There have been points in my life when I was just plain exhausted and didn’t feel like doing whatever needed doing: exercising, cleaning, going to work, running errands, bathing kids – or myself! But I learned many years ago that sometimes you just have to quit thinking about it and just DO IT! It’s the thinking about it that trips us up. We mull it over in our heads, trying to build up a feeling of wanting to do it, of wanting to feel the sense of accomplishment we might get afterward. But it backfires. It totally fails us. All it accomplishes is to make us remember even more that we did not want to do it in the first place, so why sit and think about it?
So, yes, somewhere along the way, I finally learned that thinking about doing the task only made me want to do it less. I knew that whatever task was staring me in the face wasn’t that onerous; I just didn’t feel like doing it. Unless there is a real decision to be made – such as is the basic living that needs doing more important than taking someone to the hospital – then we ought to just stop the tripping-up thinking. I changed my habits so that if I was in this don’t-want-to-do-it mood, I would tell myself “Just do it!” And it worked. My brain immediately muscled its way past the soul’s reluctance and the body’s exhaustion (or laziness) and within seconds I was doing the task I had wanted to ignore. Mind over matter? (What matters has to be overturned by the mind?)
Procrastination is an ugly word (or a huge joke, depending on your family’s perspectives). And causes a whole lot of grief if we wallow in it. Find what works for you to push past what is holding you back. Whether it is the basic stuff or an important one-time task, find a method of attack that gets you doing and not thinking about it. Life needs living and even the tasks we don’t want to do can give us that wonderful sense of accomplishment after it’s done – then we can go have a well-deserved rest or a playtime in the sun. We’ll be happier about the relaxing when tasks are getting done!
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