I kept lying to myself.
“I’m focusing on marketing,” I’d say, while loading up my to-do list with comfortable writing, learning and planning tasks.
I build tools for personal growth, so you’d think I’d be better at spotting my own patterns.
I wasn’t.
Until I added a simple column to my planning spreadsheet: “Outbound?”
This one addition dragged out my self-deception into the light. Twelve inbound tasks. Two (half-hearted at best) outbound ones. Every. Single. Week.
And whilst it was technically true that a lot of my tasks were related to marketing, at some point you’ve got to do the uncomfortable (for me) thing and start showing people the work.
I guess we all have blind spots – areas where our actions dont line up with what we want to achieve. This was a big one for me.
Sometimes the breakthrough is about making the invisible visible. Seeing where we are lying to ourselves, where we are hiding.
For me, this time, it was done by adding a column to a spreadsheet. For you, it might be a mark on your calendar each time you put off that important conversation. Or tracking how many days pass between your “I should really…” thoughts and your actual actions.
The exact method doesn’t matter and there probably isn’t a single solution for every situation.
What matters is bringing your patterns into the light where you can see them clearly.
Are you finding yourself struggling to make traction on a goal? Think about what you are not seeing about yourself, your actions, and inactions.
What simple things could you do that might bring them out into the cold, hard light of day?