James Lim reflects on compulsively signing up for online courses without finishing them. He identifies the internal blocks holding him back and shares two strategies that worked: breaking tasks into tiny, non-overwhelming steps and getting external accountability to stay on track.
Chapters
Online courses. I was addicted. I kept signing up for more and more. They were exciting. They gave me hope for change. The problem? I wasn't making any real progress. My life was passing me by and nothing was working. At first I'd be in denial. Then I'd be frustrated. Then I'd blame the courses. It didn't work. Scam. How dare they. And sometimes I was angry. The problem wasn't them, it was me. I conveniently gloss over important parts. Writing, posting, content, outreach. No next module, please. I'll come back to it later. Of course, I didn't. No one to tell me otherwise. No accountability. Only when I went deep into my mind did I realize there were blocks holding me back. I eventually actually designed a way to work with these blocks. And I finally started to see the change I wanted. Here's two things that helped. I needed to focus on building an easy way into each step that wasn't overwhelming and was rarely talked about in the courses. And I needed support to hold me accountable in those tough periods.