As you walk towards the front door you notice those boots that you were going to sell on eBay and sigh to yourself again. The front step is worn and as you leave the house your eye is caught by the peeling paint on the fence rails.
Must call that painter who was working across the road last summer, I’ve got his number somewhere.
The car door squeaks as you get in and as it starts to rain, the protest from your wipers reminds you that you meant to get a new wiper blade last weekend; only that involves a trip to the other side of town and time ran away with you.
Each one of these is a broken agreement. Promises that you made yourself and have either ignored or not kept. Every single one of them snags a tiny part of your attention, fragmenting it in a thousand different directions. No wonder a clear future is hard to fathom. Why is this?
Your brain has an efficient tracking system for promises you have made yourself and at the same time, almost no awareness of the relative importance of what it is tracking. This means that a casual note to self about your new wiper blades has the same priority as your performance review with your boss – at least as far as your brain is concerned.
That Noise Is Bugs, Humming In The Background Of Your Life
What is the effect of this? The first is that these little things bug you constantly. They are a background hum to your life. If you listen carefully you can hear it. Sometimes you can push them all away and other times they spring at you as you wander round the house. You may not realise that you are living with a constant hum of disappointment from all these incomplete items. (If you are unlucky your partner will join in the bugging and reminding.)
The other main effect is more serious. How would you feel about a friend who constantly let you down? Who promised action and never took it? Who fobbed you off with excuses? Who kept avoiding you when you wanted to talk about what this was doing to your friendship?
You’d fall out wouldn’t you?
At the least, communication between the two of you would be strained and it would be difficult to get past these things or talk about more meaningful plans, wouldn’t it?
This is how you have been treating yourself. Making easy promises of action and then not doing anything. Discounting or fobbing off any attempt to remind you. Hey, it’s no wonder you experience a struggle to draw your attention to the future. Your attention is constantly fragmented in a thousand different directions. What’s the answer?
Write Yourself A Bug List, Now!
Do it as soon as you can. Take paper and pen or keyboard and screen and make a list of every incomplete little job that bugs you. (If you have people that bug you, you can put those in a special section of their own.) There may be 50 or more of these. List all the things that annoy you: little jobs, things that need fixing, stuff you’ve been meaning to do for ages. Imagine someone dropped toast crumbs in the bed of your life. What are all those toast crumbs? List them all.
Now look at the list. Each one has a tiny part of your attention and will continue to occupy this while it remains incomplete. So the next task is to bring as many of these as possible to completion. How do you do that?
Get your copy of First, Know What You Want to find out more about how to rebuild trust in yourself and release the tension of these unresolved bugs. Discover why bug listing works and how it can help you be crystal clear about what you really want…
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