Get Up and Get After It
/So much of my anxiety and addiction in life is directly tied to procrastination. At first, I couldn’t see it, but everyone around me could and was frustrated by it.
Now I can see it in others and it frustrates me.
Procrastination feels really good … and then doesn’t when deadlines fast approach. I think of the demotivational poster:
Tony Robbins points out that if we wait until we are in the mood to do something, we will often wait a long time and just feel more and more frustrated, anxious, and even depressed. Instead, we need to get it in our heads that we’ve already accomplished something, relishing that feeling of success as though it has already happened. What will it feel like when we accomplish __? Then get up and get to work.
I started listening to Robbins in my 20s when I didn’t have much life experience and was frustrated that I couldn’t get things done. Now I have a few additions to his advice:
Have grace for myself. Drop the perfect “definition of done.”
Think iteratively. “How am I slightly better today than yesterday?”
We’ve all heard that an airplane flying from New York to LA, if off course by 1 degree, will end up hundreds of miles off target by the time it reaches the west coast. A pilot - and/or computerized copilot - must constantly make adjustments for wind, move around other airplane traffic, and adjust speed so that they will have a gate to park at when they arrive.
It is the same with life. My definition of done also has to be adjusted. Am I in perfect recovery? No. Am I doing significantly better than 5 years ago? Very much so. My wife even pointed that out this morning, which feels good.
I do still allow myself to procrastinate because it feels good, but now I time box it: “I’m going to waste time scrolling YouTube comedian stand-up shorts for five more minutes.” I set an alarm. In full transparency, I’ll probably do it for about seven minutes. But then, when I dive back into work, I feel refreshed.
Small wins are amazing. And large wins are almost always a culmination of those small wins.
My challenge to you is to pick something, define what a 1% improvement looks like today, and get after it. Within 100 iterations (notice I didn’t say days), you will have improved by 100%.
By Pete, Writing Team