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I’ve noticed a funny thing since I’ve been working for myself. When I was doing my business on the side in any spare minutes I could grab between my job and my other responsibilities, my fondest wish and greatest desire was to be home writing.
After I quit my job, I really threw myself into my work and spent hours and hours at my beloved desk in my cozy little office at home, doing my passion work. It was a dream come true.
But somehow after a few weeks, I started wishing I was somewhere else. The weather was fabulous, and I wanted to be outside, not stuck at my desk.
Then I realized that I could write outside on my patio with my laptop, so I started doing that. But my outdoor furniture is really uncomfortable, and I soon found myself longing to be inside, sitting on something cushier. I worked on the couch for awhile, then started longing for all the screen real estate on my big monitors. Now I’m so happy to be back at my desk!
I was working really hard, and I noticed that was kind of killing my enjoyment of what I was doing. Especially, every week I have a new piece of Beyond Fear to build, and it has to be done on time or I’ll let people down. I painted myself into a corner with all these deadlines and feeling like I have to do everything.
I mentioned in my last post that I decided to do an experiment and just do what I want instead of pushing myself with the feeling that I “have to” get things done all the time. Other than Beyond Fear, my only assignment for the past two weeks has been to go for a walk in the woods every day. For months, what I’ve longed for most has been to have time to walk in the woods.
It’s a funny thing, though: when I suddenly had to walk in the woods every day, it started seeming like a hassle. Every time I’d want to take a nap or write or whatever, I’d notice the sun was setting and realize I better go take a walk or miss my chance for the day. Once I get out there, I love it, but now that I have a commitment, making myself go is hard.
I’ve had kind of a rocky road with “have to.” I was never rebellious as a kid, or even as a teen. Far from it, I was Miss Goody Two-Shoes, always trying to be perfect. I did everything because I thought I had to.
When I started seeing a therapist and he told me I didn’t really have to do anything, I didn’t believe him at first. Once I started believing, everything screeched to halt. When I realized I didn’t have to do anything, I couldn’t make myself do anything any more!
Eventually, I started choosing to do work at my job (and choosing to do things in the rest of my life), but once I dropped the fear-based motivation, I never regained the ability to be very productive on things I don’t care about. That’s one reason I was so eager to quit my job.
Since all that happened, telling myself I have to do something is the surest way to make sure I won’t want to do it.
Apparently, I’m not alone in this. I was on a group call hosted by Jonathan Fields yesterday, and people were asking him about meditation and mindfulness practice. Specifically, they wanted to know what to do when you get a song stuck in your head and it won’t go away and let you meditate.
His advice? Make that song the new focus of your meditation. Try to concentrate on it. Insist to yourself that you pay attention to it. He said when he does that, the song almost always flits out of his head.
All this makes me wonder, how can we use this phenomenon for our own ends? I’ve already noticed that working on anything but the one thing I’m supposed to be doing always feels really good. When I have enough leeway, I take advantage of that.
For instance, if I should be working on Beyond Fear but decide to write a blog post instead, I’ll be happy as a pig in poo. The answer is obvious: if there’s no immediate deadline, write the blog post.
I call that procrastination optimization, and it’s the reason my toilets were so clean all through grad school. Cleaning a toilet is never so appealing as when you have a big test to study for.
Given enough flexibility, I think I could really enjoy the hell out of everything I did. In fact, that’s clearly true: given enough flexibility, I could do all the things I enjoy out of order, never do the others, and experience an ideal state of happiness perfection.
Even if we never quite make it to that extreme, I think there’s a lot to be said for doing what you want to in the moment and using your lack of desire to do something else to help you really get the most out of what you are doing. Even as a kid, I knew that I could enjoy almost anything if I did it while there was something worse I was supposed to be doing.
Meanwhile, there must be some use for this “have to” aversion. Maybe, for the next two weeks, I have to eat an ice cream sundae every day, spend at least an hour on facebook, and take a nap. It could work!
Hmm…do you mean how I HAVE to finish my cover letter, but I’m reading your blog instead? Yup, I’m a big one for “have to aversion.” It’s amazing how once I start a task, then I’m fine with it, but I can come up with every lame excuse in the book to NOT do it until I’m finally confronted with needing it finished. If you come up with a way to trick yourself out of having to do things that need to get done, then fill us in!!!
About starting, me, too! That’s huge for me.
I’m still working on this, but here are a few little tricks that usually help me:
– remember why you’re doing the task and remind yourself of how much you want those outcomes, whatever they are, so indirectly, you want to do this
– remind yourself that you really don’t have to, you could choose not to
– trick yourself into starting by coming up with the tiniest, easiest piece possible and doing that. For the cover letter, I might tell myself I was just going to write one paragraph for now. Once I do that much, 9 times out of 10, I get hooked and want to do more. Or if that doesn’t work, just work on it for 20 minutes, but make them completely uninterrupted. You can stand to do almost anything for 20 minutes, but it’s long enough to get some momentum going and feel a sense of accomplishment.
Sorry for providing the distraction! I was off reading someone else’s stuff while not starting Beyond Fear at the very same time you were reading this, ha ha.
Hey Cara,
Not too long ago while I was on the phone with a friend, I said something like “I can’t do it. I have to visit my girlfriend”.
And she was by my side at the time, she got very annoyed and told me I did not have to do anything, if I would visit her, it should be because I WANTED TO, not because I HAD TO. LOL
Obviously this was just a misunderstanding and in the end, it taught me that sometimes we don’t have to do a lot of the things we do.
If we take the time to think about it, we lose a lot of time on things that aren’t productive, so it all sums up to how much do you want to accomplish and choosing the “have to” tasks smarter.
Loved your article, first time here but I’m definitely coming back for more, take care and have a great weekend! 😉
Sergio
Hi Sergio,
Aw man, have to visit your girlfriend–you’d definitely be in the doghouse for that one! lol
Thanks for your comment! I’ll be happy to see you around! 🙂
We are raised with “have tos” and “shoulds”. We learned that we should do things, even if we don’t understand the value.
Really, does a 4th grade kid understand the value of learning history, or geography?
So naturally, we think with “shoulds” more than we should (hehe). Just think of exercise…Do you have to do it? 🙂
Exactly!!
LOVE this. I think your point about flexibility is key. Flexibility seems to be something most of us are lacking, or at least, something we don’t spend enough time creating in our lives. Well, I know I don’t anyway. It would be such a luxury to be able to write a blog post when I think of writing one or work on my ebook when I’m really feeling in the mood to work on it. In fact, I think this is the quality of which I am most envious when I see other people who have truly cultivated it in their lives. I am going to try to play with this idea more – thanks for the inspiration!
Great points, Sarah! About writing when you actually feel like it, I’m still working on that, but one thing I’ve found is the less structure/deadline stuff, the better. When I’m up against a deadline, there is no room to say “blah, I’m tired, and all I’m writing is crap–let me do this tomorrow.” That’s when I do my worst, and slowest, work. As I’ve eliminated commitments and pushed back deadlines, everything has opened up a lot.
Good luck! Even just being aware of what you want and seeking ways to get closer to it helps. 🙂
Wow! I can relate. I just started recently working from home and yes, even daily walks in the park can become a have to. Crazy 🙂 I’m going to try your suggestion and use my newfound flexibility to my advantage!
Rock on–I hope it works great for you! Best of luck!