168. Distraction vs Attraction

Jan 9

How often do you find yourself scrolling instagram or watching your latest murder mystery show instead of working on your goal?

Don’t get me wrong - I’ve got nothing against either of those activities.

But here’s something I’ve noticed working with hundreds of clients:

When you have a goal, working on it can feel scary, even if you really want it.

It can feel vulnerable.

And the more important the goal, the more you may resist working on it.

Instead of cultivating courage and pushing through that resistance, you may find yourself craving a distraction.

So when you find yourself on insta or obsessed with a new show, it may be that you really desire and enjoy those activities.

But it’s also possible you’re just doing them as a way to escape the pressure of the goal.

This is good to know.

When you’re trying to figure out how to get yourself to work on your goal, it’s helpful to know if the other things you’re doing are genuinely delightful activities or if they’re just convenient distractions.

That’s exactly what we’re covering on this week’s podcast.

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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:

Why we distract ourselves when we’re working towards a goal.
How to identify whether you’re using distraction or attraction as you work to achieve a goal.
Why doing something out of distraction isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
A framework for using your time and energy on purpose.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Download Transcript

This week we’re talking about distraction versus attraction.

The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs. No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one of a kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.

Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. We’re going to keep it really short and sweet this week because I am not feeling very good. I had Covid over the holidays and for a while I was feeling like I was improving and then I started feeling sick again, which is a big bummer and I’m not very happy about it.

So I’m mostly taking it easy but I just wanted to hop on to catch up with y’all and share some insights and wisdom. So what we’re going to talk about today is the idea of distraction versus attraction, and here’s the basic idea. A lot of times when we have a goal or something we’re trying to work toward, we find ourselves doing other things. Things that are not the goal. Things that are not moving us toward the goal.

And a lot of times I think in our heads we’re doing those other things because they’re more fun or they’re more interesting. But when I really pause to reflect with myself and when I’ve dug into this with a lot of my clients we often find that actually we’re doing those things to distract ourselves from the hard thing we want to be working on but feel scared to work on.

As an example, it may feel hard to pitch potential clients for your brand new business, and it may feel easier to scroll on Instagram. It may feel hard to start creating TikTok content, and it may feel easier to scroll everyone else’s TikTok content. It may feel hard to work on your novel, and it may feel easier to read someone else’s novel instead.

And I want to be clear that I’m not even necessarily saying that distraction is a bad thing or something that shouldn’t be part of our lives. Like I said, I’ve been pretty sick, and so I’m partaking in a lot of distraction. I have a lot of symptoms in my body that don’t feel very comfortable, and so I’m watching a lot of TV and letting myself really immerse in that.

And I would say, for me, TV is part attraction, I’m excited and interested in the stories. And it’s part distraction, I’m not enjoying how I’m feeling in my physical body. I don’t feel very well.

So here’s how this can be useful for you. If there’s something that you’re wanting to work on, but you find yourself not working on it and doing something else instead, you can ask yourself, am I doing this other thing because I’m attracted to it? Because it’s pleasurable, because I actually enjoy it and I’m craving that pleasure and enjoyment in my life? If so, maybe we want to keep doing that thing, but in a contained way while also making time to work towards our goal.

Or am I doing this thing from distraction and not even because I really want to, but just because I don’t want to deal with something else? And like I was just saying, even if you’re doing it out of distraction, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to stop. But I think it’s just really good information for you to know and to have when you think about how you’re planning your life and your time and how you use that time and energy on purpose.

And there may be times, like when you’re not feeling great, where you lean more into distraction, but there may be other times where you want to notice that urge and then make a different choice instead.

Something that’s useful for this framework is thinking about how much of my life do I want to be attraction, do I want to be me doing things because I’m into them and they feel good and they feel fun and that’s exciting? How much of my life do I want to be distraction? Because sometimes that’s a really valid way to use time.

And like we always talk about, you get to do whatever you want for whatever reason you want. So if you want to be distracted a bunch, that’s your prerogative. And when do you want to skip distraction and attraction to work towards something bigger, even if in the moment you don’t feel attracted to it because you know overall it’s what you want to have or do or be in your life.

And when there is something you want to work on that you feel resistance towards, like you have that urge to distract yourself away from it, how are you going to make it compelling to work on for yourself? How can you add attraction to it? How can you break it down into smaller steps to make it more doable and less like something that you need to avoid, ignore, procrastinate, or distract yourself from?

And I think there’s really a question here too, like, what kind of life do you want to live? How do you want to use the time that you have here? How do you want to use the energy you have here? Do you have big goals that you want to work on bit by bit?

If so, how can we make it fun and doable to work on those goals while also still incorporating in the moment pleasure because we all crave that. And I think if you try to set yourself up for a life that’s only oriented towards the future, then the present self kind of gets mad and rebels and takes us into doing other things.

And how much of your life do you want to be dedicated to that current moment attraction, what feels fun and interesting? Like for me, something I do sometimes, if I have some work that feels hard it’s like I’ll set a timer and do some work for a little bit. And then I’ll have a break and maybe watch standup comedy videos or look at cat videos or watch 10 minutes of a TV show I’m really into.

And in that way, I’m taking something that I’m attracted to that could be a distraction and I’m incorporating it into working towards my goals and allowing it to be part of that flow of me being motivated and moving forward, even if it feels really hard sometimes. And that’s something you can do too.

What you also may find is that you’re doing things out of habit. And when you stop to ask yourself, is this attraction or distraction, maybe it’s one, maybe it’s both, maybe it’s neither and it’s just habitual. Specifically with having mobile phones that have the whole internet on them, so often we just pick them up and then our brain is like, when I pick this up, I go to Instagram. When I pick this up, I go to TikTok. When I pick this up, I go to look at my text messages.

And noticing if you have a habit like that can allow you to interrupt it and build a life that’s more by design, that’s more likely to have you doing the things you want to do so that at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month, at the end of the year, you’re happy with how you’ve spent your time and you’ve enjoyed yourself and moved forward in whatever ways you want to move forward.

And again, not that you have to move forward or be working towards any kind of big, huge goal. Just typically a lot of the people that I work with are, whether that’s a process goal of how they want to be spending their day by day, or whether that’s an outcome goal of where they want to be in a certain amount of time.

But you know me, I’m all about intentionality. So what I want is just for you to have awareness and then choose on purpose, design on purpose the kind of life you want to live, the kind of days you want to have, and then find a way to make that happen that feels really good to you and that incorporates whatever elements you want.

All right. That’s what I have for y’all today. I hope you have a wonderful week and I will talk to you next time. Hopefully I’ll feel better by then. All right, bye.

Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.