You may have heard the saying where your attention goes your energy flows. It couldn’t be more true that what we choose to focus on grows in ways that can support us or work against us, depending on how mindful we are.

When we don’t consciously manage our thoughts, they will manage us. We can inadvertently work against ourselves by reinforcing subtle disempowering beliefs as I recently witnessed with two clients. You may relate to one or both of these stories as they reveal frequent patterns that we can easily fall into and that I’ve experienced myself.

Have you ever pushed, driven or berated yourself for not doing more? Blaming yourself for being lazy or unfocused. We like to guilt trip ourselves out of some mistaken belief this will motivate us when it does just the opposite.

Why do we do this? What purpose does it serve to beat ourselves up? It most causes us to feel bad that we’re not doing enough. Then it makes us burn out, feel more overwhelmed and perpetuates frustration and unhappiness.

The belief of not being, doing or having “enough” often comes from a place of competition and comparison. The desire comes from a beautiful place – our longing to be whole. Yet the push for more, better or faster is mostly about lack and scarcity. We fall victim to what I call the Machine Model of Success where we judge ourselves and others on output, productivity and production. It’s an externally focused quantitative orientation where we measure ourselves against others based on volume, not true value.

Looking for happiness and validation from external sources is the road to dissatisfaction. Instead of outsourcing our worth to others, we need to in-source by going within to choose what matters and where we will focus.

My client Jay was frustrated with his situation as he tried to shift his business model to create more free time. He just wasn’t making as much progress as he had hoped as quickly as he had anticipated. Other stuff kept getting in the way, he would get distracted by other projects then feel aggravated that his timelines kept moving. This then cued up his guilt for not doing more.

Rather than being motivating, his self-criticism was like a heavy weight on his shoulders as he was lugging around a feeling of failure. No wonder he didn’t feel very happy and wasn’t making much progress. He was inadvertently sabotaging himself by diluting his efforts and then feeling bad about it.

Guilt and shame are not the path to ease and lightness. That’s not how it works. Rather, we need to recognize when our old beliefs and habits are getting in our way. Over-working, burning out and getting distracted by shiny object syndrome cause us to dilute our energy and focus on doing more of the wrong things which is just not helpful.

In fact, we often sabotage ourselves without even realizing it. Here’s how the cycle plays out: you overwork to prove oneself, then burn out from exhaustion, so you need to take a break, then feel guilty about slacking off. You then become either embarrassed or uninspired to get back to work and feel ashamed (or some variation on this theme). It’s like the starve, binge diet cycle that starts off well-intentioned, then gets completely side railed. Can you see how unproductive this repetitive pattern can become?

How to break it? You need to step back and look at the choices you’re making. We helped Jay debunk his fuzzy logic that pushing and punishing himself was the answer or doing more was the solution. In his case, he needed to learn to minimize distractions and persist in the face of his resistance. By seeing through the goals he set for himself, he would create more time, but that required finishing his existing projects before taking on new ones or kicking them down the road.

Creating a New Roadmap

When we make conscious choices about our energy and direction and commit to our plan, then everything we do becomes in service of our goals and vision. Even when things get hard, we know we’re working towards an end game we’ve chosen with intention, and we recognize the work that’s needed to make progress.

No blame or shame or regret about what we coulda, shoulda done. We made choices and acknowledged that we can’t do everything. Just focus on what matters. Alignment of our energy with our intentions.

This is something I’ve personally struggled with as an idea generator. I’ve always got new inspiration coming in, but have learned that I need to make choices and now prioritize my actions on my top 1, 2, maximum 3 areas that matter.

Once you choose, you can’t give up or back out. You do need to notice distractions, then determine if you’re focused on the wrong things and might want to course correct. Of course you might decide to pivot and adapt, but more often than not, we choose to quit or throw in the towel just before we start to see progress.

Traction often takes a minimum of 3 months or more to build from my experience, particularly when we’re trying to create something new since there’s a steep learning curve and it takes time to see results.

You don’t plant a seed, then get annoyed it doesn’t start sprouting the next day. You need to keep watering it and monitoring the weather and soil conditions to ensure that it takes root and prospers. It’s at this point that we need to double down and keep going. Patience and persistence help us to stay the course.

