware of. Often, we may not even be consciously aware that we’re doing this to ourselves. Here’s how to tell: you’ll know when you’re coming from this place when thinking about your goal creates any level of anxiety in you.
Level III: Fear of Failure
That anxiety is coming from a fear of failure. Fear of failure encompasses so much more than those three words seem to convey. We are afraid that if we do not fully realize this vision in our heads, the absolute perfection of what we want to create, and if it does not meet some kind of external standard of perfection, often defined by other people, then we will not be worthy of all the love and appreciation that we deeply desire.
Level IV: The Need for Love and Approval of Others
There are so many layers to this. Beneath the fear of failure is a deep desire for others to love and approve of us and what we do. We want this because we have given away our power. We think we need others to love and approve of us in order to feel good about ourselves. We have placed these barriers, we’ve created these hurdles that we have to jump over (and sometimes they’re huge chasms that we have to leap across) in order to give ourselves permission to feel lovable and worthy as a human being.
Thinking about all of this, is it any wonder that we procrastinate on our dreams? Holy cow, with so much at stake, it’s a wonder that anyone gets anything done.
So now, we’ve talked about the four layers that hold us back from reaching for our dreams with consistent action: procrastination, perfectionism, fear of failure, and the need for love and approval.
At this point, you’re probably wondering what you can do to fix this. In my next post, I’ll tell you about some very effective ways to let go of these patterns and give yourself permission to really go for what you want and freely express yourself in the world in whatever way you are inspired. Plus, my self-help program uses EFT to help you release yourself from these exact issues and a variety of others that may be holding you back from achieving your dreams. You can learn more about my program here: Your Inspiring Life
Blessings,
Laura
Procrastination and Perfectionism and How They Hold Us Back From Our Dreams
In my last post, I started talking about why we have so much difficulty really going for the goals that inspire us. I think that there are four key levels to this that take us deeper and deeper into our core issues. I’ll cover the first two of these in this post: the closely related issues of procrastination and perfectionism. Once we recognize these patterns and free ourselves from these tendencies, we open ourselves to a whole new level of unconditional well-being and fulfillment in our lives. Once we let these go, following our dreams with passion and enthusiasm will naturally flow from the source of inspiration and well-being within us. And the first step is recognizing how these tendencies affect us in our own lives.
Level I: Procrastination
Outwardly, we find ourselves procrastinating and getting distracted by the little mundane tasks that we need to do each day and by the tempting ease of surfing the Internet or watching TV. Sinking into blessed oblivion, as they say. You’ll know when you’re using these activities as an excuse and distraction from what you really want to do because there will be a vague sense of dis-ease about doing it. And when you’re done, the anxiety will come back. But if the goal is something we really want, why are we procrastinating about it in the first place?
Level II: Perfectionism
I think that the reason we procrastinate is that we are putting an intense amount of pressure on ourselves to be absolutely perfect from the very beginning. I actually think the idea of “perfection” is a risky one to play around with. The problem is this: how do you objectively define perfection? I think we have assumed that at some point we’ll look at what we have created and say, “Ah yes, I see that this is absolutely perfect and it is ready to share with the world.” Now, I’m sure that that does happen sometimes. But if we are procrastinating because we are putting a lot of pressure on ourselves about what we need to come of it: approval, appreciation, love, etc., there’s a lot more at stake at finishing whatever we’re doing. So, from my perspective, not finishing and perfectionism are just different forms of procrastination that let us avoid our fear of putting ourselves and our creations out into the world.
If we keep working and working on something until we get to that is elusive destination called “perfection,” we may never get there.
In my next post, I’ll talk about two different motivations that drive us toward excellence and how one of them is helping you and one is holding you back. I’ll also go deeper into the issues that hold us back from following our dreams. Beneath the procrastination and perfectionism, there is a fear of failure and a deep need for the love and approval of others. And awareness of this is the first step in changing things for the better. We’ll talk about all this next time… see you then.
Blessings,
Laura
Learn about my self-help program here: Your Inspiring Life
What Keeps Us From Going For What We Really Want?
I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday and we were talking about our goals and how to get ourselves to take the next step to make our dreams a reality. I told him about how I’d recently created my first YouTube videos by giving myself permission to do it badly and seeing what happened. (If you didn’t see those posts, you can read them here).
My friend is working on structuring a seminar on a topic that has really inspired him and helped him in his life. He really knows what he’s talking about on this subject and has tons of information about it and his presentation keeps getting more and more detailed and informative. Actually, I think this is a gentle, sort of secret way for him to actually write his book about this subject, without really calling it that at this point. I think that’s his way of getting past the intimidating ideas we all tend to have about “writing a book.” Anyway, it’s a great strategy and it’s working for him. His creativity is flowing and he’s writing a lot.
