Trust the process…
We’re midway through the second full week of January, and I’m already feeling the pressure of ambitions, goals, and resets meeting the hard reality of constraints and limitations. There isn’t enough time, there isn’t enough energy, and it takes effort to take on more or make change. Personally, I’ve never learned how to set realistic goals, and I doubt I ever will because realistic goals are boring. I want my goals to inspire. I want to read them and feel a little (or big) nudge to do the things I need to do to accomplish them. The catch is that I risk feeling like a failure when my goals prove to be too ambitious for me to reach. But I have a technique to mitigate this.
Instead of setting boring practical goals, I focus on process. I can keep a significant major aim when making a goal, but the day-to-day is about working through and trusting the process. If I’m just running a process I don’t have to feel the pressure of performing every time. I don’t need to perform, I need to show up. Showing up and doing the thing that needs to be done is probably about 80 to 90 percent of the work. Almost everything else flows from laying those bricks, building those pieces up one by one, through just doing it.
Let’s say you want to run a marathon. What do you need to do? Broadly speaking you need to train, but essentially you need to go for runs on most if not all days until the big race. Yes there are all kinds of approaches that have varying results, but none of that matters if you don’t show up and run. A day where you went for a run, even if you didn’t do all the cadence drills or meet a distance or time target, is a day you made progress because you adding to building a habit and maintaining a foundation.
When we hit valleys in our progress or motivation, as we often do during the third week of making change, the most important thing is that we don’t stop, we don’t quit. I have found the best way to move through the times of tiredness, burn out, low motivation, low mood, frustration, or exhaustion is to allow myself to work toward showing up and just doing the thing that needs doing at the most surface level.
Don’t think, just do it…
The key to making that happen is to not think about it. As soon as the mind starts to entertain any idea, emotion, or feeling, I will tell my mind, “just do it.” Even if the ideas or feelings are positive, I still dismiss them with a “just do it.” The mind is tricky. It will do things to try to get me to entertain my thoughts or feelings instead of doing what I need to do. Nothing may be entertained. Thoughts are not relevant, only action. If “just do it” isn’t shutting up the conjurings of the mind I turn my attention to the next smallest action. If I’m trying to get out of bed, it’s “just lift the blankets”, “just put your feet on the ground”, “just stand”. That’s all. Just go one step at a time. Action breeds action. As more small actions are taken the rest come more easily and with less thought. When I struggle to get myself to exercise, I ask myself to just put on my shoes. Nothing more. I don’t ask myself to do any particular exercises or workout to scheduled timelines or go to any degree of intensity. I only ask myself to put on my shoes. I think that one action has always been enough to inspire other action and the workout takes care of itself without my mind getting in the way.
Stagnation…
It is possible to spend too much time in the minimum performance level state. If I’ve gone for a week or two without naturally amping up my activity or actions, but instead am staying at minimum passing levels, it’s a sign that something’s amiss. It worth investigating what’s going on when this happens. For me, it often means I’m not actually interested, or that I have other higher priorities and whatever is stagnating maybe matters to me but not as much as other things. It can also mean that I’m reaching to do more than I’m capable of or simply don’t have enough time. Regardless, the expectations for this activity need to change. Maybe the goal softens, or maybe I decide it’s not for me at this time. Maybe I need to change how I’m going about it or get support or even training from someone.
Root to rise…
As the winter wears on and the light slowly returns, more motivation and energy will follow. If you keep going on your projects and changes by trusting the process and just doing the action without thinking about it you will be in a better position to capitalize on the brighter energies of spring when it arrives. Winter provides an opportunity to dig deep and root down so that we can rise up supported and strong. As you encounter challenges and progress valleys, try to remember to just do it to have done it, to knock off another notch, to get those counts of repetition and practice. It will all pay off. It always pays off.
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