An escape door

Some people call it procrastination, others just laziness, thirds claim the motivation wasn't strong enough. It does all truly exist there but naming the problem doesn't help much in resolving it. The problem is how to advance you self in overcoming procrastination, attacking laziness, and fueling motivation towards the targets you've set up.

Each of us knows it from own experience. You set up a goal, start it with enthusiasm and passion then reach first blocks on the road. If the goal is well attractive you overcome it and drive farther but soon reach another obstacle on the way. You go over and keep on driving to the goal and new blocks appear and you strike back. But sooner or later you meet a point where the energy to gear is not as strong as desire to miss or escape. Your creativity in finding a valid, legitimate, solid reason to not to meet this obstacle becomes almighty indeed. A couple of examples.

Decided to loose weight and chose a program demanding not to eat after 7PM. The first day it was a pleasure to put to the test your willpower, the second day you still enjoyed your strength of mind and stuck to the program, the third day it was already tough: you hadn’t lost much weight yet but you’re very hungry! What’s a mistake to open the fridge at this moment! The stomach and the eyes fed the brain at a speed of a thousands thoughts per second by the reasons why you COULD catch a piece from the fridge.

Giving up smoking? Hadn’t smoked for already a week and got to a pub with your friends? All the receptors immediately started locating well known attributes preceding a good cigarette. Mix of smells, pub music, taste of alcohol, friendly environment – and you again found a million well-grounded reasons why one cigarette wouldn’t make you a smoker again.

My favorite example is early awakening. What’s unnecessarily creativity our drowsy brain displays in finding a thousand of meaningful reasons why it makes sense to put the alarm clock forward on an hour! All pragmatic plans set up previous evening are forgotten at that miserable instant and the big exciting target to become an early riser is literally in coma requesting an emergency treatment.

Not pretending to reveal a silver-bullet method I claim the problem in all the cases is discipline and finding a strong basis in reasoning not to give up. If you’re disciplined you don’t eat after the you diet doesn’t allow whatever tempting dish you see/smell. If you’re disciplined you don’t smoke however pleasant and comfortable it may be. If you’re disciplined you wake up a minute before the alarm clock is set. There are many ways to become disciplined and maintain the discipline on a high level. Here I want to present a good analogy helping me fighting giving-up a lot.

Imagine you’re taking a stair race. There is a hundred of floors in the building and of course participation is more important than victory. You start at the very bottom level at the parking with other runners in presents of reporters, friends, and supporters. A starting gun shoots and the crowd runs forward and up. You’re excited and vividly depicture your finish: there are your friends, colleagues, maybe your kids and your wife in the crowd of supporters; you’re exhausted bug happy, you’ve done what you wanted. But here you come back to reality and see it’s only 4^th floor – other 96 yet to go! You fight a pity feeling to your self and run farther. But passing 28^th floor the feeling supported by muscle pains and broken breath calls again and a tiny voice starts asking: why do you want to go so up, maybe if you could just skip off the 30^th stair-well it would be good enough? What a crazy idea was to go so high (and you’ve jut passed the 43th) - you clench the teeth and keep on. The voice becomes stronger and already is heard loudly – why? (floor #58). Your anti-reasons generator starts working in a full-power mode: maybe I’m not ready yet, maybe I need more daily trainings (that I’ll of course start tomorrow), maybe next time I’ll not start so fast, maybe I had to sleep more yesterday and had special diet for previous month. You’re seeking for an idea to justify giving-up (80^th floor) and here you see this – the escape door! What’s the luck! You’re rescued! You’re saved. You skip off this race and you’ve done it. But wait a second, there are no colleagues and friends on floor 80, it’s a silent corridor and nobody’s waiting for you there. You broke your plan, you worked hard but haven’t achieved the target and what’s most painful here is you and only you found this escape door. You didn’t believe you could go to the roof but were looking for a reason to escape. Once such a “reason” appeared [in your imagination or in reality] you immediately took occasion…

This analogy helps me to go to the end, not to give up, not to get out off the way. When I set up a goal I imagine a hundred floor stair race and visualize stair-wells. When I hear that tiny voice I don’t let it seize me and drive to the escape door. No escape door but the roof is the only meaningful target. Whatever creative thought comes to me when I’m in the middle of the race I ask my self: “isn’t it an escape door?” Every time I change my original plan to adjust it to new things I found on the way I check it very carefully not to get led astray to an escape door. I need the roof. I hope this analogy will help you to push back the destroying voice of doubt each of us hears when we’re on a mission.

Technorati tags: GTD, motivation, discipline, target