Do you ever ask yourself whether you’re being persistent or whether you’re being stubborn and should pivot?

That happened to me a few months ago. I was trying a new thing (oh well. I’m a new entrepreneur so trying new things is basically the story of my life nowadays, ha ha!! 😂 Sorry – we were saying?)

So, I was trying this new thing, writing to my contacts and telling them I’m a life coach and they can book a free consultation with me if they are curious to know how I can help them move on when they’re feeling stuck.

I had this basic message, and was adding a few personalized sentences to each person.

And I was terrified to do it.

“What are they’re going to think?!” 😱

Procrastinating and doing tons of other things, but not that.

I disciplined myself. Started sending 50 messages per day, whether I liked it or not.  For a few weeks, every day, I was sending those 50 messages.

From the outside, it looked like I was doing the task, right?

Wrong. I was just going through the motions, distracting myself with this impression that I was taking massive action.

Sending messages like you might hold your breath while cleaning up poop.

My heart was not in it. And so my texts were not enticing, and I had few replies.

I started wondering: is this a good tactic? Am I being persistent, sending those 50 messages a day? Or am I being stubborn and pursuing a tactic that’s just a waste of time?

The answer is always: assess your feelings.

I was too scared to really write to my contacts with intent and try different types of messages; but too judgmental of myself to stop doing it altogether.

When you do something from an unfitting emotion (fear, contempt for yourself, defeat, resentment…), you’re doomed to poor results. Because your heart is not in it, you’re not really all in, and if you’re doing something new or difficult, you won’t get good outcomes.

If you do something from a good emotion (curiosity, purpose, playfulness, motivation…), you’ll be flexible, alert, learning, open. Exactly what’s needed to improve and ramp-up.

So I ditched the copy/paste messages and started writing from the heart, one person at a time. And what do you know, answers started to roll in.

That’s the counter-intuitive part, so pay attention:

you can be doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING. But depending on what emotion you’re doing it from, you’ll get the results, or you won’t.

The difference between persistence and stubbornness is that: the emotion you’re fueling your actions with.

Sounds familiar?

No bad horses, only untrained riders 🐴