When I Don’t Want To Do The Things I Planned To Do
Hello World!
Here we are, it’s my allotted time to write my daily blog, and you guys, I don’t want to. My brain is telling all sorts of things like,
“Just skipping this one time is fine”, or,
“We had a really tough day; we had work and then coaching and then a webinar. We shouldn't have to do this”, or,
“Maybe we should take another shower” (even though I just took one an hour ago), or,
“There’s an email in your inbox, I just saw it, we should go look at it and respond”.
Actually that last one is really interesting because as I work through my social media urges (and I’m including emails for my personal definition of social media here), I notice that they especially come up when I’m trying to avoid doing something I don’t want to do. In this case, I have this task I have assigned (writing this blog post), and I feel: dread, laziness, unwillingness. Those feelings feel uncomfortable, and my brain wants to escape them. It’s fascinating to see how my mind wants to avoid those feelings by numbing with social media. It’s usually my go-to number (not “#” but “numb-er”, haha — numbing agent?). It’s all a work in progress.
So what I am doing these days is: just as I allow urges for social media to be there (see my last post on how to do this), I also allowing myself to experience all the negative emotions that come up when I see my calendar. I am going to have thoughts that want to convince me not do it, and that’s normal. It’s my primitive brain focussing on the motivational triad, its three main functions that back in the day, enabled survival:
Conserve energy
Avoid pain
Seek pleasure
So my brain creates dread, laziness and unwillingness. It’s ok, nothing has gone wrong here. I can make space for those feelings to be there. And rather than numbing them by using social media, or resisting them by white-knuckling through them (and eventually exhausting myself when I run out of willpower), I can let them be there. I can open up to the discomfort, and I can decide that honouring my commitment to myself doesn’t have to feel easy. It can just feel however it feels, I can process those feelings, and I can do what I planned to do anyways.
And, oh man, imagine if you could put something in your calendar and you just knew it would get done. Like really imagine that you could write “submit report” or “hem pants” or “figure out how to change background on Zoom” on your calendar, and you just totally trusted yourself to get it done. All you had to do was wait for that time slot and you knew you would have your own back when the time came. How awesome would that be? That’s the kind of relationship I want for myself. And that’s the relationship I want for you!
And the best news is that it’s totally possible. It’s just a skill that you can practice and get better at, and, eventually maybe someday even like. Like waking up early in the morning, which I now don’t hate any more, only mildly dislike, and only for the first couple of minutes.
What would it look like if you 100% believed you would show up for yourself when you said you would?
Productivity is one of the biggest things I geek out about. I thought it was all about getting the right planner or getting the right program. It turns out, it’s all just thought and feeling work. I would love to share more with you if this interests you also!