Are You Being All That You Could Be?

Procrastination is something like - I can’t get myself to do the tasks laid out in front of me.

Sometimes it’s because we haven’t broken down the tasks sufficiently enough to be able to take any action beyond that. 

Often though we know exactly what we need to do but the procrastination remains. 

Tasks are just tasks, they hold no properties in and of themselves. 

Our brain though is making a prediction about what it’ll mean about us if we do them. 

‘If I do these tasks and the outcome isn’t what I want it to be will it mean I’m a failure or some sort? That I’ll lose my status somehow? Will it provide the world or me actually EVIDENCE that I’m not what I think I am or want to be known as?’

Or the reverse - we no longer believe the path that we are on represents us. We see them as unethical, wrong, or not how we wish to see ourselves anymore.

‘If I do these tasks I know I’m capable of doing will it mean that I believe in them, that this is who I am?’ 

Think about that for a minute - something in us cares SO much about how we see ourselves and how others do that it will actually resist creating ANY evidence that it might be true. 

Perhaps this is because EVIDENCE means it IS true?

I see this all the time. 

We have a conflict and instead of resolving it, apologising for any harm caused on our part, we ignore it. Pretend it never happened. Sweep it under the rug. 

Another example - we are faced with an opportunity to get something we want. All we have to do is tell a lie. We tell the lie we get what we want. 

In the moment we convince ourselves that the short term pain is worth the gain. 

But in that moment we cast a spell on ourselves. We become a person who doesn’t have the courage to resolve conflict or who lies to get what we want. We have created EVIDENCE and so our brain re-wires to literally create this new identity. 

I see this in both marriages and in founder relationships as well as inside of businesses in general. 

It becomes like a curse that dooms the enterprise. Each lie told or conflict ignored provides evidence to the individual that they aren’t who they wish they were. The feeling is often resentment and repressed anger. Usually projected onto the individual who ‘made’ them do it. 

We start to struggle to be around them. It’s not them of course. It’s us. We don’t like the version of us that is bought out in the same environment as them. 

We create distance from them or even leave. When perhaps this is an opportunity to create evidence that we are who we wish to be? 

What is so fascinating to me is how the brain provides this gift of procrastination. 

Like it’s saying ‘hey stop - are you sure this is who you want to be? What will this mean about you? 

And that’s the question to answer. 

Who do I wish to be? 

What would I be doing/ not doing if I was being that person? 

Courage or cowardice 

Courage or cowardice you might consider the psychological way of looking at it but human behaviour just isn’t that simple. 

There is more to it when you start to look at the neuroscience. 

Our brain works on a system know as Body budget or allostasis. 

What that means is that the brain makes predictions about what’s happening and what’s going to happen and then based on those predictions it drives behaviour in order to survive. 

Imagine you have an incredibly strong craving for sugar or you’re incredibly tired. 

Your brain is driving the behaviours (eat sugar, get some sleep) that it believes will meet its survival needs in the moment. 

In the case of sweeping the conflict under the rug or telling the lie the brain is driving the behaviour based on some sort or perceived threat. 

It’s also not doing that based on a logical assessment of the present situation - if it was you might find justification for the cowardice label. The drive is based on associations from the past. Most likely at a time when you were a child - physically smaller and more vulnerable and thus far less capable of physically defending yourself or escaping. 

Rather than cowardice it’s a totally defensible behaviour. 

But that doesn’t mean that it’s a behaviour that serves you now or that it’s one you want to project into the future. 

We do these things all the time without consciousness awareness of it. 

We eat foods we don’t know make us sick and we say things that hurt others without being aware of it. 

We are always some degree of blind to our behaviour and all the effects they cause. 

For some reason now we find ourselves in this existential angst around our lies or rug sweeping where before we did it unconsciously or at least less consciously and it wasn’t a source of pain for us. 

It is only now that we have reached a level of consciousness where we’re no longer satisfied at the same time as being ready, willing and able to do something about it. 

Said another way, we doubt that our current behaviours will get us to where we wish to go. 

And that is the path towards where we need to go. Rather than merely holding the suspicion that this behaviour doesn’t serve us we need to prove it. 

We have to find EVIDENCE that “the truth will set us free” and that taking conflict and aligning our relationship is better than building resentment. Even if that evidence is that you’re better able to live with yourself. 

That means mapping out common instances and finding a skilful way to face them differently.

Even this does explain the full reality of what’s happening in a moment. It merely simplifies to the degree that we can change behaviour. 

The body budget isn’t merely budgeting for this one situation but for the full complexity of our lives. 

We’ve all had the experience of being exhausted or in pain and subsequently not having the bandwidth to show up as the best version of ourselves. 

Who knows the full extent to which forces in our internal and external environment and our (past) associations with them are constantly limiting our potential? 

Life is perhaps a never ending process of revelation and letting go. 

What will you let go of next?