{"id":132016,"date":"2024-07-25T12:20:52","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T16:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/?p=132016"},"modified":"2024-07-25T12:43:58","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T16:43:58","slug":"forcing-yourself-to-do-a-task-vs-letting-yourself-off-the-hook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/25\/forcing-yourself-to-do-a-task-vs-letting-yourself-off-the-hook\/","title":{"rendered":"Forcing Yourself to Do a Task vs. Letting Yourself Off the Hook"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">By Leo Babauta<\/h4>\n<p>People often think, when they\u2019re tired or don\u2019t feel like doing a task (or a habit), that there are really only two choices:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Force yourself to do the task anyway; or<\/li>\n<li>Let yourself off the hook<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>And while there isn\u2019t anything wrong with either of these choices, I\u2019m here to remind you that they are choices. And they\u2019re not the only choices.<\/p>\n<p>What else can you do in that situation? Well, here are just a few other possibilities off the top of my head:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Choose to take care of yourself, and then come back to the task when you\u2019re more replenished<\/li>\n<li>Find a reason to do the task that inspires you to do it, even if you\u2019re tired \u2014 for example, if you knew that doing a task would save a million people\u2019s lives, you probably wouldn\u2019t say, \u201cOh, but I\u2019m too tired right now\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Ask for other people\u2019s help<\/li>\n<li>Find a creative approach that has you bringing play to the task while also honoring your tiredness<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As you can see, there are choices, when we get beyond the only two choices that occur to most of us.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s talk about our tendencies, then talk about how to pursue other options than the two main ones we\u2019ve mentioned at the beginning.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Our Tendency<\/h3>\n<p>The thing is, most people will default to one of the two choices by habit \u2014 if you normally let yourself off the hook, that\u2019s probably a tendency (you might add some self-judgment and self-criticism to that tendency). If you are good at forcing yourself to do work, you probably do that as a tendency.<\/p>\n<p>So become aware of your tendency \u2014 which one do you lean towards? There isn\u2019t anything wrong with this tendency, but it will always get you the same results: avoidance gets you stuckness and self-judgment, while forcing yourself gets you a sense of burden, overwhelm, exhaustion and apathy.<\/p>\n<p>Once you\u2019re aware of the tendency, you can ask yourself whether you\u2019d like to try something different. If so, read on!<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Creating Aliveness<\/h3>\n<p>So first, let\u2019s say you decide that self-care is your priority. That doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re going to avoid the hard things, but you\u2019re going to make sure you\u2019re not going towards burnout, and take responsibility for making sure you\u2019re getting enough rest, nourishment, mental breaks, and movement.<\/p>\n<p>So that is a given. Now what? Well, now you can move towards the tasks you\u2019re resisting \u2014 hard, scary tasks you want to put off.<\/p>\n<p>But instead of forcing yourself, you want to try something different, that doesn\u2019t feel like coercion and doesn\u2019t make you feel so burdened and apathetic.<\/p>\n<p>How do we do that? There isn\u2019t a right answer, but here are some things to consider:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Connect with your deeper Why. Something that inspires you to take action, instead of having to avoid or force yourself. What would have you excited to tackle this?<\/li>\n<li>Let yourself play. Why does this have to feel like work, or a \u201cnose to the grindstone\u201d kind of thing? Why are we trying to just \u201cget through\u201d all of our work tasks and emails and meetings? What if all of this could be a playground?<\/li>\n<li>Let it feel alive. We don\u2019t have a lot of time on this Earth. Let\u2019s let ourselves feel more alive in each moment, whenever we can remember. What would it be like to feel alive right now, as you read this?<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t be ashamed to ask for help. Sometimes the resistance or overwhelm is too much. How can others be invited to help us face it, or to make it more like play, or to help shoulder the burden? We don\u2019t have to be so alone.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>These are some ideas to play with. How can you feel more alive in the tasks you have in front of you today?<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/zenhabits.net\/forcing\/\">Forcing Yourself to Do a Task vs. Letting Yourself Off the Hook<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/zenhabits.net\">zen habits<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Leo Babauta People often think, when they\u2019re tired or don\u2019t feel like doing a task (or a habit), that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,192],"tags":[191,193],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132016"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132017,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132016\/revisions\/132017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}