Know your limits before you chart the road to success

This post is designed to help you answer, “Why can’t I get started? Why is it so difficult to get started and then keep doing it until I can finish something?”

The easy answer is, starting is the hardest part! But often it is more complex than that.

Starting requires a personal commitment that something we want to change is a high enough priority in our life that we are willing to gather the information, tools, and energy to make that change. Sometimes life gets complicated. Our energies are diverted to other challenges or perhaps dead ends. We remain in this off-course behaviour pattern long enough that we don’t realise that we have normalised this diversion and we try to manage life like driving a car on empty. Even a car will only do that for awhile. There is a limit. The state of being overwhelmed, frozen, and repeatedly unmotivated is a warning sign that we, like that car, have, or are reaching our limit.

The pathways to creating this hoard are:

Genetics. There are certain conditions that can represent challenges in life, like a genetic pattern of inheritance, in families. Are you aware of any patterns in your family history?

Modelling. What were you taught growing up? What are you modelling today that may not be working for you? If you had the opportunity to make a change that would make a difference to finding happiness and meaning, how much of a priority would you make it? Are any of those lessons you learned earlier in life more baggage than aids and supports?

It doesn’t matter whether you tick enough boxes in any of these conditions to have a disorder. Use the information to familiarise and arm yourself. If you are dealing with any form of hoarding behaviour, identify the ways you may be on a continuum of any of these other comorbidities. Then let’s factor those as barriers into your

personal solutions.

Know that if you can dream something, there’s a high probability that with enough work and perseverance you can achieve it. Let’s do the work needed, a bit at a time and undo stuck.