Ain’t that a kick in the head?

Geeked. Excited. Feeling accomplished, proud, ready to take on the world. Knowing that I’m headed in the right direction. Then suddenly…

That’s not going to work. No one’s going to like this. I can’t say it that way! How should this look? Oh, I’ve got to change that. Dang it, I don’t think this is going to be ready in time. Maybe I should cancel and reschedule for after this is done. I hope no one shows up. I’m scared.

WHY do I do this to myself. It doesn’t seem to happen with my writing. I can draft, edit, get to a point where I push ‘publish’ all without hesitation or doubt. But try to do ANYTHING else I’m passionate about and this is where I end up. I wanted to launch an internet radio talk show a few years back.  Had everything in place and the day I’m scheduled to hit the airwaves, the electricity where I was staying got shut off so no internet connectivity. As I’m calling my guests to let them know, I find out that one of them had ‘forgotten’ she’d agreed to participate. The sense I got was that she had said yes in the beginning, but had then talked herself out of it because she’d lost faith in my idea and didn’t want to be associated with it or me. And instead of telling me ahead of time, she chose to just ‘forget’. I scrapped the whole idea and never looked back. I was so excited about it but it was all too easy to let that set-back kill the idea because by the time I’d talked to my guests, I’d convinced myself it was a rotten idea, that the electricity being off was a sign of good fortune, and not an indication of my then pseudo-boyfriend’s inability to manage a household.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve set up something, planned to do something, agreed to attend an event, only to let my fear talk me out of it at the last minute.  WHY!!!

I’ve re-written the workbook twice now. I’m on draft number three and I’m convinced it won’t be ready by the 19th. Because of the re-writes, the PowerPoint slides I did need to be re-done. Doubly convinced that won’t happen by the 19th. My idea on how I want things to go changes every morning as I seem to come up with a ‘new’ idea every night.  I recognize my indecision as fear, resistance, and a form of self-sabotage. I do. But I have no idea how to over come it.

I haven’t cancelled the retreat. I also haven’t paid my utility bill yet. I’m in no danger of having my electricity cut off, but…

smh – why do we do this to ourselves?