Reflection Friday
What’s one thing you really want to be doing, but have trouble getting yourself to do it? What’s one thing you can do differently so that it seems exciting?
Possible strategies:
Make believe: eg, pretending you’re a spy on a top secret mission, and doing the thing is important to keeping your cover
Buddy system: eg, joining a book club because you want to read more books
Pairing (spoonful of sugar): eg, listening to music you love while doing the dishes
Gamification: eg, tracking how often you do the thing, with small rewards like stickers
Reframing: eg, thinking of making a phone call you’ve been dreading as an opportunity to practice courage
Self praise: telling yourself you’re doing a good job while doing the thing and congratulating yourself afterwards. (or getting someone else to tell you that.)
Ramp up: for things that are particularly scary or difficult, listening to motivating music or giving yourself a pep talk before doing it, or starting with something smaller and easier that you know you can do to give yourself momentum.
Start small: like ramp up, but with this one the smaller and easier task is the first step of the thing you want to be doing. Sometimes the entire process feels mentally overwhelming but the first step does not.
Remove obstacles: If you can identify something making the thing harder, change things
Brute force: it is also the case that often motivation comes after doing the thing, so sometimes putting more willpower into doing the thing regularly at first means it’s easy to coast later after it’s become a habit. (This is not the only viable strategy and it does not always work — if it is not working for you, that means it is not working, not that something is wrong with you.)
I want to be doing yoga nidra more often — when I do it, it feels good and it helps me clear my mind, plus I’m more consistent about resting (important self care for my CFS) if I have something to “do” while I rest. However, a lot of times in the moment it’ll just feel like too much work, so I don’t. I think part of the problem is I feel like I should really be doing it on the floor, so my spine can be straight, rather than on my bed, which is easier to get onto and off of. One option is I can just decide doing it in bed is ok (removing the obstacle.) Another option is I could develop a small transition routine so that when “doing yoga nidra” seems overwhelming, I can focus on just getting myself lying down first.
