Sometimes I’m brought to awareness to find myself in mid-air with no idea how I got there.
Not really, but it can feel pretty close to that. Don’t tell me this hasn’t happened to you. You’re sitting at your desk, you have a scorecard, or heat map, or report or presentation to deliver. Suddenly you look up, you’re a half-hour closer to the end of the day, but the screen in front of you shows pictures of a weather disaster that hit Antigo, Wisconsin in 1922. What the heck are you doing?
If you’ve been following along with this blog, you understand that thoughts drive feelings, which drive actions. This is really helpful to know when you have a nice clear thought to work with. Something like “I want to create a demographic report like I want a hole in the head,” is pretty easy to trace through that stack. Thought: negative. Feeling: resistance. Action: google etymology of ‘a hole in the head’. Result: useless information, no report.
Most of the time, we’re not all that clear on how we got to our current action. We just sort of wake up to our results and wonder where we went wrong.
If you don’t know what you were thinking, and you’re not all that clear on what feelings are actually being triggered inside you, never fear. You can start with the one thing you probably do know – what you were doing.
Actions that my clients report to me, and that I notice in myself, tend to fall into a few broad buckets.
Delaying/Avoiding
Purposeful/Focused
Inaction
Adjusting
Rejuvenating
When you have a moment of awareness and you catch yourself in mid-action, notice which bucket the action falls in. From there, you can work you’re way out of undesired actions using the techniques below. You can also pay more attention to desired actions and start to notice the types of feelings that create those valuable actions and results.
The main thing you need to know – any time you are approaching a planned activity that will require action and result in change, you will encounter a moment of mental resistance. This is normal. Our brains are designed to prefer conservation of energy and easy gratification. We want to be in the recliner, eating chips, binge watching. Why? Because back in the day, this was a smart strategy in a world where rest and food were limited. Our world has changed, we haven’t. So don’t let that mental resistance hold you back.
Now, on to the tactics you can use when you catch yourself in mid-action.
Avoidance actions: If you’re sitting at your desk with a mouthful of cookie that you haven’t swallowed and one in your hand, ready for demolition, you’re probably in delay/avoid mode. If you’re scrolling social media or wandering around the building looking for the perfect ballpoint before you start your project – you are busted. There’s nothing wrong with you. Basically, you’re avoiding something. The problem arises when we attribute our desire to avoid things to the project we have to do. Ever notice that once you get into it, most projects are not so bad? We tell ourselves we don’t want to do the thing, but in reality, what we’re avoiding is how we are feeling. This is really tricky to pick up on and why you hire a coach to help you. For now, if you catch yourself in this type of activity, you can work your way out of it by stopping and jotting down everything you’re thinking about your current project. Make yourself keep going for a whole page. Once you pass the halfway mark, just start jotting down all the positives about the project. Chances are, you’ll be ready to get to work with your current pen. No bowl of chips needed.
Purposeful actions: Here’s where we all wished we lived all the time. You have a task, you’re focused and you’re getting stuff done. No worries. If you catch yourself in this type of mode, make a quick note of how you feel and what you think about the project. Being aware that working makes you feel good and understanding the way you think about work when you’re not avoiding it, makes it easier to divert yourself from avoidance in the future.
Inaction: What we think and feel can also drive inaction. Inaction can be a benefit or a detriment to our work. Sometimes what we’re not doing is positive. We’re not goofing around, we’re not beating ourselves up, we’re not watching re-runs of The Office. Just like noticing how you feel and think when you’re doing purposeful work, noticing your current state of mind when you’re not handicapping yourself is good information. More often, we’re not doing our most important work. If you become aware of that nagging feeling that you’re working on the wrong thing, stop and notice what you’re not doing. Ask yourself why you aren’t doing your project. If you’re like me, your brain has lame answers for this. Often, I’m very busy answering an email about something that will happen next week, while I’m studiously not doing the thing that’s needed tomorrow. Just like avoidance actions, the fastest way back to my primary activity is to stop, spend three minutes writing down my thoughts about my primary activity, and then move to some more positive thoughts. If I can’t think of a single nice thing to think about the work I’m not doing, then I just list facts. Listing the facts often calms me down and gets me focused by cutting out the drama. Changing “I don’t have time, I’m not ready and I’m a failure, I’m going to blow this” to something less angst-ridden and more factual like ” The deadline was unexpected, I’m the only one here to do the work, something is better than nothing” is often all I need to get out of inaction.
Adjusting: Sometimes the action we’re taking is reframing. We are aware of our thoughts, and the feelings they create. We realize that this trajectory is leading us nowhere fast. So we interrupt our own behavior chain with a new thought. We use thoughts as actions. We notice our thought. “I hate PowerPoint”. We notice our feeling – frustration with all those little boxes and the endless formatting. We understand already that this won’t help. So we take the action of changing our thought to “Just do the darn thing and move on.” We feel grim determination and we format our title slide. That’s adjusting.
Rejuvenating actions: These are the really great actions that actually do relax us. These are not to be confused with the actions that drain us. This is walking the dog, not scrolling Facebook. This is playing a game with your kids, not watching them watch TV. Sometimes this looks a lot like work – this weekend, we built a shed and painted it. It was work, yes. It was also very satisfying.
So as you catch yourself engaging in an action – ask am I –
Avoiding? Working? Not taking action? Adjusting? Rejuvenating?
Is this action beneficial? If so, what can I notice about how I’m thinking and feeling?
If the action isn’t working for you, write down a half-page of your current thoughts. Then write the facts of your situation. Now, is there anything helpful you can think about this set of facts?
From there, you can move to another type of action.
And that? Is just good to do.