Are you a victim of trying to change too many things at once and end up not changing anything at all?
If you are then you’re not alone and today I’m going to give you some help.
I hope you’re up to a metaphor for today’s email. It’ll be fun.
Let’s assume you have a number of significant things you want to change about your life. It could be around career/job, relationships, finances, fitness, stress, weight loss, quit smoking, etc. Allocate each one to the arm of an octopus in order of importance and think about “putting your octopus to bed.”
How would you go about doing this?
No, I’ve never put an Octopus to bed either but I think in my imagination it would go something like this…
1. The First Tentacle:
The first tentacle is the hardest. Think about it… the first tentacle of the Octopus you put under the sheets will be the hardest to keep there. The Octopus would be comfortable with letting it hang out and dangle over the bed. It will feel weird after all these years of having its tentacle waving freely in the ocean depths and now confining a tentacle to stay in one position. So it will fight you to keep it tucked in. It’ll drop out many times… you’ll put it back in… it will come out… and you put it back in again. This sequence will repeat until the Octopus finally gets what you want it to do and eventually the tentacle will stay in.
Let it rest and sleep for the night before going on to the next tentacle.
This first tentacle then has to be the tentacle that relates to your most important change you want in your life. It will be the hardest to change so you can expect an internal “fight.”
Hopefully you’re getting the metaphor between the Octopus tentacles and the changes you want to see in your life.
2. The Second Tentacle:
If you spent enough time getting the first tentacle under the sheet, then it’ll stay when you put the second tentacle inside the covers. If the first one slips out, then no need to panic as it just means you still have more training work to do on the first tentacle. Go back to focusing on the first tentacle again.
Once you feel confident the first tentacle will stay put move on to the second tentacle. Even though it’s the second tentacle expect a fight for it to stay under the sheets along with the first. After all these are your two most significant changes and they’ll “not go to bed” without a fight!
3. The Third and Subsequent Tentacles:
I don’t know how many tentacles (changes you want to make) your Octopus will have – unlikely it’ll be eight. But the remaining tentacles should be easier to put to bed. You’ve trained your Octopus on what to expect and it’ll conform.
If one of the earlier tentacles slips out when working on others, then just go back to it and give it all your attention until its back under your control again.
If necessary implement a system of rewards for yourself after each successful control of a tentacle. This is reinforcement of the behavior you want and can be just token and not expensive or significant, a cup of coffee or a trip to a movie is good enough.
4. What Do I Do If My First Tentacle Keeps Slipping Out?
Consider there is something going on here impeding progress. Maybe the change you chose as your first tentacle is not the one to tackle first? If you chose Quit Smoking as your first major change but when you go onto other changes you keep “falling off the wagon” and start smoking again then there’s most likely a more compelling core change for you to make first rather than to Stop Smoking.
Quitting may have to wait until you get a different tentacle under control.
5. Wrapping It All Up:
My use of the term “putting your Octopus to bed” is merely a convenient metaphor to get you to think about making changes and how important it is to focus your energies on succeeding by mastering one change at a time.
While I have no doubt you can “chew gum and walk at the same time” we’re not talking about multi-tasking when it comes to significant life changes but something requiring deeper commitment to change.
Some changes will be more difficult than others and take longer and this may frustrate you so if you experience barriers or want to speed up the process then consider hypnosis either through some sessions with a hypnotherapist or learning self-hypnosis techniques.
Contact me here if you need help >>>
Erika Slater CH
Director
Free At Last Hypnosis