Our goal is to choose our path with intention, not get stuck doing more of what we’ve been doing. We want our roadmap to take us to our dreams and desires, not just more of the same. You get to choose the direction you want to point – ideally you are moving forward, not going around in circles.

My client Sue was also feeling bad for not making “enough” progress for a different reason than Jay. She hadn’t been carving out time to move forward with her side hustle, a passion project she’d been wanting to pursue for years. She felt stuck and overwhelmed by the thought of having to put herself out there on social media. It felt like a very high hurdle to get over given everything else going on in her life.

As we explored her resistance and developing an actionable plan for her to move forward, it became immediately clear to me what was going on. Social media wasn’t the issue since it wouldn’t actually get her in front of the right audience to grow her business.

Sure that was one path that others doing similar things were following, but she had a different focus and skill set. Her training and expertise were geared towards professionals, many of whom she already had relationships with, not the consumers who are on Instagram and Facebook who she thought she needed to connect with.

She could share her knowledge through more personalized outreach to her existing network. No constant social media posts needed. She was able to see the exciting possibilities available doing what she actually loved – so much more ease and creativity opened up.

Sometimes we can put the cart before the horse, and look at what everyone else is doing without figuring out the right choice for us. What we need to do can be much simpler than we realize.

The story in our heads is that it needs to be hard. We need to work more, follow what others are doing, and keep pushing. Maybe not. It doesn’t have to be that way. What if it were easy?

What easy looks and feels like

When we step back and assess our true priorities, we can uncover the path forward. Sometimes we need a sounding board or voice of reason to help us put things in perspective because many of us are complexity-making creatures. We like the drama, the intrigue, the work.

That’s right, equating more with better is an old story that’s hard to break. This doesn’t need to be true. And perhaps we think our answer is just a quick prompt away. That using ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or some AI dronebot of choice will spit out the answer and give you an insta solution. Just because your Agentic tells you what to do doesn’t mean that you’re actually going to do it or they’re even right.

Our outputs are only as good as our inputs. I saw a recent study that showed professionals are spending more time on their AI prompts, rather than being freed up. This can become just another way of creating busy work that feels “productive” but actually isn’t.

So the next time you face a challenging question or you’re beating yourself up for not doing more, step back to consider whether you’re actually focused on the right priorities. Ask yourself:

• Will this choice help me move forward with what I care most about?
• Why am I struggling to get this work done? Am I bored, or overwhelmed or possibly focusing on the wrong tasks? Or is there something else that is distracting me?
• Does this action align with my vision and priorities? If not, how can I let it go and choose something that will move me forward.

Choosing your thoughts

When you notice yourself spinning out, procrastinating or berating yourself, try to stop and pause. Step back and reassess instead of stubbornly pushing forward. Your thought, feeling or reaction is trying to create more awareness. You owe it to yourself to listen and question whether you’re moving in the right direction.

Alignment feels like ease. Conflict creates stress and pressure. Figure out which it is and how you might shift from the latter into the former. Sometimes having a thought partner who’s a neutral sounding board can help. Maybe it’s a close friend or partner who you trust or a colleague who knows you. Or maybe it’s a coach who can help you see things with fresh eyes, so you can move in the right direction faster and smarter.

I have always worked with coaches and relay on multiple resources and peers for different perspective, insight and feedback. While we can try to work through these things by ourselves, having others reflect back what we might be missing or how we can approach things from a new direction can make a huge difference in our progress.

Sometimes it takes a village and we don’t have to go it alone. That can be a vulnerable acknowledgement or it can be an empowering one. Support and opportunities are available all around us. And at the same time, the more awareness we have about our inner workings, the more agency we can feel.

Once you know what you want, how you feel, what you might need, who can help and why it matters, the easier it becomes to focus your energy and make progress. You get to move farther faster in the right direction.

If having a thought partner and super fan to support you in your process of creating more of what you desire is appealing, reach out to connect. I’d love to share tools and strategies to help you step into being your best self and realizing your dreams.

An important theme that my new book for high performing leaders will explore is how to create your life by design, not default. I’m excited to share more about how this can support you. Click here to learn more about this work.

To more focus and flow,

Lenore

P.S. Want to realize your dreams? Schedule a Life Path Audit Call here to explore your next level of growth and how transformational coaching can support you.