Alrighty, you have a plan. You have written some goals and made a list of actions you need to take to achieve them. You’ve scheduled time during your day to do them. Â
What do you do when you get to something on your list you really don’t want to do?
It happens to all of us. You feel resistance and procrastinate or find excuses for not doing it.
How do you get yourself to do things you don’t want to do?
One thing that works for me is to take the activity and carve it up into even smaller pieces. Something I can do that will only take five minutes, for example, or one simple step on a longer list.Â
Sometimes, I just suck it up and do the dreaded thing anyway. If need be, I give myself permission to do it badly because there is value in crossing things off your list and because I know I can come back later and fix it.Â
What if the problem persists? What if you’re trying to stick with an exercise routine, for example, or you have a big project and every time you sit down to work on it you feel like doing something else?Â
Me? I bribe myself.Â
My daily walks are part of my routine now but in the beginning, when I resisted getting out the door, I rewarded myself by listening to podcasts I didn’t have time for during the rest of the day.Â
When I’m having trouble making progress on a writing project, I’ll do something similar: give myself ten minutes to watch a video channel I like after thirty minutes of writing.
I’ll bet you do something like this, too.Â
It turns out this technique has a name. It’s called “temptation bundling”–pairing something you love to do or would prefer to do with something you’re trying to get yourself to do.Â
But this is nothing new. Our parents taught us this. Remember, “No dessert until you eat your veggies” and “No TV until you finish your homework”?
Yeah, like that.
Which reminds me, now that this is done I can go get my second cup of coffee.
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