The Devil Cycle: How to Deal When You Get Off Track
If there’s one thing I’ve learned after over 16 years of being in business, it’s that you’re always going to get off track.
But what matters isn’t how you get off track from your goals – it’s how you respond to the realizing you’re off track and then how quickly you can get back on track.
There’s a card in the tarot deck that describes this process super well. It’s called the devil card – it shows two human-like beings chained to the devil looming over them.
Now, at first glance, looking at this card might seem scary or make you feel like you’re doing something wrong – but I actually love pulling the devil card because of what it means.
Pulling the devil card signals that it is time to detach yourself from old habits or old ways of being that are no longer serving you.
The devil card also ties in what I like to call the devil cycle – it has a lot to do with the narrative you construct in your head when you do something “wrong.”
Let’s say you decide that you’re going to write three newsletter articles over the next three hours, but – instead of writing those articles and getting ahead of the game – you look up three hours later and realize that you’ve been watching cat videos, eating chocolate, and browsing through junk emails.
Suddenly, you start to feel ashamed. You start to beat yourself up. You tell yourself stories like – I’m not good enough. I’m not productive. I’m always procrastinating. Why am I so bad at time management? I’m never going to be able to get this stuff done.
As soon as you begin to lean into those stories, you find yourself quitting on some subconscious level. What that probably looks like is taking yourself to the kitchen, making yourself a snack, turning on the TV, maybe going to lie on the couch.
But the important thing to notice is that now you’ve taken yourself out of the game of writing those newsletters. Maybe you don’t get back to it until two or three days later, or maybe you don’t get to it at all.
This is what it looks like when the devil has won. The devil has convinced you that you are a failure – that, because you messed up, you can’t continue.
These stories are easy for our brains to believe. Our lizard brains always want us to stop. They want us to close our laptops, stand on the sidelines, eat bonbons, and watch Netflix, because all of that feels so much safer than actually writing your newsletter articles.
Because if you wrote your newsletters, you might actually have to put them out there. And if you put them out there, people might say things about them. You might have to make decisions about what you’re going to write about. You might get rejected publicly.
So instead, you lean into the devil cycle.
In order to move forward as entrepreneurs, we must learn to accept that we will sometimes get off track, mess up, and procrastinate for three hours.
We need to learn that when the devil’s voice creeps into our head and tells us that we’re not good enough, we can say back, No, no, I’m not a bad person. I’m human. I’m allowed to make mistakes and I’m allowed to feel fear and I’m allowed to waste time and it’s OK. I’m not going to doubt myself and I’m not going to quit.
I’m going to keep going.
This is how you keep the devil from winning.
So for you and for me and for all of our fellow entrepreneurs – be aware of the devil this week. Notice it when it comes, and hold your ground. It is OK to mess up. We can move forward from our mistakes.
It is in the gap of imperfection that we learn the most. We keep going.
If you’re interested in learning more about the many entrepreneurial lessons I’ve taken from tarot, please join us at my upcoming Tarot Workshop for Entrepreneurs. This is a four-week program starting June 12 designed to help you grow your business faster by trusting your inner voice, making better decisions, and unlocking new pathways.
Tickets are $100 off until June 5. I hope to see you there, devils and all!
