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You Absolutely Can Tackle the Big Things You've Been Avoiding : zen habits
Taking on What You’re Avoiding
The way to tackle the work that you have been avoiding:
- Make a list of things you have been avoiding.
- Pick one high-priority thing in the list, and plan to execute it, even if it's a small action.
- Tackle your task as early as possible.
- Feel the sensation of fear.
- Take action.
- Celebrate your courage.
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Executive Summary Procrastination is a part of human nature. While we love crossing off the easy tasks on our to-do lists, the more challenging ones languish there indefinitely. Why? Because it's much easier for our brains to process concrete (now) versus abstract (future) benefits.
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Key Ideas
Our brains are programmed to procrastinate
It’s easier for our brains to process concrete and immediate outcomes rather than abstract and future things. So the short-term effort easily dominates the long-term upside in our minds— b...
To make the benefits of action feel bigger and more real:
- Visualize how great it will be to get it done.
- Pre-commit, publicly.
- Confront the downside of inaction.
Considering the downside of putting a task off will help move forward with it
While we might weigh the pros and cons of doing something new, we far less often consider the pros and cons of not doing that thing. This often leads us to ignore some obvious benefits of getting stuff done.
Think about something you're having a hard time getting started on, something important to you. Maybe it's a particular kind of work - like writing a proposal or crafting a particularly delicate email. Maybe it's an important conversation you know you need to have with someone that you haven't had.
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Key Ideas
The biggest challenge to moving forward on anything
... is the transition to working on it. It almost always represents a shift from doing something comfortable to doing something uncomfortable.
We tend to think that getting tracti...
3 steps to transitioning
- Start with willpower. Willpower in a moment is much more reliable than willpower over long stretches of time (In some cases you just need to force yourself through a moment to get to the other side).
- Commit to repetition. Even if your mind starts protesting, ignore it and keep going.
- Benefit from adaptability. The mental and physical challenges will be so diminished, that you'll no longer experienced the transition as pain.
Get good at moving from comfort to discomfort
- Identify something important to you that you want to move ahead with.
- Identify the transition point to working on it. Examples of transition points are: Pick up the phone and dial (for a conversation); ask a question and then stop talking (for receiving feedback).
- Make the decision — set a time and place where you will get started (transition).
- Prime your emotional courage. Starting something hard will bring up feelings of discomfort and you will need to be prepared to feel things to move through it without stopping.
- Follow through without questioning.
- Repeat this every day.