Take action. Do one thing this week.
I’ve been offering this advice to several clients recently, who have a tendency to ruminate and get lost in their own heads. They beat themselves up, thinking of different things they could have done, or start blaming others, wishing they would act differently.
But thinking doesn’t change anything. Action does. It’s great to reflect on how you could have handled the situation differently, but then stop thinking, and take action.
Most of the time, people know what they need to do, but are resisting it for some reason.
To take a personal example, I knew that diet matters, but resisted changing the way I ate for, um, decades. Then I got access to a continuous glucose monitor a couple months ago, and saw how my blood sugar spiked severely when I had carb-heavy meals and how my energy crashed afterwards. I changed my diet to reduce carbs, and I feel more alert, and surprisingly lost over 5 pounds in a few weeks. As an aside, The Glucose Revolution, by Jessie Inchauspé aka the Glucose Goddess on Instagram, had many practical tips on how to eat differently e.g. sequencing matters (salad and vinegar first)!
In a more professional context, here’s a few ways in which people avoid action:
— I want to be better at public speaking, but I don’t want to practice my talks.
— I want to find a more satisfying job opportunity, but I don’t want to network and talk to people because I will feel awkward.
— I want to spend more time doing X, but I can’t find even 30 minutes in a week to actually do that activity (this is me with strength training).
— I don’t like what I’m doing at work, but I don’t want to talk to my manager directly about it because I’m worried how they will respond.
— I have some feedback for a peer that will enable us to work more effectively together, but I’m scared of having the conversation.
There may be good reasons for resistance in each of those cases, but, say it with me now, You Have A Choice. You can push through the resistance, or you can accept that you don’t want the result enough to actually overcome your resistance. Either way is fine, but I find that the acceptance allows you to move forward, rather than staying in the tension of wanting but not doing.
What’s something that you’ve been saying you want, but not actually doing anything about? What’s one thing you could do this week to actually take a first step towards it?