Is your problem technical or emotional?

You know when you discover a new tool and you think to yourself:

“This is the one! This tool is finally going to solve all my problems!”

Two weeks later, you’ve spent more time configuring and customising this tool than you have on actually doing the thing.

Four weeks later, you realise your problems haven’t gone away and this tool is, in fact, NOT the one.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has fallen into this trap more times than they’d like to admit. But, the more times I’ve fallen into this trap, the more times I’ve had to realise that the new tool isn’t always the answer.

Search → Discover → Elate → Deflate

I was just about to write ‘lately’ to start this sentence, but the truth is I’ve been searching for one specific tool for years.

As an online business owner with an ADHD brain, marketing has been particularly challenging for me.

Shouting into the void… motivation killer.
Feeling like you’re saying what’s been said a million times already… passion killer.
Wondering if anyone even cares about what you have to say… joy killer.

If I could just find that one tool… all my problems would go away. I’d be motived. I’d have passion. I’d feel joy.

But, the more times I move through this search → discover → elate → deflate cycle, the more I realise that the tool is actually within.

What’s actually in your way?

The truth is, finding a new tool is much more fun than excavating our inner feelings. We get to be curious, we get to play and we get to learn something new.

Who wouldn’t choose to do that instead of doing the hard work of asking:

“But what’s actually getting in my way here?”

My current exploration has taken me through so many tools and systems and yet, here I am, still struggling with marketing.

Recently, though, I had a bit of a lightbulb moment.

Through journalling (which coincidentally happens to be a very good tool), I realised that for me personally it’s not that I have fears of being seen. It’s that I have fears of not being seen. In other words, it feels deeply upsetting to me to put my heartfelt work out into the world and have no one notice it.

It’s more than just feeling like I’ve wasted my time. It’s a feeling of not mattering.

It’s akin to a child showing their parent their art and that parent putting it straight in the bin instead of on the fridge.

Ughhh. Yup. You understand.

This is why no amount of tools will solve this problem.

This problem requires doing the inner work.

As a side note: I will say that if you have the means to work with a good therapist, I highly recommend it. This work isn’t always something you can do on your own. Sure you can journal about things and have insights as to what the root causes might be, but therapists are trained in helping you to meet those parts of you and find ways to give them what they need so that they no longer need to unconsciously influence your behaviour and choices.

Is your problem technical or emotional?

Now that I’ve identified that the problem I’m trying to solve is in fact emotional and not technical — what am I doing about it?

Well, truthfully, I’m still trying to solve it technically (old habits die hard…).

But I’m also doing the inner work. I’m continuing to remember the lightbulb moment that I had and connecting to the subconscious influences at play. When I notice myself hesitant to share things, I’m internally dialoging with myself to lovingly encourage myself that 1. even if no one sees what I’m sharing, it doesn’t mean that I don’t matter and 2. it’s important to me that I express myself and my creativity.

It’s important to emphasise that the inner work takes a lot longer than finding a shiny new tool. And in a ‘quick fix’ society it is all too easy to continue seeking the new tools.

But in my experience, if you don’t do the inner work, you’ll forever be looking for new tools. And forever wondering why you’re not finding a solution.

All of this to say:

Sometimes you need a new tool. But most of the time you need to do the inner work first.