006 | Thinking about your own life is keeping you from living it

Read me for motivation.

If you have ever made a huge plan or a dream to do something so incredible that it could change your life forever, maybe a big move or a career change or running a marathon…

But then life got in the way.

You had an exam, a work presentation, the weather sucked, you got sick, and you just didn’t follow through or maybe you didn’t even start. Maybe that happens more often than you’d want. You are stuck in a cycle.

When you think about doing something hard and important, your brain sees it as a threat, creating internal struggles like stress, self-doubt, or anxiety, and to avoid that uncomfortable feeling, you do something easier, like just scrolling on your phone.

Each time you avoid doing the task and scroll, you feel relief, which teaches your brain to procrastinate again next time. You are building a procrastination muscle, and now it’s really strong.

This constant stimulation is keeping you from creating the life you want to live. In other words, yes, it is that damn phone’s fault.

Control over your mind is connected to the life you build, and all the time and energy you put into distraction and procrastination are keeping you in the same place. You are watching others build your dream life.

You have to work on completing whatever that hard thing is to get yourself out of the loop before procrastination eats at your life and keeps you as an audience member for someone else’s.

You have taught your brain to avoid doing hard things and now you have to unteach it.

Let me explain.

Get out of your head, off your phone, and into your life.

You are not avoiding the task itself. You are avoiding how you think the task will make you feel. Usually, starting feels much worse in your head than it does in real life, and if you just did whatever it is that you had to do, you would see it’s not that bad.

But that’s easier said than done.

Somewhere in the mix of life, thinking has become a substitute for action. Thinking is a safe place, even if it’s overexaggerated. It’s clean-lined and things make more sense and there isn’t as much mess to clean up or steps to follow.

Thinking about doing the task can take over the space of doing the task. Thinking becomes your reality, until one day you realize that your life is in a constant state of analysis paralysis.

Even if the task that you are procrastinating is actually hard, like going on a long run, you have to think about the outcome, the reward. The cost is in the present but the reward is in the future.

But, we can’t just be driven by that long-awaited reward; our brains aren’t wired like that. Start combining different tasks together with ones you like. If you have to write, do it alongside your favorite cut of coffee. If you need to go on a run, save a podcast and only listen to it on that day.

Even better, take your big task and break it down into mini subtasks.

Practice being ok with not getting something done all in one day. Social media is a farce and makes you believe every task in the world can be done in under a minute, but good things take time and there are a ton of steps and that’s the fun part.

Break it down, make it digestible, celebrate small wins.

And don’t forget to create an environment that makes doing the hard thing just a little bit easier.

Create an environment that helps you achieve your goals.

I am not going to tell you to start waking up at 5am every day and delete all your social media, but I will say that the most disciplined people are not the ones with the most willpower; they are the ones who have built systems that make willpower less necessary.

For running, put everything you would need to take out the door in one spot. Instead of putting your running sunglasses with your other sunglasses, or chapstick with your other toiletries, or gum in your bag, keep it all in one drawer. Lower the friction.

Your brain isn’t good at multitasking, so the more distraction you have the harder it will be. Clean off your desk so it’s the best place to work or study. You don’t need the most professional, perfect system; you just need to make the system with the least amount of friction possible for your circumstances.

Another way you could do this is less physical, but it’s having an archive — for art, for work, for life. This could be photos for painters looking for references, phrases or words for writers.

Nothing is worse than wanting to do something but you don’t know where to start. If you want to go to a gym and you don’t really know what to do, have a folder of videos you’ve seen as references. If you want to cook more, take photos of the menu at a restaurant every time you see something that seems easy or interesting to make and add it to a folder. Don’t let not knowing where to start keep you away from doing something you are motivated about. You are your own goals.

Define yourself.

Finally, you have to do the hard thing, but you must also believe in yourself and believe you can do something hard. This is directly correlated to you actually taking the first steps to do whatever that something is.

Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy theory is the idea that an individual’s belief in their own capability to execute behaviors and achieve desired outcomes is the primary driver of motivation, behavior, and success.

If you want to become a famous painter or a marathon runner or a lawyer, you must believe you can become a famous painter or a marathon runner or a lawyer.

Reframe your goals in terms of your identity. You are the type of person that paints often. You are an artist. You are a runner. You are a creator. You are smart, you love school, you are good at your job. You are good with your money. Make identity-led goals and write these down, tell them to yourself. Don’t forget.

You might not want to train for that marathon, but you are a dedicated runner and that is your identity. Insert yourself into the goal. Visualize yourself as the kind of person that can get this task done.

If you want it but don’t think you can do it for some reason or the other, then you will never take the steps, and you are the one keeping you from reaching your potential, your goals, your dreams.

Do the hard thing. Believe in yourself.