The single most common self-sabotage concern I hear from brilliant people with a million-dollar calling is this:
“I’m inconsistent. Help.”
And real talk? I’ve said this about myself at times. In the early days of building SoulTour, I tried this strategy and that one, created a bunch of different products instead of steadily working on one, and often didn’t stick with my own roadmap for optimizing a specific marketing plan.
I can look back and honor that sometimes, those pivots were me following my inner intelligence, and I can look back and honor that I am really good at following my inner intelligence.
But sometimes it felt more frenetic than guided.
That frustrated my vendors.
Honestly, it frustrated me, too.
At one point, I even heard myself describe myself as inspired, but inconsistent.
And something about describing myself that way just rang wrong, as it rolled out of my mouth.
Immediately, the wise witnessing voice of self-reflection in my own mind asked: “Is that really true?”
And immediately, my wise Inner Being said, “Nah, fam. I’m consistent at a lot of things.” and started rolling out a list:
- I meditate, write and pray every day and have for over 10 years.
- I work out consistently and have for 20 years.
- Londyn and I go to the farmer’s market, get croissants, then go to the park every Sunday we’re not out of town.
There’s a lot of routine and ritual in my life. These things feel delicious to me as I do them. They don’t feel like chores or tasks to check off a list. They feel like gifts I give myself every week, which is why it’s so easy to be consistent with them… and is why I teach my students how to set intentions and goals that feel delicious to them, too. Because those are way easier to keep and they’ll take you everywhere you want to go in life anyway.
Anyhow, all these exhibits of evidence that I’m actually consistent reminded me of a Tony Robbins CD I listened to 20 years ago.
In it, he pointed out that we’re all very consistent at a bunch of things, to the point where we can honestly say “I never do this” or “I always do that”:
- I always brush my teeth.
- I eat every single day.
- I always park my car at the curb or in a space… I never just hop out and leave it in the street.
Those were some of his examples… extreme, but effective.
His upshot was… if you “always” brush your teeth or “never” leave your car in the middle of the street, then you can begin to integrate “consistent” as a defining part of your self-concept and identity.
And from there, you can flow your consistency onto other goals and actions you want to take more consistently than you have been taking them.
So, back to me and you.
I’m not inconsistent.
And you’re not inconsistent, either.
Chances are, if you’re reading this, that you’re super consistent at many things… but you might struggle with making continuous progress and doing the things you want to do in order to:
- follow through on your best, most meaningful and most profitable business ideas,
- fulfilling your potential,
- moving to a new place, or
- generally doing the authentic, outside of the box things you’ve always wanted to do.
Even if you feel like you’ve been taking 2 steps forward and 3 steps back for years, or you feel like you’re constantly giving in to the urge to retreat on the brink of your breakthroughs, I assure you that you are not inconsistent.
You are not inconsistent.
You’re impatient.
And you’re especially impatient when you are facing an overwhelming, uncomfortable emotion.
Like most people, you’ll do anything to make the feeling go away, now.
That unwillingness to sit with and sit in and be with uncomfortable emotion for long translates into being impatient and, thus, inconsistent when it comes to the subjects and projects that spark financial fear, existential dread or the sensation of feeling untethered, exposed and vulnerable.
Here’s the epiphany: trying to fulfill your biggest potential, take action on your soul’s deepest callings and start your most delicious, authentic dreams MAY SPARK ALL OF THESE FEELINGS. For a bunch of reasons
Reason number one is that may be because you were a gifted child. So you learned very early that we could score a dopamine hit of love, attention, affection and praise from our parents, peers and authority figures by performing, achieving, confirming and producing things they deemed important, like getting good grades, getting into the right college or getting a promotion at work.
When you even think about getting off the dopamine drip of external validation and shifting your time and inner resources to start creating success on our own terms… it can feel like you’re flirting with rejection of the tribe we needed to approve of us in order to survive when we were young.
Reason number two is that sometimes, your soul-level callings spark existential dread because you’re so used to being excellent at everything we do that you’ve internalized the idea that your work IS your worth. So the idea of doing something we could be bad at (at first) is truly untethering and disorienting, and sparks fear and dread.
Reason number two is that sometimes, fear and self-sabotage of your own dreams and goals are trauma responses that have been wired into your brain.
All creative endeavors and big, beautiful ideas expose you to the prospect of public failure, and may even feel unsafe. If you’ve experienced trauma in your life, that unsafe feeling can spark a traumatic responses in your body, like: trembling, the feeling you might die if you speak up in a meeting and sound stupid, or the feeling that you’ll vomit if you put yourself out there and nobody wants to buy what you’re selling.
Your skillful, smart brain doesn’t want to feel that way one second longer than it needs to, so as soon as you take one step toward your Best Most Fulfilling Most Meaningful Most Profitable Life, you might find yourself freezing, fleeing, feeding yourself compulsively, fighting with the people around you or distracting yourself with all manner of “life getting in the way”.
Here’s the key: If you’re really consistent or even hyper-responsible at work or when taking care of others, but you are very indecisive or inconsistent when it comes to working on your own dreams and goals, chances are good that…
You don’t have a consistency problem.
You are NOT inconsistent.
Your fearful parts — in particular, your fearful inner child — are simply hijacking your brain, your best ideas and your life.
And you can stop the hijacking self-sabotage by:
- Seeing your patterns and not giving into them when they arise.
- Noting and naming what’s happening without self-shaming or labeling yourself “inconsistent”.
- Feeling the feelings you need to feel and letting them do their work within you, so that you’re transformed and liberated from the inner angst and your own self-sabotage patterns over time.
- Soothing those feelings and coming back into the present moment.
- And then, when you can soothe yourself back into present time… gracefully, gently continuing to take the steps your Wise Inner Being wants to take, and often DOES take… steps toward fulfillment, meaning, love, happiness, abundance, your dreams, your goals … success on your own damn terms, not somebody else’s.
Sometimes, these steps take years or decades. And honestly, that’s cool. Because Divine Timing is real and in your favor, which means that even things that seem like delay actually, ultimately, always benefit you.
But with some guidance and some practice, you can go through that entire process — from struggle switch to peaceful, powerful progress — in a month, in a week, or sometimes even an afternoon.
INVITATIONS:
If you want to start seeing your patterns and stop giving into them so that you can take peaceful, powerful, consistent action on your best business ideas and most authentic personal goals, my Sacred Money Archetypes program is for you.
As a Transformation Tuesday reader, you can now enroll for $197 (over 70% off the public price of $749).
>>> LEARN MORE HERE.
Doors close this Thursday at 11:59 pm PT.
INVITATION #2:
If you want my instruction and guidance to accelerate the process and systematically deactivate your self-sabotage patterns, I’ll be opening the doors to my latest deep-dive program, The Inner Critic Cure, soon.
This is the work we do there, powered by neurobiology, depth psychology and spiritual law.
I’d love to see you there and show you how to become as consistent as you want to be on the things that matter the most to you.
>>> GET ON THE WAITLIST, HERE.
Head up + heart out,
Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq.
The Inner Critic Coach™️
Founder + CEO of SoulTour
@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI
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