What is your skunk?

You know I’m a country girl and in order to get to my office I have to walk through a little outside passageway to get there, out my back door and across a little path and into my office. It’s a great commute. Unless, my path is blocked.

The other day, I literally had a skunk outside the back door.

So… I couldn’t get outside of my house to get to my office.

I had a very real obstacle between where I was and where I wanted to be and it was a really smelly, threatening kind of obstacle. (You’ve had those, right?)

Now, the fact is, I wasn’t in danger, it wouldn’t have hurt me probably, and it was likely  as scared as I was, but I didn’t want to get all stinky and smelly and yick in the process.

So, I let that come between me and what I needed to do. I waited awhile, I actually went to the other end of the house and turned some lights on and made some noise out the side door trying to distract the skunk so the skunk would go away. And eventually, it did.

We all have those “skunks,” — we have something between where we are and where we want to be, or where we need to be.

We are allowing what my friend Zig Ziglar calls “stinkin thinkin.” We are allowing  something from our past, some fear of responsibility, fear of success, fear of failure, fear of (fill-in-the-blank-here).

I can’t explain what your block is, what your skunk is, I only know what mine have been in the past. Let me give you some examples.

In dealing with weight loss sometimes we sabotage that because maybe we don’t like attention. So, the first time somebody compliments us or gives us unwanted attention, or we feel threatened in any way, or maybe the first time our spouse gets jealous, or somebody makes a snide remark, “You just think you’re cute,” or, “Don’t get too skinny,” the first time that happens we start to sabotage our weight loss. The fear of success skunk?

Maybe our families have always been in a certain income zone, so we sabotage ourselves unconsciously before exceeding that income, or sometimes we exceed it and then we sabotage ourselves right back down because our family has always struggled or always just had enough, or we have some negative programming about wealth. The fear of criticism skunk?

If I achieve more, I’ll have to do more. The fear of accountability/responsibility skunk?

But who am I to do more, be more, have more, charge more? The imposter skunk?

I don’t know what’s blocking you, I don’t know what your skunk is, but I know that until you see it, until you recognize that it’s there and until you think of a way to draw it out of your path it’s always going to block you from where you want to be.

So, I challenge you to take five minutes today to identify your skunk. I know this is revolutionary & highly technical teaching, right? Identify your skunk and then think of how you can draw it out of your path so you can go around it or go over it or go another route to where you want to be.

Let’s talk!