Are you yearning to develop a business, excited by the ideas that are flitting into your imagination, eager to try something new ... and yet paralyzed when it comes time to take action? You can even picture success, but you're darned if you can figure out how to get there.

If so, you are most likely encountering Creative Resistance!

According to "Demystifying Six Sigma: A Company-wide Approach to Continuous Improvement" by Alan Larson (thanks to my business coaching program leader Adam Urbanski who reminded us of this today),

Vision + Skills + Incentive + Resources + Action Plan = Success

On the other hand, 

            Skills + Incentive + Resources + Action Plan = Confusion
Vision            + Incentive + Resources + Action Plan = Anxiety
Vision + Skills                 + Resources + Action Plan = Procrastination
Vision + Skills + Incentive                   + Action Plan = Frustration
Vision + Skills + Incentive + Resources                    = False Starts.

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Creative Resistance occurs to even the most motivated and enthusiastic entrepreneurs. There are days when our energy is low - it happens to all of us.

This Resistance only becomes a problem when it becomes the Habit.

To overcome your inner struggle, here are seven tips to managing yourself more effectively:

1. Set deadlines (Action Plan)
   If you want to complete a project, such as decide what business to go into, or leave your practice, or finish your audio information product, a deadline will get you fired up. Go public with it - let others know of your drop dead date. Committing in this way will avoid the wishy-washyness of a soft and infinitely mobile due date.
   
   
2. Strive for clarity (Vision)
   Develop your plan and know your business or project model. Do not allow yourself the distractions of items, offers and requests that do not support your plan or business model. Understand your "big picture". Then create your plan in a way that dictates the action steps to be followed.
   
   
3. Create Action Lists (Action Plan)
   A huge action list can be a source of overwhelm, procrastination and discouragement. Instead, maintain a "master list" (keep it tucked away but accessible) and extract from it each day or evening those five or six high priority tasks to accomplish. Keep this much smaller list handy - on a 3 x 5 card, PDA or planner and check off each completed task.
   
   
4. Get enough rest (Resources)
   Your energy is one of your finite resources (just as time is). Guard it fiercely!
   
   
5. Be accountable (Incentive)
   When we go public with our plans, even if it is to one other person, we tend to hold ourselves to a higher accountability standard. Find a mentor, join or create a Mastermind group, involve a spouse or partner (carefully, so as not to cause friction in the relationship) or hire a coach. Request that they be the person to whom you will be answerable for getting things done. 
   
   
6. Make time obvious (Resources)
   When we pay attention to how we use our time, we tend to be more frugal about wasting it. Especially when we know what each hour or minute is worth. I recently used a timer for two days, to see how long my various administrative activities were taking. After the shock wore off, I assigned a bunch of new tasks to my virtual assistant, and have a search on for a bookkeeper.
   Use a scheduler, and set up regular cannot-be-canceled meetings with yourself in a highly visible way on a calendar, to accomplish your projects. Some years back, I instituted a weekly Business Development day (exclusively to work ON my business), and my productivity and results have soared. 
   You must become a master of saying "no" - to immediately responding to emails, to answering the phone when it rings, to permitting others to interrupt you for anything non-urgent.
   
   
7. Be organized (Skills)
   It is hard to get anything done with a messy desk and a huge effort required to retrieve any needed papers or documents. And what about your Inbox with its 400 emails?
   Get organized by devoting your first few hours to setting up systems to:
   a.) deciding what needs to be kept, given away or thrown away,
   b.) giving everything you are keeping a designated home
   c.) developing a systematic way to find the items in future.

And if you are still battling Creative Resistance, I highly recommend "The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles" by Steven Pressfield.

It all comes down to Discipline - defined as what you need to rely on when the emotional excitement and newness of the project has fizzled and you are left with having to take action!