{"id":132419,"date":"2024-09-27T12:11:08","date_gmt":"2024-09-27T16:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/?p=132419"},"modified":"2024-09-27T12:46:27","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T16:46:27","slug":"turning-towards-a-task-youve-been-avoiding-for-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/27\/turning-towards-a-task-youve-been-avoiding-for-weeks\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning Towards a Task You\u2019ve Been Avoiding for Weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">By <a href=\"http:\/\/leobabauta.com\">Leo Babauta<\/a><\/h4>\n<p>Let\u2019s imagine that there\u2019s a big task you\u2019ve been avoiding for weeks (or maybe a bunch of them!) \u2026 it just becomes this ball of dread that you don\u2019t want to think about, but that you feel really bad that you\u2019ve been putting off.<\/p>\n<p>Sound familiar? Everyone has something like this, whether it\u2019s a big work project, taxes or budgeting, a difficult email, a creative project, or just some regular tasks you don\u2019t want to deal with.<\/p>\n<p>So let\u2019s assume you\u2019d really like to do this task \u2026 how do you turn towards it?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m going to give you a practice you can take on, turning towards one difficult task at a time, until your whole life starts to flow.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the practice:<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Notice that you\u2019re avoiding the task<\/strong>. It might be something you keep kicking to the next day. Or an email that\u2019s been sitting in your inbox. Maybe there are a lot of them \u2026 but pick one and notice that you\u2019re avoiding it. Set an intention to turn towards it, just a little, as a practice.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pause for a moment and sit with the task<\/strong>. You don\u2019t have to do the task yet. Just think about the task for a few moments, and feel the feelings that come up. Maybe dread, feeling bad about yourself, judgment, fear. You don\u2019t have to think too much about the feelings, just let yourself feel them for a few moments. Breathe.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Take a break if you need to<\/strong>. Get up and walk around. Drink some water, stretch, do a little movement, dance, whatever you like. Then try step 2 again.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Remind yourself of why this is important<\/strong>. Why do you care about this? Is there an important outcome that will come from doing this? Something that matters to you?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Try the smallest step<\/strong>. With a big reason, take a small action. Tiny. Can you open it and read the first sentence? Can you write a few words? Just do that, and breathe.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Celebrate yourself<\/strong>. It\u2019s a start! You\u2019ve turned towards the task! It might seem silly or unworthy of celebrating, but even turning towards something in a small way like this is a huge victory. Acknowledge yourself, and <a href=\"https:\/\/tenor.com\/V2AV.gif\">\u200bdo a little dance\u200b<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Then keep practicing! Turn towards the task again, after a little break. Then again.<\/p>\n<p>Take on another task you\u2019ve been avoiding.<\/p>\n<p>Then another.<\/p>\n<p>Soon these tiny steps, tiny turning towards, will unblock a large part of your life. Then nothing can stop you.<\/p>\n<p>May your life become unlocked.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/zenhabits.net\/unlocked\/\">Turning Towards a Task You\u2019ve Been Avoiding for Weeks<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/zenhabits.net\">zen habits<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Leo Babauta Let\u2019s imagine that there\u2019s a big task you\u2019ve been avoiding for weeks (or maybe a bunch of [&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],"tags":[191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132419"}],"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=132419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132420,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132419\/revisions\/132420"}],"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=132419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}