Obstructive Thoughts

When someone starts working with me it usually because there is something they would like to change in their lives and realize that hiring a Master’s life coach is a smart and efficient way to get there.   Hiring a coach is also a strong commitment to personal and professional growth.  Each one of us will have our own unique goals. These change all the time depending on our life circumstances and our values.  Some of us set extraordinary goals that require us to grow into a new version of ourselves.

These goals could be to do with business, work, study, family, or health and wellness.  

Oftentimes what happens when we set new goals for ourselves is we can encounter “obstructive thoughts”

Obstructive thoughts are the roadblocks that stand between where you are now and where you want to be. 

Their job is to keep us safe and in our comfort zone.  So they create resistance to keep us where we are.  The thing about obstructive thoughts is they seem reasonable. There is an element of truth to them that makes them plausible and easy to believe.

I’ll give you an example.   I was 22 years old when I attended my very first yoga class. I loved it and promised myself I would do it every day. But ten years went by before I made this my habit.  Ten years.  Now, that is a long time!

The reason this happened was because of my tendency back then to believe my obstructive thoughts.  I want to help YOU understand these thoughts so you can shift them faster.  Once we know what obstructive thoughts are and how they work,  we are able to name them and notice them when they pop up so they are not given too much power.   

With regard to my goal to practice yoga every day, I had so many obstructive thoughts like…..

“I’m too busy”

“I don’t have time”

“It’s too far away”

“It’s too expensive”

“I’m not flexible”

 “I need to do…….” (essentially, I am too busy – just dressed up differently)

As long as, I listened to these thoughts, they kept me off my mat. Until, one day, when something had to change.  I had a health crisis.  I had no choice.  I had to do something different. 

I ruptured a disk and had a prolapse in another.  I was in very bad shape for two years following that injury.  The crisis sure did clear the way of the busyness.  Yet despite this, all it did was expose another layer of obstructive thinking that prevented me from achieving my goal of making yoga a regular practice.  These thoughts looked and sounded like…

‘I’m too sore”

“It won’t work for me”

“I won’t be able to do it very well and…(insert a range of excuses here)

“Everyone will look at me”

I was pretty much at rock bottom and knew I could either continue to indulge in these thoughts or I could “tend to hope” and change the way I was thinking about it.  I read a quote that said…

“Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and to endure what cannot be cured” Iynger

This quote at that time in my life was big enough to inspire change.

Now you might not be at rock bottom. But there are goals that you want to achieve and if you keep hearing things like…

“I don’t have time”

“I’m not fit enough”

“I’m too old”

“It won’t work for me”

“I can’t afford it”

“I’m not…….. enough”  (insert your own adjective here, common ones are slim, smart, educated, attractive, or age related)

Then please know that these are great examples of obstructive thoughts.  If you keep listening to them, they will continue to have power in your life and hold you back.  But when you name them, recognize them for what they are, and let them go, then YOU are in the driver’s seat to extraordinary changes in your life.

Remember, you get to decide what thoughts you pay attention to.  And of course, you could choose growth thoughts like;

“There’s never been a better time”

“The time is now”

“Bring it, I am designed for this”

“It’s my time and I am ready for my next step”

“Decide: And make it happen”

“Just start”

“Start where you are at, with what you have”

“How can I make it happen?”

“What’s my very next step?