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Are you having a hard time getting motivated to do what you know you need to get done?
Your to-do list is growing by the day and instead of taking the necessary action, you find yourself avoiding the whole thing by procrastinating.
You could be online watching YouTube videos on how to take action knowing deep down this is just an avoidance strategy.
Your mind is overwhelmed and it’s doing a great job of protecting you from this perceived harm of taking action.
However, as you know avoidance only delays things and before long those thoughts of what you’ve got to get done always come back with a vengeance.
How can we turn this avoidance strategy into a motivational strategy?
Here are 3 simple steps.
- Don’t beat yourself up for wanting to avoid your work. Instead, give yourself permission to watch something uplifting like a comedy video for 30 minutes. The caveat here is that after these 30 minutes are up, you must commit to start chipping away at your workload.
- As the fun video ends you should feel happier in your mind. Now, you are ready to take the action steps toward your work. Don’t try and do everything at once give yourself a set time frame. For example, you could say, ‘I commit to doing 1 hour of work on X task.’ Then set a timer and off you go.
- Once you have completed your first hour, give yourself a reward. This time watch something fun for say 10 minutes and once the time is up again set yourself away on another task for say another hour and keep repeating this process until you are happy with the work you’ve completed for the day.
Hopefully, by the end, you will have beavered away at a good percentage of your workload and had fun in the process. This will help you to feel much better and bring in the momentum to continue the following day.
To get anything done in our lives we have to bring in some balance. If you overload yourself with too much stress then you will burn your mind out before you even get started.
Thoughts are where the action begins. You have to get your thinking into a good place and then from this happy headspace, you can create a positive working relationship within your mind and body.
Once the mind is set up for success the body will follow and engage in the tasks you’ve mentally set yourself.
Another strategy to propel you forward is to visualise yourself taking the necessary action steps to become the person who finishes their work.
This is where your self-concept needs adjusting, as you could be locked into the identity of a procrastinator and therefore you can‘t see yourself as an action-taker. If this is the case then let’s use some comedy superpower to pump up your mind toward action-taking success.
The Super Hero Visualisation Method
Image by Carlos Hilario from Pixabay
Pick a superhero character from your childhood that you admire and that you know would easily power through your outstanding workload. You could become Wonder Woman or Superman the choice is entirely yours.
Next, I want you to take on this role in your mind’s eye. Feel what it feels like to be this character, think the thoughts of this character, and see it all in your imagination. Keep visualising this new you doing the work until you are fully immersed in the traits of this character.
Notice how you feel wearing this powerful clothing and how quickly you start seeing your work tasks vanishing before your very eyes?
What thoughts are you thinking as the superhero starts to focus on completing each task? Can you notice a difference in the type of language this strong empowered self is using?
Once you have this experience flowing in your mind you should begin to feel the sensations physically in the body. This is when you can allow this new superhero mindset to alter the trajectory of your old disempowered self.
You now have the power within you to complete anything you set your mind to achieving.
If the old self-concept starts coming back immediately replace it with the new superhero you. With commitment and consistency, this old you will start fading into the background and the new you will step forward.
Keep using your creativity and a dash of comedy to start enjoying life’s challenges.
Instead of making your work a scary monster that has you hiding out in the land of procrastination. Remember, you are a strong, powerful individual who can conquer whatever life throws at you.
Enjoy the process and let me know how you get on.
I wish you lots of fun and many successes.