The ones who get stuff done feel the same fear, anxiety, panic, self doubt like all of us, the difference is that they do it anyway
Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash
A calm mind is a peaceful mind.
When we resist getting stuff done, we are basically taking some fear and exaggerate it until all we feel is fear, anxiety, panic and self doubt. We all know the feeling.
When we resist getting something done, we struggle between doing it or not doing it. Between doing it right now or “later”. Between feeling guilty not having started earlier or just focus on what can be done right now. Between this or that.
We obsess with thinking about it.
Hey mate, you don’t have a problem with your skills, your resources, your circumstances, your experience, your ……………………………….anything. You have a problem with your thinking.
Thinking about it makes it hard. Thinking about it makes it stressful. Thinking about it destroys your peace of mind. And the mind exaggerates and experiences failure in advance.
One way I have discovered through my own experience and observation which I would like to share is that creating a sort of situation where I can tell myself quickly “what choice do I have but to just do it NOW” situation.
I will give a few examples:
(1) Writing this blog
Since I have committed to write a daily blog, it can turn out to be a struggle with fear, panic, anxiety and self doubt every 24 hours…………………but hey, I know myself, that if I allow myself to “think about it”, it’s going to make the anxiety worse. So I have decided that at a fixed time, I just open my laptop and type at least 10 lines. What choice do I have? No choice. Just type. Type what? That will take care of itself once I stop thinking about it!
(2) If I am planning a business trip. Very often it can become so stressful because my mind starts this “shall I go or shall I not go?”, “shall I combine this or that?”, endless chatter in the mind, which does not help one iota. I have discovered one way to shut up my own mind. Take one irreversible step. May be book an inflexible flight (which is non refundable). It turns out that the non refundable fares are much cheaper and also makes it more likely that I will stop thinking about whether to go or not. Once that’s done, I don’t have to spend anymore energy thinking about “to do or not to do”.
(3) What if I want to reach out to someone I don’t know who might be able to help me. I used to think and over think about when is the best time, how shall I start and other options endlessly and that got me more and more tired. Now I will just write down a deadline, may be 30 minutes, to finish taking the first concrete baby step that will put me on the hook. It could be writing the first email and sending it, or picking up the phone and call, or buy a train ticket to move my butt there. All it takes is to make a committed step. An action
What choice do I have but to take a baby step. Move my butt. What choice do I have apart from taking a step forward immediately. Do I want to go back to the old way of “thinking, thinking, thinking” my way to fear, frustration, panic, self doubt…………………
Silent the inner speech by moving forward, wetting my feet and pull out the wallet……………..put the money where my mouth is!