Tag: Progress

“I Can’t Do It…But If I Could…”

(Title image: Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash)

What would that feel like?

After a few weeks away for a funeral in my hometown, it’s not so simple to jump back into what I was doing before.

This has led to some ‘motivation’ issues (complicated by the grieving process, no doubt). As a result, I’ve been reviewing how I tackle difficult tasks. Before I undertake anything that I consider less palatable, it’s not unusual for me to have some sort of visceral reaction to the idea of the task. I think this is true for many of us. And we might not even be aware that this is taking place.

Encountering resistance to initating projects?
(Photo by Peyman Shojaei on Unsplash)

But if that response is strong enough and negative enough, it can shut down the possibility of accomplishing the task in front of us.

If we can’t get past that point, we don’t tackle the things we should. Unfortunately, those may be the kinds of things that help us grow personally, professionally, health-wise and the like.

So I have a suggestion for you. The next time you have that “ugh, I can’t do that” reaction, stop and consider:

* But…what if I could?
* How would I go about taking care of that? What steps would I take?
* What would it feel like to know that I was doing it?
* How great would it feel to be done?

When you start answering these questions for yourself, several things happen. You introduce the possibility of starting, making it less daunting. Sometimes that’s the hardest part. You open up a path for moving forward, breaking down what needs to be done into small steps. You may imagine yourself taking care of things and bring them into reality.

So what does this look like? Take cleaning as an example, something that I usually put off. “House cleaning” as a concept may seem like a monolithic undertaking. There are so many other things that I’d like to be doing, and many of them important. But consider, what might it be like to just, say, grab the vacuum cleaner and vacuum one area…yeah, that seems doable. And maybe after that, just empty some trash cans. How would it feel to do that? Not to get bogged down in the process but to move through it.

The “Done” List

Try a different kind of list. Instead of (or in addition to) a “to-do” list, make a “done” list. Write down everything you’ve accomplished. It can feel really good to see what you’ve done and more positive than simply crossing off items on a “to-do” list since you’re adding accomplishments instead of taking away tasks.

Note your accomplishments instead of simply crossing out tasks.
(Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash)

If you have a particularly difficult time getting motivated, split your already-split-up tasks up into even smaller parts: instead of waiting until you’ve “vacuumed the house” to write it down, note that you “vaccuumed the entry way”, “vacuumed the front part of the living room”, even “vaccumed the doormat”. It counts. Because no matter what you’ve done, it’s still better than not having done anything, even if it’s just one thing.

Let your own need for putting completed tasks behind you be the guide for how granular to get with this.

I do this when I clean. And, yes, my go-to is the vacuum to get started. Or sometimes the toilet. But it could also be doing the dishes, something that I’ve actually dreaded in the past but realized that it takes a surprisingly short time. Our brains are what stop us from proceeding so make the process rewarding to your gray matter.

Many of the tasks that we don’t undertake are simpler, easier and take less time than we anticipate (or fear!). The key is to not psych ourselves out, instead breaking them down into bite-sized pieces and recognizing their completion as a reality. Even if you don’t do it all, you’ve done part, bouyed by the knowledge that it doesn’t have to be perfect to count. This builds positive associations with getting things done.

No matter how much you do, it’s all good.


And Here We Go Again…

If there is a time that I’m going to feel anxiety, there’s a good chance it’ll be during my yearly mammogram. This year it came around the same time that my oncologist gave me permission to stop letrozole (and there was stress preceeding that appointment), but also great fear associated with my perceived cardiac arrhythmias, for which I have several visits with a cardiologist lined up.

Sometimes it feels like the stressors keep coming and coming.

To top that off, a family stressor followed on its heels, which I won’t go into but one that portends difficulties in the future. This last anxiety-provoking event used the previous stressors as a springboard and exploded into something even bigger. I was primed for anxiety and it took me for a ride until I found the traction to dig my heels in and slow down.

The worst part is, none of this stuff will simply go away.

Often, when people speak of anxiety-provoking events, they’re described as stressful things like a tense meeting with the boss or college finals or tight work deadlines. Admittedly these are all nerve-wracking, but they are also time-limited.

Then we have something like cancer.

I remember listening to a talk about anxiety where the lecturer tried to give the audience perspective about what was really going on, and he asked: what’s the worst thing that could happen? “You’re not going to die,” he assured us. And it’s true: let’s say that you fail all your final exams, but you’ll survive, even if you have to retake the classes.

Cancer survivors can attest to the fact that we suffer a different flavor of anxiety. There is no deadline on our stresses. They are thick and cling to us, like caramel sauce on the inside of a coffee cup, thinned by the passage of time, but leaving a film on our lives. Our hope is to get past the two-year mark, then five. Ten, if we’re so lucky.

Often, we hear about the success of treatments only to realize that the success is based on the majority of patients lasting until the end of the study, which might have been only five years.

Having someone tell you that you have a 95% chance of surviving five years is, well, underwhelming, especially for those of us who had premenopausal breast cancer. I mean, yeah, I HOPE I can last five years.

When you are here now, negativity fades to the background. Even if only for a little while.

So, what to do? If there were ever a time to practice non-attachment, this is it. For some of us (present company included), it is excruciatingly difficulty to release expectations–I want, even NEED, to be assured that everything will be okay and then rest easy with that.

But I promise you, clinging to the desire for things to be different only causes suffering. It also robs you of the joy of what you are experiencing right NOW–a beautiful sunrise, the softness of a pet’s fur, the richness of a cup of coffee, the coziness of a warm blanket. We are so wrapped up in fears of what the future holds that we miss the magic of what is before us.

Now is the only moment that exists, so truly, it’s the only moment that is real and certain.

Everything else is either history or what we concoct in our minds.

So this time of the year, I have to sit back and sense the Earth under my feet, feeling into how it supports me. This is what it feels like to be here now. No matter how many times I remind myself of this, I know I’ll have to do it again when the next stressor hits. That’s okay.

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This isn’t the first time I’ve written about anxiety and it certainly won’t be the last. But practicing mindfulness, every time I go through this experience, I reign in my emotions a little earlier and start feeling better a little faster. When I look back at what happened I realize I’m making progress, and that’s what really matters.