You wake up in the morning…you feel like you got no sleep, but it’s time to go again. You want to do something nice for yourself, eat something healthy, but tasty, you want to give someone a call, write someone a letter, visit someone (or these days schedule a zoom)…but you don’t.
Until you do. There are a few ways you’re likely to do this.
From a well-thought-out plan
or
From a sense of urgency
Try to choose the former. Sometimes we can’t help but do the things we knew we needed to do all along until we literally cannot put it off anymore. This is because we’re human. It’s cool, we’ll be alright, but it helps if we can minimize that stress—the urgency wherever we can.
So let’s.
Right now.
What’s the thing you know you need to do but you can never find the [time.space.energy.money.perfection.insertexcusehere] you’re looking for?
If you don’t know yet. Sit. Get out a [pencil, pen, crayon, stick of chalk, stick and sand, sharpie on your hand] and go through your day step by step. Not by the actual steps you took, but the feelings you had, the thoughts, the inclinations.
If you can’t remember them try closing your eyes and breathing deeply for a second.
If you still can’t remember take that writing utensil with you today and jot down the musings that come up, the “shoulds” you tell yourself…just jot them down, come back to them at the end of the day and notice the most obvious thing.
Then…make a plan to do it.
When? Don’t schedule an everyday occurrence. Not yet. Start with the first event.
Where? Preferably in public, even if that’s virtual.
How? Need to get a babysitter? Clear your schedule? Take a vacation? Save some money? Look for a scholarship? Prepare your family for your eventual blank face, and cluttered mess while you deep dive into something you need?
With whom(is that correct English)? Again…in public. Why? We’re social creatures, there’s enough isolation in this world. The best way I know to connect to self is through community. Counterintuitive I know, but it works.
Let me tell you a story. I once read a lot of books. Books are cool, sure. I read a lot of them and I felt smart. Then I watched a lot of documentaries and I wanted to interview real people, talk to real people, but I was afraid of what they might think or afraid they wouldn’t want to talk to me. So I avoided that, for a long time.
I went online, I observed a lot of conversations. I occasionally dove in on a few. I felt like I was involved in a lot of things, but I wasn’t. I realized I was a spectator. One day I realized I had a lot of changing to do, I felt really, really behind and completely disconnected from what I wanted from my life. I took a powerful, somewhat dangerous move and skipped town.
I did it out of urgency, I did it in isolation. I don’t regret it, but there was definitely a better way. I don’t regret my experiences but I don’t recommend the path I took. Mostly because it’s habit-forming.
Yes, it’s important to interrupt our unconscious patterns, but don’t do it from a place of urgency or desperation (unless it’s truly necessary). This means you need a baseline to measure what is urgent and desperate. It helps to have a standard to measure against.
You need to know, engage with and trust people, consistently. In other words, you need community. Without community, there is no accountability. Without accountability, there is little accuracy. Without accuracy, we are basically children.
I love children, but they shouldn’t own businesses. They can co-own businesses, they can start businesses, but they shouldn’t be sole proprietors. That’s just my opinion, I guess. But I think there’s plenty of evidence to suggest the accuracy of my assumption from the scientific community on human development. See what I did there?
Anyway, it comes down to this.
Define the thing you need to change
Make sure you have community: explore your options and interests, gather intel
Improve your community by finetuning/definining details/communication practices: develop trust, commitment and accountability
Leverage your inner world with your outer world until you find your groove: experiment and plan
Go deep. Immerse yourself in the specific way in which you need to change with the right people, at the right time.