Have you found yourself ‘moaning’ about stuff getting in your way? Are you feeling thwarted from achieving everything you want in your life? Well, we may not be the popular kids in the club for saying this, but we say it with love, maybe you are ambivalent about actually going after what you want. Maybe you have come up against one of the most potent barriers to feeling fully engaged in your life. You think you want something, you tell yourself, and maybe even others, that you want something but when it comes right down to it…
Ambivalence can make you the
poster child of wishy-washy!
Ambivalence can stop you in your tracks because you are caught between conflicting feelings and choices. Consciously you may be able to state quite clearly what your goals or wants are, but unconsciously ambivalence, with all its mixed feelings, is a hidden barrier to achieving all you want.
Oh, ambivalence may appear innocent and innocuous but (big but) ambivalence is a BIG barrier to balance, fulfillment, and bliss. Not only that, ambivalence makes a frequent appearance on that path to burnout!
In its own quiet way ambivalence creates this kind of ho-hum, push-pull energy; I want something, but do I really want it? Do I really have the energy to pursue it? Ambivalence leaves you frustrated, blocked, and stalled. But, hey you are ambivalent so you tell yourself that ‘it doesn’t really matter’. Well, my dear, it does!
Ambivalence clouds your clarity, drains your energy, and
wastes your time!
When you are ambivalent you may actually reject the very lifestyle, job, career, relationship, or life change that you consciously think you want. We know that redesigning a lifestyle involves many choices and changes, both big and small. We also know that wanting life-change can often be accompanied with intense feelings of guilt, fear, selfishness, anxiety, self-doubt, and (no kidding with all these feelings going on) exhaustion. When you are shoulder-shrugging about what you want, already difficult choices get that much harder to make.
Ambivalence unconsciously sabotages you
getting what you want.
So what does ambivalence sound like and feel like? Well, one minute you believe in yourself and what you want and the next moment you don’t. One day you wake up full of energy about changing, the next day you feel like hiding from it. Today you feel so sure of your direction but tomorrow you feel lost. With one thought you push yourself forward and tell yourself “it is going to be great” but the next thought brings self-doubt and the “how could I be so stupid?” message. It is head spinning!
Ambivalence tempts you to give up, feel the failure, and
sound the retreat.
Think about something you really want in your life that requires a big decision or big change. Come up with 5 reasons you tell yourself you should ‘go for it’. Think about how life will change, be better, more inspired, healthier, whatever it is you are after. Got it?
Now, go on and get all argumentative! Argue yourself out of every one of your reasons that you came up with for changing your life. (If you are a true Burnout Queen you have probably had practice at talking yourself out of things.) Finally, review your reasons for and against. What is dizzying about it is that quite often both sides make sense. Well, this is the voice of ambivalence and it keeps you tap-dancing about your personal power, your success, your achievements, and your happiness.
Identifying your ambivalence is like coming out of the fog.
You suddenly know what you want and why you want it. Sure you still have to make the changes, feel the jitters, goof-up a few times, but now you can get up, brush yourself off, and know exactly where you are heading. Feels good!
Over the next few articles we are going to look at a few other hidden barriers that may be getting in your way to achieving your full potential…and avoiding burnout.
Shake off these hidden barriers and the stars are your limit…or not!
Love, The Burnout Queens xx