W05.02 How Do I Do What I Want To Do When I Don’t Feel Like Doing It?

Paul Cook, Editor and Publisher of DIRECTION Journal, wrote to me on the weekend thanking me for the blog, and then asked… “I wonder what's in it for you... all this generous outpouring for AT teachers? Is there a paying model at some stage?”

It’s a great question, and I am sure the savvy business types among you are wondering the same thing. Well first relax – it will keep coming. I will finish this free online course and continue to blog. The “because” behind my effort fits in nicely with the topic of this week: mentors, team and support, so I decided to share my reasons for doing this blog…

You are my team of one. You are the people who keep me awake. I am leveraging a relationship with you to support me doing something I might otherwise avoid doing. This is what I call creating a structure of fulfillment - or changing your system - to get what you want. It is vital to your success.

Let me explain.

This April I will launch in Tokyo an entire new module of BodyChance’s ProCourse (Alexander Technique Teacher Education). I am calling it CareerThinking. It is not a glamorous name, but it fits in with our two other training modules: BodyThinking and ThinkingBody. CareerThinking will be an elective course, not a requirement to receive a BodyChance Alexander Technique diploma.

The new course is a year of study divided into 12 Units: each month is a new topic, and students will receive an audio mp3 from me, a worksheet with tasks for the month, a weekly letter of ideas and encouragement, and a monthly Sunday evening belly-to-belly meeting when I “hotseat” each person’s work on developing their Alexander Technique teaching career. My intention is to show BodyChance teachers how they can generate great success in the market because: 1. That’s what they want; 2. It changes society because it changes people; and 3. It encourage more people to train at BodyChance rather than anywhere else!

So this is a big vision thing, but boy does it take a lot of time. To make this course work, I need to drill down, study, write, think, prepare. And I was already busy! How can I do that?

By changing my system. By creating a structure of fulfillment.

Over the Christmas holidays I devised this plan to run the entire course for free in English on my blog as a way of “rehearsing” what will happen in Japan. Of course for the Japanese course all these materials need to be translated – so they must be prepared ahead of time – and I need super clarity about how all the 12 Units fit together.

What better way to “compel” me to do this than by promising it to you, and then delivering on that promise. It leverages my deep sense of honour, of duty, of purpose. Or putting it more bluntly: It leverages my ego! You are supporting my ego getting this done on time.

Yes – I want to do this, but when I got home from teaching all weekend, and then meetings all day Monday – did I “feel” like writing my blog? No. Did I write my blog? Yes. Was I happy that I wrote my blog? Yes, estatic. It didn’t make me tired, it energized me towards my vision. It woke me up again. The truth is: I want to write my blog! Not feeling like writing my blog does not mean I do not want to write my blog. I think many people get confused by “want” and “like”. There are lots of things we don’t “like” to do that we “want” to do. Think about it, you will get it.

So if you are “stuck” wanting to do something, but feeling obstructed by “I don’t feel like doing that now” (for whatever reason) then your will power can not help you. As Alexander wisely commented: “Trying is only emphasizing the thing we know already.” What can help is changing the systematic way you go about achieving what you want to do. You do that by consciously creating a structure to fulfill what you want. And a key to that support structure is “other people”.

This ties in with yesterday’s blog about using a “mirror” to support building your career as a financially successful teacher of the Alexander Technique. Obviously, being financially successful as an Alexander Technique teacher will not be supported by carrying around a mirror in your back pocket, and checking out your primary control every time you don’t feel like doing what you want to do. That’s ridiculous. But the lesson from Alexander’s story remains – how can you find an objective, irrefutable source of mirroring of your behaviour?

That would be you.

These days, my blog receives on average 300 views. As these things go, it is not much, but when I imagine that this probably equals more than 100 people – that’s still a lot of people! And I know you are checking it out each day. You are my mirror that tells me irrefutably if I am doing what I said I would do. You are my will power, you are my structure for fulfilment. I can’t thank you enough for the support I get from your comments, your feedback, your discussions and posts on my facebook page – this is what energizes me, this is what keeps me going.

Who needs will power when I have all of you?

So how could you build something like that now? What structure could you create that would call you to your “want” when you least feel like it? How can you change your “system” to get things done, so that you really get things done?

Please share on facebook your ideas about this – that helps other people, not just you. Which is another example of what I am writing about. Those of you feeling stuck – read this post again and again until an idea of what to do emerges for you.

A final example of what I mean: if you want to practise cooking, invite some people over for dinner. This idea is so simple, it is shocking.

TOMORROW: Your Team of One (I know, this was supposed to be today)

Comments will get more feedback if you post them directly on my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/AlexanderTechniqueCareerSuccess