Do You Have Good Intentions But No Follow Through?

I keep a running list of good intentions on my to-do list, those hopeful “someday soon” goals. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could wave a magic wand and poof, they’d all come true? But life doesn’t quite work that way. Our best intentions, to lose weight, watch less TV, exercise more, go back to school, or spend extra time with our kids, often start strong and then quietly drift to the sidelines. They never really disappear; they wait patiently for us to bring them back to life.

It’s not that we aren’t sincere about our intentions; instead, we don’t follow through.   I don’t know about you, but I carry in my head excess baggage of good choices and negative feelings about myself when I don’t follow through on what I said I wanted to do.  I share this issue with many people around me, and it doesn’t make me feel better about myself.

There is always a life lesson when you never expect it. There is one item on my list that I’ve been trying to reduce or eliminate from my daily habits – watching TV or too much TV. I do daily writing, and if I were to review my writing over the last five years, I bet I would find numerous notes on how I want to stop watching TV, and somehow, I’m unable to do it.  I just assumed I was a procrastinator, lazy, unfocused, and didn’t have the big picture or the big words, NO WILLPOWER.

I’m fortunate to have acquired a library of self-help books that sometimes speak to me when I look at my bookshelves.   Last weekend, I wrote again about watching too much TV.   I was disgusted with myself.  All the good intentions, and I still drifted to TV land while eating dinner.  I don’t watch TV during the day…have absolutely no interest.  At night, after a long day, I’m tired and want to sit back, relax, watch TV, and eat my dinner.  I tell myself I will sit here for an hour because I have things I want to do. Well, you probably guessed by now: an hour drifted into two, and sometimes 3.  I didn’t even like what I watched as I was hypnotized.

I believe there are no coincidences, and when I’m open, I will receive the guidance I need to help me move forward.  I never give up on my intentions; I struggle too much to move them in the right direction.

A few years back, I read the book “Following Through:  A Revolutionary New Model for Finishing Whatever You Start.” By Steve Levinson, Ph.D., and Pete C. Greider, MEd.   Since I take an hour-long bus ride each way to work three days a week, there is plenty of time to read.   This book jumped out at me on Tuesday morning, and I quickly picked it up to read on the bus.  Whatever I didn’t get the first time, I eagerly consumed this reading. What did I gather from these two authors?

• We believe in the follow-through fairytale…we assume that good intentions will have everything included, and like my magic wand, the results will follow.  The other fairytale is “It Must Be Me.” I’m missing the willpower to do what I intend to do.
• “…the design of the mind might be responsible for follow-through failures” (page 37).  Our mind helps us figure out what to do, but the second part, the action, will not automatically align with our intentions.
• Our internal guidance systems are not all instinctual…rather, we have two brains – primitive and intellectual.   We have evolved into intelligent beings, but our primitive brain still functions in survival mode, and these two parts work against each other. Who wins when we have good intentions?  Logically, we know what to do, but our primitive system needs more than logic to act.
• The Primitive Guidance System is primarily in the present and will respond to the activity in the present.  So, if you want comfort, it will react to that.
• We have too much wiggle room and don’t connect how following through impacts our lives.  If we overeat now, we don’t immediately gain 10 lbs.  If we did, we would immediately see the cause and effect and adjust our behaviors accordingly.

The authors provide a rich understanding of our inner struggle between our Intelligence-Based Guidance System and our Primitive Guidance System (PGS). They offer several strategies that propel the Primitive Guidance System to get behind the Intelligence-Based Guidance System (our intentions).  It may sound complicated, but it’s not.

The book is easy yet powerful in what it offers the reader.  You understand why humans don’t follow through and then how to use this information to start following through on our intentions.

I used one of their strategies: “Right Before Wrong.”  I could watch TV if I wanted, but first I must eat at the dining room table. After that, I could do whatever I wanted with TV watching.   I had to do what was right, eat dinner at the table, and then I had permission to watch as much TV as I wanted. I just started this, and for the last three nights I ate at the table and watched limited TV.  Since I had more time on my hands in the evening, I did other activities on my list, like calling people I had intended to call for a while.

The book made sense to me. I let go of the willpower issue, or there is something wrong with me syndrome, and allowed myself to be open to another way to create what was more important in my life.

What about you?  Are you ready to bring your good intentions into reality?   Read the book “Following Through:  A Revolutionary New Model for Finishing Whatever You Start.” By Steve Levinson, Ph.D., and Pete C. Greider, MEd.

Your Thoughts

What about your good intentions – do you follow through, or do you, too, suffer in some areas of your life that drain your energy and only make you feel bad about yourself?    If you read the book, share what you gained from the read.

Women’s Group Topics

A lively topic — how often do I not follow through on my good intentions?  Help each other define the “right before wrong” for everyone. Read the book and discuss it to see what surfaces for each of you.

Be well,

Pat

“To fully enjoy the ‘richness’ of our lives, we need to stop long enough to visit with ourselves.”
(Pat Brill)

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