How can you accomplish your goals when you have no motivation or desire to? Is it possible to overcome the voice in your head telling you to lay down, relax, and look at your phone and instead be productive?
This voice in my head always comes up after a day of work. I come home mid afternoon and consider working on the podcast, blog, or a painting and the voice says, “Take it easy! You can just relax a little after a long day. You can work on all that other stuff later.” Sometimes it convinces me. It rolls a Natural 20 for Charisma and I choose laziness over work.
Recently, however, I’ve been working on blocking that voice in my head and choosing productiveness first.
The prime example I’ve found is with painting, specifically when I have a commission to work on. I love painting. It’s a ton of fun for me to watch the piece come together and to see the person’s reaction once it’s complete. What’s difficult though, is working on it when I know how much work I have left. When I start thinking too much about technical aspects and my perfectionism takes over before I even pick up a brush.
That’s when the voice comes into play and convinces me to push painting off for a day or two.
Painting is just one example. This happens with everything and I’m sure you can come up with a list of examples in your own life. It’s not easy to be productive after you’ve just spent hours working, dealing with customers, sitting in meetings, and all that other nonsense.
So how do we get out of the habit of listening to the voice in our head when they tell us to relax?
You just gotta do the work your mind is trying to convince you not to.
That’s probably not the answer you’re looking for, but you probably realize it’s not wrong. Like most habits and skills we try to pick up, there isn’t a magic solution. Sure there are steps we can take to break it down and make it easier, but it all leads to the same outcome. Doing the work.
If you want to make it as easy as possible, tell yourself you’ll sit down for 2 minutes and work on whatever it is you need to work on. Once you get into that routine every day, you can move forward.
Often times when you decide to just do the minimum amount of work, you end up continuing for much longer than you anticipated. I’ll often sit down to paint with the intention of only doing a small portion, then I look back at the clock and it’s been two hours and I’ve done a full wash of colors.
It’s not the sexiest of solutions. It’s nothing you’ll be bragging about to your friends. But I believe it’s an effective solution.
When that voice in your head starts trying to convince you to postpone the work you need to do, start doing the work immediately. You don’t have to set out to work for hours on end, but you need to start. Do anything you can and get into the habit of shutting that voice up as soon as it starts talking.
March 23, 2021
