You’re Not Lazy

That’s the strange part.

The answer isn’t hidden from you. You could say it out loud right now, and you’d say it correctly.

You’ve probably said it out loud to someone else recently, with some feeling behind it.

And you still haven’t done it.

So you reach for the explanations.

I’m lazy. I lack discipline. I’m afraid of failing. I’m afraid of succeeding, which is a popular one. I self-sabotage. I need better systems.

I don’t believe any of them.

What’s actually being asked of you

To move toward the thing you say you want, someone has to die.

Not you, exactly. The version of you that has been running the show.

The one with the explanation for why it hasn’t happened yet. The one with the reasons. Good reasons, true reasons, reasons other people nod along to.

That person has a whole life.

He has stories he tells at dinner. He has a way of shrugging when someone asks how the thing is going. He has friendships built on the shared understanding that this is simply how it is.

He has an identity assembled carefully, over years, on the foundation that the wall is a wall.

And you’re being asked to bury him.

Nobody volunteers to grieve in advance

That’s the whole thing. That’s why the plan sits there.

You’re not avoiding work. Work is easy, and you do enormous amounts of it.

You’re avoiding a funeral for someone you’ve known your entire life, who has protected you, who has been right about a great many things.

Nobody schedules that for a Tuesday.

The rules that die with him

When I look at what people are actually protecting, it’s almost never the circumstance.

It’s a set of rules underneath it. Things like:

• It’s up to me.

• Nobody’s coming.

• If it were possible, I’d have done it by now.

• I’m the realistic one.

• This is just who I am.

• I’ll do it when things settle down.

Those aren’t obstacles in your way.

They’re load-bearing. Pull one out and something above it comes down.

I’ve done this myself

Years ago I paid Rich Litvin $120,000 to coach me for a year.

About a month in, I told him the truth. I had never once intended to be coached.

I was there to watch him. To learn what he was doing so I could do it myself, and never have to need anyone.

That was the play I’d run my whole life. Business failing, marriage ending, bankruptcy circling, and I still didn’t want help.

I didn’t believe help was possible.

Notice what that was, and what it wasn’t.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t see a better way. I could see it fine. I had paid six figures to sit next to it.

What I couldn’t do was let the man die who had gotten me that far alone.

Why more clarity makes it worse

This took me a long time to understand, and it changed how I work.

When someone I care about is stuck, my instinct is to show them the possibility more vividly. Make it brighter. Make it undeniable.

Get them to see it.

It backfires more often than it works.

The sharper the picture gets, the more real the funeral becomes.

You’re not standing in front of a beautiful future. You’re standing in front of everything you would have to set down to walk toward it.

The clearer I make it, the more still you get.

If someone has ever painted a gorgeous vision for you, and you felt yourself go quiet and heavy instead of inspired, that’s what happened.

Nothing is wrong with you.

What actually helps

Not a better picture. A survivable crossing.

Three questions do more than any amount of vision.

What do I get to keep? Not everything goes. Most of it doesn’t.

Name what comes with you and the funeral gets a great deal smaller.

Who am I while this is happening? There’s a middle where you are not the old person and not yet the new one.

Most people abandon the whole thing in that stretch, because nobody warned them it existed, and it occurs as failure.

It isn’t failure. It’s the crossing.

What does the first week actually look like? Not the plan. The week.

Tuesday morning, specifically, what happens.

I’m not going to talk you into it

I have stopped trying. Partly because it doesn’t work, and partly because I think it’s disrespectful.

You’re not failing some test I’ve set.

You’re pricing a trade that costs you something real, and I’m not the one paying.

Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes it’s not yet. I don’t judge it, and I don’t make anyone wrong for it.

I would ask you to be honest about which one it is.

There’s a difference between “I don’t want this” and “I want this, and I can’t face what it costs.”

The first one is clean. You can put it down and go live your life.

The second one has been sitting in your chest for a while now, and it doesn’t get lighter.

Ok, now it’s your turn.

Before you do anything about the thing you’ve been avoiding, sit with these. Paper, not your head.

• If I actually did this, who would I have to stop being? Finish the sentence as many times as it takes: I would have to stop being the person who ______.

• Which of my rules is load-bearing? Which one, if it came out, would bring something down with it?

• Is this a no, or is it a not-yet I haven’t been willing to name?

• What do I get to keep?

Don’t fix the list. Don’t plan around it.

Just look at who it is you would be burying, and let it be a real loss, because it is one.

Most people won’t do this, and that’s okay. Everyone is on their own adventure, doing the best they can with what they can see.

But if you do it, you will know something about yourself by Thursday that you have been circling for years.

I’d love to hear what comes up.

And when you’re ready, you’re ready.

Loving you,

Townsend