The short term vs long term thing is really interesting

(Grid: one axis is short-term good vs bad (a.k.a. pleasurable; comfortable), the other is long term good vs bad (a.k.a. true to self; growth; deep want)) (If something is G/G, we just do it. Awesome. If it’s B/B, we probably don’t even realise it’s a thing - we filter it out immediately. The G/B things are OK in moderation but we ideally want to be making a very intentional decision to engage in them (at which point they technically stop being /B) rather than doing them as mindless escapes. The B/G things are the things we should be focusing on but we might talk ourselves out of them. Those are what I want to talk about here.)

I spent so much of my life doing a ‘I really don’t feel like it right now, but for sure I’ll do it tomorrow / in future’

The problem is, only 2 possibilities come from that: 1 - a deadline forces the action, or 2 - the action never happens.

The ‘doing stuff’ muscle never grows

It’s now or never.

And I was always choosing never.

It’s a battle of short-term pleasure vs long-term gain.

And now is the only time you can break out of that.

‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ always felt too abstract for me.

Why?

🤔

Firstly because I didn’t have the emotional vocabulary or feeling-skills or courage to know what fear was / admit to myself that I was feeling some of it.

And secondly because it felt too easy to say ‘nah. I’ll feel the fear and do it anyway tomorrow. It feels way too yucky now’

I don’t know how I learnt to overcome that

Partly the realisation that people can sense when you’re the kind of person who doesn’t have the courage / integrity to do shit right now.

That’s how I define integrity, and courage, by the way. Doing what seems right by your own deepest internal compass (see also: circumambulation of self) in preference to what feels most pleasurable / comfortable in the moment.

Through a lot of work (realisation; meditation; therapy) I’ve come to a place where I can feel that unpleasant feeling. The ‘I really don’t want to do that’. Recognise it for what it is (fear, generally). Lean into it. Feel the feeling as strongly as possible. It’s only an emotion. Now I find it almost fun to feel it as strongly as possible. It’s like when you keep pressing an aching muscle to feel the strange satisfaction of the ache. Feel the fear stronger! Stronger!! And then just do the fucking action.

By the way, big hurdle for me to overcome was realising that there was a shitload of fear of success, too. If your self-image involves you not being able to follow through on difficult actions, not being good enough, then a large part of the unpleasant feeling is the contradicting of that identity (and therefore the feeling of the death of yourself) at the idea of you actually doing the thing. I think the only way to overcome this is to work on yourself, gradually, and keep doing the unpleasant actions anyway. I don’t know how else to describe it. Choose courage over comfort. Do the thing. Your brain is plastic: tomorrow it will be 1% easier. Repeat as needed… you’ll eventually feel like you’re the kind of person who does the thing.