Do you feel like an unfocused, procrastinating, pessimist?
Step 1 — Take baby steps.
Slice away the simplest, tiniest first step out of the scariest task that you are avoiding and commit to completing it.
Done? Now give yourself a tiny reward. Favorite food, mindless scrolling, a quick walk or whatever else floats your boat. Anything that can be completed in 5 minutes.
Done? Now repeat. Before long you will be in control and feeling a lot better.
Step 2 — Simplify.
Working harder is only part of the secret. The rest is simplification.
“…hack away the Unessential.” — Bruce Lee
Useless possessions, unnecessary subscriptions, vague goals, untamed desires, lingering tasks, compromised relationships all add to the mental clutter and bog you down.
Eliminating distractions and reducing stuff is key.
Step 3 — Meditate
Meditation is the most powerful tool you can use to train your logical brain to get stronger at identifying the destructive thoughts.
A powerful change that I have personally experienced is the ability to trace the starting point of the chain of segues that my brain takes to arrive at the anxiety ridden worst case scenarios of every situation.
The ability to identify the starting point of that chain lets my logical brain calm the panic monster in my head.
Step 4 — Forgive
Finally, learn to forgive yourself for losing the balance that you worked hard to attain. You are fallible like all of us.
These 4 steps worked for me whenever I felt like the unfocused procrastinating pessimist. Hope they work for you too.
Some of us are born with a naturally optimistic frame of mind, a genetically embedded growth mindset, while others, like you and me, have to constantly work at taming the monkey in our brains.
We often get caught in getting dopamine hits from checking messages or YouTube videos or articles like this one while we put off important things that are not urgent right now but will become so at the 11th hour when s**t will hit the fan and all hell will break lose and we will be running around like headless chickens with racing heartbeats smoking cigarettes just to keep our nerves calm.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. If you try these 4 steps. So don’t be that headless chicken.
Take baby steps and things will get better before you know it.