#323 – How do you sabotage your progress towards your wildest success?

Once you commit, your Ego and the Ghosts will start plotting against your progress. They're afraid you'll succeed them out of a job, so they insist on staying in control.

I noticed this pattern while doing my morning pages. After realizing yesterday that I need to prioritize writing if I'm to commit to "living in my zone of genius," as Gay Hendricks puts it, I started to write all the ways in which I would plan my writing time.

There were so many "but's" and "if's" that I was becoming discouraged––how can I ever prioritize writing if I don't even know how my days are going to go, depending on work, which I still need to pay the bills?

Precisely what the Ghost of Idea Deflection (commissioned by the Ego) wanted: that I become discouraged so that I don't "risk" anything by fully committing to writing.

We do that to our children, I thought––you want to be a soccer player/actor/astronaut/pro e-sports gamer? Awesome, go for it! What's your plan B? A version of what my father said to me. The Ego and the Ghosts, as my father did, want to protect us from failure. They really think they're helping.

As soon as I noticed what was going on, I stopped, mid-sentence. No more planning. Just do it.

Because prioritizing doesn't only entail devoting a set amount of time to it. It means I give it all my attention, love, and will. It means that, when I find a pocket of time, instead of browsing Substack or going to the store, I immerse myself into the writing. And I do it with such intention that I feel the time stretching and, at the same time, flying by.

Drip by drip, I fill my zone-of-genius cup. I feed my creative energy and it feeds me.

What commitment to yourself will you take full responsibility for?

Love,

Carolina