Obstacle Thoughts

The reasons your brain says you cannot reach your goal can become your map for getting there.

No one shoots down your dreams more than your own brain.

You decide what you want, and almost immediately your mind offers a list of reasons it will not work. You do not know how. You do not have enough time. You are not confident enough. It is too hard.

That can feel like your dream is being taken away before you have even begun. But I want you to see those thoughts differently.

Your brain has just given you an assignment. It has shown you the obstacles between where you are and where you want to be. When you turn those obstacles into strategies, you have a map.

What is an obstacle thought?

An obstacle thought is any thought that produces a result in contrast to what you want.

This matters because obstacle thoughts often sound like innocent observations. If you want to build a website, thinking you do not know how to build one may seem like simply reporting the truth.

But what does continuing to think that produce?

Run it through the Self-Coaching Model. Your thought creates a feeling. That feeling drives what you do or do not do. Your actions create your result.

If believing you do not know how keeps you from building a website, learning to build one, or moving toward getting one, the result is no website.

You want a website. You are practicing a thought that produces the opposite. That makes it an obstacle thought.

Listen to your brain without believing every thought

When you set a goal, your brain will tell you why it has not happened yet and why it may be impossible. It is trying to protect you. It is well-intended, and it needs management.

I want you to listen and pay attention. I do not want you to automatically believe everything it says.

If your goal is to make $100,000 as a life coach, your mind may offer concerns about getting clients, selling your services, building a website, or processing payments.

Write all of them down. Include the hard ones, the easy ones, and the ones you think you cannot solve.

Pretending there are no obstacles does not help you achieve a goal. It can keep you in a fantasy where you avoid anything that looks like work or a challenge.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying a fantasy. But achieving a dream means setting a measurable goal with a timeline and doing the work between here and there.

See how the thought creates its own evidence

Obstacle thoughts strengthen themselves through the results you create.

You believe you cannot figure out the technology. You do not learn it. You do not build the website. Then you point to the absence of a website as proof that the technology was too hard.

You say you were right. But you are looking at evidence you helped create by continuing to believe the thought.

The more you think it, feel it, and act from it, the more believable it becomes. This can happen without your awareness, especially when the thought is habitual.

Obstacle thoughts also narrow what you notice. If you believe people are rude, you find evidence of rudeness. If you believe people are kind, you find evidence of kindness.

The same thing happens with your goals. If you believe you cannot find clients, your mind looks for evidence that clients are unavailable.

Imagine your obstacle thought doing a Google search for you. It keeps returning reasons you cannot do what you want to do. Unless you direct your thinking intentionally, that is the search you keep running.

Put your thoughts on paper

Understanding this concept is different from doing the work.

Many people try to manage all their obstacle thoughts in their heads. But your head is where the problem is. Put the thoughts on paper so you can look at them as something separate from you.

Fill as many pages as you can. Write down everything your brain offers about your goal. Some thoughts will seem so familiar that you will not notice them at first. Keep looking.

Once they are on paper, you can see that they are optional. You can use the Model to understand the result each one is producing.

Then turn each obstacle into a strategy. Instead of continuing to think you do not know how to build a website, practice thinking that you are learning how to build one.

Turn the obstacle into a plan, into conscious thinking, and into the actions that move you toward the result.

This is work you revisit. You identify the thinking producing your current result, choose new thinking, and practice believing it.

Start where you actually are

When I train coaches, many want to know how to make their clients feel better right away. I understand that motivation. But rushing to feel better can cause you to skip the work of understanding your current thinking.

You cannot put happy thoughts on top of negative thoughts and expect a different result.

Think of a GPS. Knowing your destination is not enough. You also have to locate your starting point.

Where are you? Where do you want to go? What is between those two places?

You plan for the terrain, the turns, the weather, the time, and the fuel. You do not have to treat those things as reasons you cannot make the trip.

You ask what you need to do to overcome them and what you need to think and believe instead.

The space between here and there is the good stuff

I see students struggle with the distance between their current business and the business they want. But that space is where the learning happens.

The point is not only to get the money. It is to become the person who can overcome her own mind and create the result.

I think of a photo shoot I had with my photographer. We were there to create pictures, but the experience itself was magical. There was connection, fun, and an opportunity to see my thoughts about myself.

The pictures were the result. The experience of creating them was its own reward.

Your goal can work that way too. Set a specific, measurable goal with an end date. Write down every reason your brain says you cannot achieve it.

Then treat that list as your assignment. You get to overcome your own restrictions and evolve into the next version of yourself.

The result is sweet. Learning to create it can be even better.