Ready, Set, Action!
I may have mentioned this before, but I tend to live in my head. One of my favorite things to do is sit and ruminate on ideas and topics. Which as you can imagine is not always the easiest with toddlers and dogs running around. I still manage to fit it in though. It’s also one of the things that keeps me from taking action towards my goals. That doesn’t mean I never take action, just that moving from the planning and learning phases to the execution phase generally takes me a little longer than some people. This is an area I’m aware of and improving. Awareness is the first step, right?
Anyway, I’ve been in a bit of a funk recently. I had gotten into a routine during the pandemic that has now been changed with my oldest recently starting kindergarten. All the feels with that, by the way. The past two and half years have been a bit of a blur. Between the toddler years, pandemic, lots of heavy current events, and now returning to what feels like pre-pandemic life, it’s a lot to say the least. None of my personal development books have been hitting the spot to read and I’ve kind of been hopping from thing to thing. Then I found Eat That Frog, by Brian Tracy again on my shelf. It’s been a bit since I picked it up, but because it’s about productivity and lack of productivity is where I’m struggling right now, it seemed fitting.
As I started reading it again, it got me thinking and apparently writing too – so, yay! Action is obviously necessary to get the ball rolling. It’s also what actually gets things done. You can sit and think about doing things all day long, but until you actually do them, nothing gets done. Believe me, I know, I’ve tried.
In the book, the author gives the advice to start with your most important task. This is the hardest, most challenging task that you need to get done and the one that will move yourself closer to where you want to be. For the most part, I do agree with this premise – that if you knock out the most important task first each day, you will indeed move the needle in the direction you want to go and eventually reach your goals and see the results you want.
Motivation doesn’t always keep you going either. When you start something new, you usually have all the feels and motivation keeping you going. Then after a little while, normalcy and complacency set in and you lose the motivation that initially propels you forward. Learning about habits – creating and developing the ones that help you keep going when the motivation is gone is crucial and can help to combat the loss of motivation. The better habits and routine you have, the better you’re able to combat the unpredictability of life and keep going when it gets tough.
Sometimes though, shit happens. Life happens, things get busy, a tragedy ensues, human nature kicks in and you wind up in a funk. It’s during these times that we have to learn to find that balance. If you’re in a hustle season, it’s an illusion to think that you’ll always be able to operating at that level. Anyone who appears like they can is lying or hiding something. They are not showing you when they feel down or are compensating for something. It’s absolutely true that you can improve your ability to handle more. To keep going at times you thought you couldn’t or previously weren’t able to. That’s what growth looks like. If you find yourself at a low point though, it can make you feel frustrated to think you have to keep going like you had been despite all your best efforts and deeply engrained habits. You feel like you “should” be able to do it. That in turn keeps you down even longer. Instead, you have to learn not to be so hard on yourself during these times. Knowing when to slow down and being able to slow down are just as important as cultivating all the ways to keep going and operating at the level you want to when you lose motivation or things happen.
My point is that sometimes we read these books that say you have to do this or you have to do that and if we aren’t operating at 150% every day we feel like we are failing. So, I’m here to remind you that you don’t have to ALWAYS tackle the hardest task. There’s a BALANCE. Be kind to yourself. Sometimes, getting out of bed for the day is a huge feat and that’s okay. We all have those days. Then the next step is just to start small and get moving in some way. Wash the dishes, clean a room, make the bed, go for a walk. Doing anything, no matter how small will make you feel better and eventually turn into more. This will get you back to being able to tackle those challenging tasks again. You don’t need to feel guilty about it. It doesn’t matter how slowly you keep going, just that you keep going.
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