The Hard Things Are Always Mental
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 4, 2013
It's a new year and that often means we set new priorities for ourselves, in hope that the date will spark us onto bigger and better things. Of course it doesn't often work out quite that way. Actually, what I've found is that sometimes it's more important to reinforce things I had already been doing.
Mohammadali f. via Compfight |
Case in point, I spent Monday putting things away. I put away a suitcase, lots of clothes and travel supplies, and basically cleaned up many areas of the master bedroom. That's not out of the norm for almost anybody, but my room was in disarray for a specific reason.
I'd been waiting for a consulting gig to come through. When I was initially contacted it was going to start before Thanksgiving. I had a 2-week window to get ready, so I pulled out all sorts of stuff, bought new stuff, paid money for maintenance on the car, etc. Then I waited and waited, and as lawyers and the like started gumming things up it got to the point where finally, on New Year's Eve, my psyche had enough. I just had to put all that stuff away; I'm sure my wife is ecstatic in one way, not so much the other way.
I've also done a few other things that are breaking cycles. I've dropped a couple of groups and decided against doing a few other things. I've also been proactive in some other things; yeah, I know it all sounds cryptic, but I figure no one's interested in all those incidentals.
What you might be interested in is that all of the things I needed to do I've needed to do for awhile. I've been stagnant, in a waiting mode, and when that happens the brain stops working as well, you get complacent, and things just don't feel right. I'm someone who already keep odd hours and they got even stranger and longer. I found myself waiting to eat my first meal of the day until mid-afternoon, I'd stopped my home exercises (since I put my health club membership on hold, thinking I was leaving, and can't go again until March), and I was hesitant to buy much food, which means I ate out a lot.
Frankly, these aren't good, not overly bad, but all could have been avoided if I'd just overcome the mental part of it all and got it out of the way much sooner. But life and business are just like that. When a relationship goes bad people are hesitant to broach the subject. When someone starts feeling sick sometimes they're afraid to go to the doctor to get confirmation that something's wrong with them. You'll see something starting to go wrong at work but you ignore it and hope it goes away, knowing it won't but not wanting to be the bearer of bad news.
I really do believe that the hardest things to address in life are the mental things. Thinking about cleaning the kitchen is always harder than cleaning it (even after what I went through in my kitchen recently, which I'm sharing in my latest newsletter. Thinking about making a tough call is always harder than it is to talk to the person once you've got them on the phone. Even making sales calls, something I hate with a passion, are mentally more challenging than they are once I've started talking to someone at a business.
If we can learn to push through some of our mental garbage, the world becomes clearer and easier to navigate through. At least that's how I see it; what about you?
So funny, just last night my husband and I were at the gym talking about squats. I said you know these aren’t that bad except Ive been stressing about them all day because I hate doing them. Once I start doing them its not that bad at all. It was just all the worrying my mind was doing that makes it bad. Mind of matter I guess. It goes a lot with everything in life as well.
Getting started is the hardest part.
It’s easy to hang out and do other things like surf the web, get a bite to eat, etc. It happens to all of us. We’re human.
What works for me is to take the first step as quickly as I can. Then as you say Mitch, the doing is the easy part.
Another tip is the Pomodoro technique. Set a timer for 25 minutes during which time all you do is work. When the timer goes off, takea break and play for 5 minutes. This is called a pomodoro. After four pomodoro’s you can take a longer break say 15-20 minutes.
Hope this helps.
That’s brilliance, Steve. When I’m planning my days I always build in rest time, but breaking it up into chunks like yours might be as good a thing to do.
The way I look at it is getting into the the habit is the hard part (and the thing that makes it a habit is mental). Once you adopt a habit you do it without thinking or much effort. Not doing it in many ways becomes harder – breaking the habit. I wrote about this idea on my blog a couple years ago:
http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2009/12/10/habits/
John, habits are interesting. I’ve tried the thing where “experts” have said that if you do something so many times it becomes a habit. Turns out that’s not quite true unless you actually enjoy the habit. That’s really more the hard part than anything else; change must feel good, or a habit isn’t going to take no matter what.
I’ve started planning and preparation for business before holidays and was thinking to begin serious work on 1st of 2nd of January. Well, this didn’t quite happen and I still feel holiday blues. I also felt that most colleagues are not so active after holidays and some of them may have extended time for relaxation. Actually, most of the things kicked automatically and the main project was supplied with articles from members quickly, I found another excuse for myself that my desk is too small, so I am going to buy a new one, papers and reminder that I’ve prepared are too many and for sure can’t be placed on the proper place now. Well, sometimes brain just go off and need to restart, even lost time, I think it is much easier to start and be more creative when you clear up the “cache memory”, it works similar with computers, file access and operations are becoming faster.
Carl, I basically decided to take 2 weeks of relaxation for the most part so the real work starts tomorrow, Monday the 7th for me. And yes, it’s all mental once again. 🙂