The evening is coming to an end. As the day wraps-up you look quickly at all these tasks left on your list. You know you really want to do them; at least you think you really ought to do them; you like to feel you have a strong will and proving to you and others you can do it; you just love that feeling of sticking to the plan… still you wonder how that list lengthens as time passes… and laziness is taking over like a bad headache….
We talked previously about “being our best partner!”
What to do then when that best partner decides to take a break and play with our lazy side, steeping sideways from our goals? It happens to all of us. It happens to me again last night as I sat at my desk suddenly incapable to care for all those tasks on the list. “Damn” I thought “and I had such a great day. Gosh, I know I am good to nothing; always taking an excuse to stop and I am not doing that and that and this and again that…” You’re right. At that moment my mind simply turned blue from a lack of oxygen, and I could have easily drowned under that wave –huge on top of that- of guilt, sense of failures, depression, despairs… you name it. Instead I sat, took a few deep breathes and ask myself two questions:
What have I done today to get closer to my goals? and bring happiness in my life?
What positive information am I learning from that attack of laziness?
And then, a few answers on paper, I decided to fully switch off that brain of mine and to truly enjoy a relaxing evening of doing nothing but enjoying my time.
Whatever way we look at it, we have created an amazing society of consumption where we mainly focus on what we do not have. We find that also in our education system, where the grading system emphasizes on what is missing. Often teachers focus on that extra mile to be done to reach the maximum grade, when we could argue –knowing the famous economic principles of 80/20- that the time spend will be better used learning another subject.
The fact is -this focus on what is missing or has been missing- we apply it everywhere in our daily lives. We often tune up so strongly to what we have not done that we fail to see everything that we do. When that happens, it’s easy to be wiped off by a tsunami of bad feelings.
Of course many other reasons could have been behind that decrease of motivation. Maybe the tasks were not actually so relevant? Maybe I just needed some extra sleep? Maybe I had listed too many items on the list? Maybe I had a better plan, spontaneously popping up, which had higher priority? One thing is sure there was a good reason behind taking that night off. In the world of NLP there is this amazing principle which said, “People do the best they can with the resources they have.” Sometimes the best we can is to take a break.
So next time you feel you are not sticking to the plan and you hear that little voice turning the volume up with some songs like “you’re not as good you think… you have no self-discipline…” take a moment, assume the best and ask yourself:
What have I done today to get closer to my goals?
What positive information am I learning from that attack of laziness?
And of course, laugh at yourself to open your mind to new horizons!
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