Your personal life can be a primary source of procrastination if you let it.

When you’re self-employed or trying to be, you have a lot of leeway to magnify personal problems and turn them into self-made obstacles.  And that’s the way a lot of people choose to go because it’s easier to indulge in distractions than it is to build and manage a business.

I’m going to give you three examples, spread over a three-part series. We’re going to start with…

Entertaining Drama

“Creating soap operas in our lives is a symptom of resistance.”

~Steven Pressfield, the War of Art

Toxic relationships. Sibling rivalry. Frenemies. Online beef. Local beef. That’s all distraction. It consumes your time, focus and energy but it’s unproductive.

When problems involve people we tell ourselves that we can justify giving them precedence over progress, which many will argue is just the pursuit of money. Or at least, we tell ourselves that if we’re at a certain level.

Successful people don’t press pause on their paper to debate and argue over personal problems or to tend to their love lives. They go get paid and handle their personal problems afterward.

Successful people understand three things.

1) Repairing relationships is rarely an emergency.

2) Any relationship that’s in the way isn’t worth having.

3) And, for best results, it’s best to limit your circle to people who agree with #1 and #2.

It’s the people faced with the climb who allow themselves to get entangled in personal problems that hold them back.  It’s the people who say they want to get ahead but don’t want to work to make a difference that are drowning in drama.

And that’s their story because that’s what they’re choosing.

Whether it’s someone you love or despise, if you’re entertaining their feelings and foolishness when you should be working, you’re turning drama into an obstacle. You’re taking something with no value, no meaning and making it a priority.

That’s a sign you aren’t committed to your work, which is a sign you’re not trying to make moves. And that’s a situation that’s keeps a lot of people stuck where they are.

“The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work.”

~Steven Pressfield, the War of Art

P.S.   Sign up for Direct Connect at the top right-hand side of the page so you’ll know as soon as Part 2 and Part 3 are released.