It Just Needs a Little More Work…
He really has come a long way toward achieving his dreams. However, when it comes to the outline of the seminar he’s putting together, he keeps tweaking it and working it, rephrasing this and that to make it perfect. I know I’ve done the same thing with my own projects; maybe you have, too. Now, of course, some of this is absolutely necessary because it gives us time to work out exactly what we want to share and how. However, I think it may also be that we are letting perfectionism delay us from finishing our projects, because once they are done, we will have to move on to the daunting task of actually sharing them with the world. It’s interesting how we hold ourselves back from fully going for our dreams like this. And it got me wondering about the deeper reasons why we would do that.
What’s Holding Us Back?
There are so many little shadow issues that emerge when we get ourselves closer to a goal that we really want but that stretches us beyond our comfort zone. If there wasn’t the stretch to it, we would have done it long ago. But why do we feel this discomfort about something that really inspires us? I think it’s because we invest so much of our future happiness in this goal. In order to achieve it, we know it will require us to open up in new ways to the world and these thoughts activate intense fears about what would happen if we failed. When it comes down to it, I think that the intense fear of failure is what’s really behind our perfectionism.
In my next blog post, I’ll explore the relationship between procrastination and perfectionism. I’ve got some interesting ideas about that and about how to overcome these issues that I’m looking forward to sharing with you in my next few posts. So, see you then!
Blessings,
Laura
Live Your Dream. Your Inspiring Life
EFT for Procrastination and Perfectionism: A simple way to let them go
In my last post, I talked about how I found myself procrastinating about getting started on my videos for my blog and YouTube. I talked about how I realized how important it is to give ourselves permission to not be perfect when we’re just beginning something new. When we expect ourselves to be brilliant from the start, we put way too much pressure on ourselves and that creates a lot of resistance. Instead of facing the anxiety of not being perfect, we decide to do other busywork that isn’t as likely to lead to feelings of failure and inadequacy. Like I said, that’s way too much pressure and it takes all the fun out of it. You know what I mean?
Some Issues to Tap On to Get Past Procrastination and Perfectionism
So, in this blog post I thought I would give you a few tips on how to use EFT to help you get over these perfectionistic roadblocks that lead to us to procrastinate. If you don’t know how to do EFT, check out my next post where I have a video that shows you just how to do it. (See, it works… I got my first videos done! 🙂 )
To get you started, here are some suggestions for phrases you can target with EFT:
Feeling like I have to be perfect from the beginning.
Frustration and anxiety when things don’t go the way I want them to.
This feeling like I’m not good enough because I’m not perfect at this right now.
This anxiety and sadness about not being perfect.
You get the idea. Of course, you can adapt these to fit your particular feelings and situation or just use them as a starting place to help you get clear about what’s going on within you.
A Nice Affirmation to Use
Whatever the specific target issue is, you can use a positive affirmation at the end at the side of the hand point, something like this:
I give myself permission to not be perfect right now. I choose to play and have fun and know that even when things don’t turn out the way I want them to, I’m practicing and learning and getting better all the time. All my experiences will eventually lead me to learn how to create the beautiful things I envision. I don’t have to be perfect to have fun. I give myself permission to enjoy the process. And I know these experiences will help me to eventually get to where I want to be.
That feels better, doesn’t it? With enough tapping, you will actually get to where this affirmation feels absolutely true to you. And you know what will happen after that? If you’re like me, you will find yourself feeling inspired and excited about taking the next step. And that’s a wonderful place to be.
About My Program
My self-help program, Your Inspiring Life, includes recorded EFT processes to help you overcome procrastination and the negative beliefs that trigger it. In fact, the program has 22 mp3 EFT processes and a number of guided visualizations and meditations as well that help you move through a whole variety of negative beliefs and habits so you can really move forward and make your dreams happen. Each EFT process includes affirmations similar to the one above so you don’t have to think of them on your own. Listening to EFT recordings makes the whole process really easy. You might want to check it out and see if it feels like it might help you on your journey.
So, Try EFT… it really will help
Give the process I outlined above a try. Do a few rounds on it and then see how you feel. If you do, I think it will really help open you up to letting yourself explore your dreams without having to be perfect right out of the gate. Give yourself permisson to let that go and go have some fun!
See you in my next post. If you haven’t already, you can sign up for my email newsletter or the RSS feed for my blog so you’ll get notified about my new posts and videos. And leave me a comment or question below, too. I’d love to hear from you.
Blessings,
Laura
Live Your Dream. Your Inspiring Life
