 So this is a question about procrastination feeling paralyzed not able to move forward in work or Any goal that a person may have but this one here starts off and it says I feel completely paralyzed around my work Most of this is down to pressure. I feel from other people I'm clear about my goal, and I know it will take a lot of work to achieve it However, the thoughts of failure fill me with a sense of terror. I See the disappointed looks from my family and my friends and my partner. I Assume and that's imagined They're all expecting me to succeed, but in my mind at least this is far from guaranteed Well, what if I fail? What if all my effort leads me nowhere? I know this might sound a bit dramatic, but I feel I'd be a disgrace in other people's eyes I'm not sure how to get past this. I know I'm seeing this wrong and being negative, but I feel helpless in terms of Shaking off this feeling of being paralyzed. Well, I'm so glad you're acknowledging it there's no such thing as negative or positive really what there is is hidden and Look that and you're doing it. You're looking at it. So good for you Any insights or advice will be helpful and might help me Might help some of your viewers. That's from Ben So hopefully it will then and thanks so much for your question. I hope I hope this is is helpful so I can totally relate to this because We do our sense of identity Gets completely wrapped up in what it is. We're doing. I am my behavior. I am my Accomplishments. I am my success. I am my productivity, etc. etc I am successful. I am a failure. You know, these concepts of success and failure are really Well, they're there to be picked up and we do we're conditioned to pick up those things. So What if We start to reinterpret what success means Success really means full engagement. Okay, it's not necessarily what happens What if I can absolutely work do the inner work to get to the point where I'm able to engage with the thing And then whatever happens after that I can say I was completely 100% successful in that because I engaged with it I did Whatever I was able to do towards the fulfillment of that thing you get to the point where there's nothing to avoid Okay, there's nothing to run away from necessarily Because there's nothing to achieve either because I'm not going to identify my sense of success with that or my sense of self With this being successful in that thing But I want to give you some advice in this because I know exactly what you mean when you feel that pressure from other people externally and really You're right. Your senses look. I'm seeing this somewhat off and I bet you probably know that because of your inner feelings about it because That's true when you have a feeling Something that you're thinking makes you feel negative emotions That's your first clue that you're not seeing things the way they are, but you're acknowledging this But what I wanted to say was I've had experiences in the past where I've had big failures big failures, and I've also had some successes as well and What did I learn from those things? Well, the first one was a big failure. I had it was it was an academic failure I had many years ago like big screw up and Really what I learned from that is the people that I shared that failure with They were disappointed I'm not going to say that they weren't they didn't care, but Their reaction to it was much less intense than I had imagined it was going to be I don't know if this helpful to you Ben, but I'm just Explaining what it was like it took them like a matter of like maybe an hour To get over the disappointment and then they really genuinely didn't care about it after they had expressed the disappointment Okay, so it wasn't like this Relationship ending thing that happened I built that up on my head and it was affecting me emotionally for months before this so I was exactly in your situation so Tend to really build these things up and blow them out of all proportion. The other thing is I Had this feeling a number of years ago when I was engaging in this project That I needed it to be successful and if it wasn't successful It was going to be the end of the world and people will be disappointed etc etc Now in that case in that instance, it actually did go well, okay, and I was successful in it But what did I learn from that one? well, I Started to have conversations with people about it and I really began to realize that They had no real understanding of what I had accomplished anyway so it was like They don't even get what I did. They were so disinterested in it You know, they cared about it, but not nearly as much as I cared about it. So The point was I was kind of building up this thing in my head about what they all think it's super important and when I asked them about it later on it was like they have a very surface level understanding of what it is I was doing anyway and Nor should they have had any other Interpretation or a perception of what I was doing. Why would they that was all me That that built it up in my head. So One of the things it's hard to accept this But nobody really cares about what it is you're doing. I Had to accept this and it's very liberating. It can be shocking to realize this. Nobody really Cares as much as we do sure they care but not nearly as much as we do we build it up to this thing about well If I'm a failure in this thing, then I'll be rejected rather than it's a thing that I failed in People are allowed to be disappointed about that, but it doesn't mean any more than that, you know It's not it's again what I'm trying to explain here is not to wrap your sense of identity around the things that you're doing Okay, because they will be successful. They will be there will be failures. They're inevitable So why would you attach yourself to any of those things? All you're doing is attaching yourself to something that you're going to feel net guilty about and not good enough about Later on if it goes badly and also you're inflating a false sense of self If you're buying it to this thing that will I'm this huge success now because that's going to cut you off from being creative Anyway, and you're probably going to get trapped in that thing that you're you're now identified with So I know exactly what you're feeling right now. I Would say to you just to sit with those those beliefs about this is important or I'll be rejected Etc. Etc. And write it right those down a little bit and just spend some time Questioning those beliefs because from my experience, they're not true They're not true when you can save yourself a lot of emotional turmoil And feelings of insecurity if you start to question those beliefs now because it will it will influence your communication with those people How you feel emotionally right now? So let me know how that goes for you Ben and thanks for the question Anyone else has a question visit my website and if I have Any insight I have for your question. I will respond to everybody's emails, of course But if you would like a video response I can I can make that too Take care of yourselves and talk again soon