Confidence Hack – Do It Anyway
Yesterday we talked about having bad days and setbacks and how they are normal and part of life. In other words, we all have days when we just don’t want to, or days when we hear that little voice in the back of our head that tells us that we’re wasting our time. On those days, I want you to employ today’s confidence hack which is to do it anyway.
That sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? You may even be wondering right now what type of advice this is. Stay with me, I promise it will start to make sense, and there’s a little more to it then to telling you to just get over yourself and get stuff done.
There is a lot to be said about taking action and creating momentum. Getting started is often the hardest part, isn’t it? Think back on a day when you really didn’t want to go out for a walk or run in the morning. Instead of staying in bed and sleeping in, you made yourself get up, put on your shoes and by the time you were out the door and starting to move your body, it got easier to keep going. You may even have felt happy that you made yourself do. At the very least you felt relieved and proud by the time you got back.
This is what I mean about doing it anyway. This concept of getting started and creating momentum works in all areas of your life. It works just as well for exercising as it does for taking are of a big pile of laundry or a dreaded task at work. The key is to get started by doing it anyway.
When you have one of those days where you don’t want to do anything but sleep in or lay on the couch binging Netflix, think about what you should be doing today and pick the easiest item on the list. Do that to create some momentum. If you’re procrastinating tackling a big project, break it down into baby steps, or pick one small part of it that’s quick and easy to do. Go do that to … you guessed it… create some momentum.
Hopefully this is enough to get you over that initial hump and turn things around for you. If it isn’t, there are some other things you can try. Make that list of tasks you can check of that we’ve talked about in a previous post. Not only does it feel great to check things off the list, it also forces you to break bigger tasks up into smaller, more manageable, and less intimidating chunks.
Last but not least, try bribing yourself. You can spend the rest of the afternoon binging Netflix, if you get the yard cleaned up first. Come up with something fun and meaningful as a treat or bribe for yourself and start getting things done. I promise you’ll feel a big boost in confidence if you can make yourself do it anyway.
