Re: Barriers against the GTD system
Guest said:
Has anyone come up with a great way to overcome the barriers to getting things done? Barriers such as fear, not knowing how to achieve the outcome or the next step, not liking what you've got to do next, putting off doing some things because something better came up? Some say I am very organized - I have all the systems in place - yet the most important things like: getting my work done, getting my investments in place, collecting outstanding money - those things just never get done because of my barriers. Any ideas to overcome the barriers? Thanks!
Hi Guest,
Speaking from my own experience and whatever small self-awareness I have, I can tell you that the fear factor was a big part of my life, all through my 20's (I'm 35 now). More precisely, it was the 'fear of failure', 'fear of looking stupid', 'fear of f*ing up', even 'fear of success' at times. I called it my own personal Internal Critic, this inner voice that pretty much paralyzed me whenever bold decisions were required.... sometimes even mundane, everyday decisions as well.
I think perhaps identifying through a frank and honest self-assesment
why you have these barriers installed )i.e., fear of <what calamity> taking place if I act on this) would be a great benefit. Sometimes it takes an objective third party to help, sometimes-- if you can be brutally honest with yourself-- you can go it alone and figure it out.
If I could digress a moment, the Russian playwrite Anton Chekov was famous for writing plays in which nothing happened, and creating characters who did nothing during the course of the story, always with a negative result. Chekov showed us that choosing NOT to act was inofitself a choice with very real (usually tragic) results. This 'playing it safe' mode could also be called 'head in the sand' or 'if I ignore it, it will go away' mode. It rarely works to our benefit to do this, imho!
You asked about not knowing how to achieve the outcome as a barrier. If you truly know the desired outcome or the desired result and STILL can't articulate what it is you need to do NEXT to get that result, perhaps listing all the things that WON'T get it done will spur your creativity. You could just start writing them down on a piece of paper until you run out of credible (or even incredible) actions... there will probably be quite a few next actions for other projects you have going (or even projects themselves) that will come up in the process.
I hope my ramblings are of some help, good luck!
Dave