Environmental blockers

Turning Blockers into Boosters, Day 2: The textbook I recommend for readers joining me on this year-long quest to turn blockers into strengths defines blockers as “self-defeating habit patterns,” which generally were formed early in life but are not successful or appropriate for coping with adult challenges. Call these internal blockers.

However, there are external blockers, too. Environmental blockers include clutter, disorder, passageways that are blocked or narrowed and things that are broken. I’ve begun my blocker-transforming project by addressing environmental blockers. I started about a week ago with weatherproofing the house, which was drafty and cold. It was uncomfortable and the prospect of high heating bills was terrifying. Now the house is much warmer, so it’s more comfortable and I’m feeling less worried and more confident. I hope to finish tomorrow. Then I will tackle decluttering my work area, which will make it much easier to write, track our finances (my father’s and mine) and do the personal transformation exercises and goal-setting techniques in the textbook linked above.

To be able to go into more detail and write more satisfying posts, I’ll have to start writing much earlier in the day. Staying up past 10 pm makes me less happy and efficient the next day, so the habit of doing that is a blocker. So I have to go to bed now instead of writing more and trust that I’ll do better soon.