What Holds You Back vs What Do You Want More? LOP062

What’s the obstacle in your way? Is it someone, some event, or something?

In every instance the only thing in your way is you. It’s up to you to take the necessary steps that will allow you to pass through the obstacle in your way.

What are the things you repeatedly do that are holding you back?

These are often small things like habits or practices that are hard to break, because they have been with you for years or decades.

So what’s mine? The App, Grindr. It’s such a smart app. It pushes all my buttons for excitement, potential pleasure, compliments, etc. But the app is not the problem. Instead, it’s my patterns of behaviour that come out when I use the app. What Grindr offers me is the compulsion to keep looking, to keep checking if someone new is available or hot. For so many reasons, the time I spend on the app isn’t bringing me what I want (within the limited confines of what I’m looking for).

I asked myself what I want to accomplish today. The answer that came to me would require a clear, calm, focused, and non-distracted state of mind. So long as Grindr was installed on my phone, good luck with that.

Don’t get me wrong, I get a lot of work done in my day, but It’s the much bigger goals, the ones associated with my life purpose that I’m not giving enough attention. The outcome of accomplishing those goals will be life-altering for me. Yet the self-belief, courage, and the vulnerability required to accomplish those goals is greater than I’ve ever faced. This is precisely the moment where a simple, seemingly innocuous peek into Grindr (who’s online right now?) holds me back.

It’s not because Grinder or sex is bad. It’s just that Grindr is my kryptonite. It sucks (if only!) my power of concentration and ability to sustain my focus in deep work, especially if I look at the app early in the day.

The way forward comes down to the simplest of questions: What do I want more? The answer should be as literal as possible to help me to see my choices for what they. To bring this point home, I asked myself,

Do I want to keep looking at pictures on Grindr, sending messages, getting annoyed, and wasting my most valuable morning creative time, or do I want to make quicker progress on one of my most important projects and start bringing in more revenue to do more of the things I want to enjoy in life?

Kind of feel like a no-brainer, right?

What do you regret?

If I were lying on my death-bed tomorrow, looking back at all the time I wasted, when I knew I could have been working on something that could change the world, I’d be inconsolable. I would feel that way, not because sex or grinder is bad, but because the only way I can control my addition to that app is to not use it.

Motivational speaker and activist, Price Ea asked, “What are you going to remember when you’re on your death-bed? Will you have any regrets?”

We are all unique.

We can all contribute something to the world to make it a better place. What starts first as a thought, can manifest into the physical world as art, a service, a product, or a movement. If, like me, you’re a deep thinker, who can you share your ideas with, today?

Will you declare, today, that you will do things differently going forward?
If yes, what will you declare to do differently?

These are my declarations

In my work as the Living OUT Leadership Coach, I commit to helping gay men live out their unique and vital role in society: to lead others in creating a more evolved and humane world.

In my work as the founder of Th-Ink Queerly I will publish LGBTQ+ authors who demonstrate our necessary role in society. We will promote thoughtful dialogue that seeks to improve humanity and equal rights for all. We will critique the status quo — challenging rigid doctrines, heteronormativity, patriarchy, bigotry, and radicalized ideologies — and offer solutions to create a more loving and accepting world.

Stop waiting and get creating!

What do you want more than anything? If you're feeling stuck, let's have a conversation to help you take steps to get what you want.

Photo by Tomas Tuma on Unsplash