What Are You Attracting?

This is question number 7 in Rachel Hollis' book "What If YOU Are the Answer?"

In this chapter, Rachel discusses the law of attraction, and emphasizes an important point - we don't attract what we want - we attract what we are. The things that we bring into our lives are a result of our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and actions. For example, we can say that we want money, but if we worry about money, have a negative attitude towards it, have a scarcity mindset, and act in ways that won't bring more money - we will not attract more money. We'll attract many other things that we don't want. We can't just want something and then magically get it, unfortunately.

We are attracting things into our lives at all times, whether intentionally or not. So, what am I attracting?

I am attracting good things, like love and laughter. But the purpose of my personal development journey is to work through the tough stuff so that I can become better. Therefore, I'm going to work through the negative things that I am unintentionally attracting.

I sat for a while trying to put my finger on exactly what I am attracting that I do NOT want to be attracting. I asked myself another question - how do I feel about my life in general? Or rather, worded a little differently - how does my life feel to me? Not in regards to family or friends, but in regards to how I am living my life.

I was finally able to put it into words. It feels like I have a lot of things "loading", or "pending".

I know that we are always on a constant journey towards something, and it is great to be working on a goal. We don't want to just be stagnant. However, I feel like I'm constantly coming up with something new that I can work on, with each new thing becoming an open loop. I have so many open loops! This makes my life feel scattered, fragmented, stalled...like a perpetual limbo. I get really excited when I think of new ideas, but I have difficulty prioritizing them since there are so many. This causes me to feel stuck and exhausted from all the open tabs I have in my mind.

Now that I was able to determine how my life feels to me and why, I was able to go deeper into what specifically I am attracting because of all my "open tabs" or "open loops":

1) Mental clutter - all of the unfinished tasks and ideas occupy my thoughts, which play constantly in my mind. Whether in the background or in the forefront, they are there taking up space.

2) Decision fatigue - it's very hard to make a decision when there are so many pending projects and options - this is exhausting.

3) Decreased confidence - confidence comes from completing something (often something difficult) that you set out to do. How am I supposed to grow my confidence if I repeatedly start things but have no evidence that I can actually finish something?

4) Missed opportunities - I am most likely missing out on opportunities and rewards that come from completing one or some of my ideas.

5) More open loops - Continuously creating new ideas and starting new projects has become a habit. It also provides a little dopamine hit when I think of something new to try, which continues to feed the habit.

Having ideas, goals, and dreams is not a bad thing - it's actually a really good thing! However, I need to work on actually converting some of these ideas into finished work. When I say this, my all-or-nothing mindset automatically feels the need to convince me to complete all of my ideas at once, which would then cause me to feel stressed and panic, which would then lead me to not doing anything at all. But I've learned, I'm wiser now, and I know that I only need to start by completing one of my ideas, then build from there. Creative individuals have endless ideas, and it is way too much pressure to feel like we need to bring them all into reality, especially all at once.

I looked into this a little more, and the internet told me that this feeling of having so many open loops is very common in creative, entrepreneurial, highly curious people. We come up with so many ideas, but get overwhelmed with where to start. Or we do start them, but don't finish them. It was a little comforting for me to know that this is something a lot of others face.

Potential is great. Many of us have a ton of potential. But potential is not tangible. It is something that is not yet completed. It's possibility. Starting something, coming up with a new idea - it's exciting. It's inspiring. But then that initial excitement wears off and it gets boring. This is where I struggle. In the middle, where it's repetitive, uncertain, and not as fun. When something is an idea that we came up with, it hasn't been tainted by criticism, boringness, obstacles, or failure. It can always remain an exciting idea that gives us a nice dopamine hit. But if we actually want to feel fulfilled by the idea, we have to see it through. We have to get through the mundane, messy middle. I have to let myself actually do this.

A great example of this for me? These blog posts and video posts of me responding to Rachel Hollis' questions in her book! It was really exciting when I came up with the idea to respond to her 26 questions in this blog and in my video posts. But the excitement wears off after the first couple of times. It could be so easy for me to just say "Eh, I'll stop here. Who would care anyway if I didn't finish?" These questions in her book are hard. They're deep. They require a lot of self-reflection and work. It takes time and effort to go through this process. Is my hard work even working? I think so. I'm finding out a lot about myself, but progress is slow. Am I even helping others with this project? I hope so. It may not be impacting thousands of people, but I'd like to think I'm helping even just a few. But you know what definitely would not help me or others? If I just stop. If I quit in the middle and don't finish. If I do that, then I definitely will not be helping anyone. It's time for me to see things through and start closing some loops. It's slow, but good things take time.

What negative things are YOU attracting in YOUR life?