Latest / Do You F*cking Mind? / FOCUS: Stop resisting. Face that thing & get it done.

Transcript

FOCUS: Stop resisting. Face that thing & get it done. · Do You F*cking Mind?

• 0:16
  Speaker 1: This episode is all around stop resisting, face that thing,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and get it done.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: That is the topic of today's PEP Talk.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk about why it is that
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: you end up resisting something so much, and why it
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: feels that that resistance gets worse and worse the more
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: you prolong it. This could be for small tasks around
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the house, it could be for major things. This covers
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: all aspects of things that you do that you are resisting.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Just think about when you don't want to do a task. Let's,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: for the sake of this episode, let's talk about cleaning
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the kitchen, which is left like a pigstyle. You don't
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: want to clean the kitchen. You're sitting on the couch,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: You're watching something you really want to be watching. The
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: thought of cleaning the kitchen, I can guarantee you, is
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: actually worse than cleaning the kitchen. Why, Because you're in
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a back and forth. You're trying to come up with excuses.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: You're trying to get creative and come up with excuses
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: as to why you can prolong it. It's inevitable that
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: it eventually has to get done. But you're thinking of
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: all these things of like, well, you know, you know,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I've earned this rest. I'm on the couch, I'm watching
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: this thing. I wait till the end of the episode,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and this and that, and then the end of the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: episode rolls around and you're like, oh, well, you know,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I don't have to do it now, because maybe I'll
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: wait till I'm cooking the next thing and then rather anyway,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: so you're this resistance. It's not letting you enjoy what
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: you're watching because it's in the back of your minds.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: So you're kind of doing two things at once. You're
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: resisting actually going ahead and cleaning it because you're like,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: that equals discomfort, and I don't want to be a
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: part of that discomfort. I just want to chill. I
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: want to relax. I don't want to do that thing.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: So the back and forth before doing the task ends
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: up being worse than actually doing the task. You're not
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: in the moment, you're wasting time, and you're also also
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: exhausting your decision making quota for the day. You're starting
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to create all these unnecessary thoughts and arguments in your
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: head instead of just actioning the thing. The doing is
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: almost always easier than the anticipation. The same goes with
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: like scary things that you're going to do. Often the
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: anticipation is what kills you, and it's not the actual
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: thing that's that painful when you do the task. When
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: you finally start, you're more focused on the task at hand,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: so you've got less time to think of all the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: peripheral shit about how bad it could be or all
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the things that it reminds you of for how annoying
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Because you're already up and doing it.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: You then start to realize that it's actually not so
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: bad because you're more focused on the process of just
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: getting it done. It is simply momentum that you need
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to get started. You've just got to start. You just
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: have to do that first step.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Then the whole thing seems so much easier.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Once you're standing in the kitchen grabbing one plate out
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: of the dishwasher to put it away, Grabbing that second
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: plate is not that hard. It's getting up off the
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: fucking couch, walking over, putting paws on the thing that's unpleasant.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: But once you've begun the task itself, it's probably not
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: that bad. And I'm using cleaning a kitchen as an example,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: but the same goes for if you're doing something difficult,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: like a work task or an essay that you're writing.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: It's just starting.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Don't look at the bigger picture of like, oh my god,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I've got to do this whole essay. Sit the fuck
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: down and just write something. Okay, sit down and brainstorm.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: When I used to have these essays that would that
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: were daunting, especially in my final year, there were some
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: really daunting pieces that I had to write, and I
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: remember thinking, Okay, I'm not going to write it. I'm
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: just gonna sit down and brainstole ideas.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Before I knew it.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I was there for an hour and I had come
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: up with all these references, found all this shit, and
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I might not have started writing, but I had really
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: set myself up. So the following day when i'd sit
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: down for it, I was thinking, Wow, I've made my
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: life so much easier because I've already started chipping away
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: at that block, you know, so my resistance towards it
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: is nowhere near as bad.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: So you can do this with any task in your life.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Ask yourself, how often does the actual doing of the
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: task cause you.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: That much grief? Not that often.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: It's more the resistance of it because you don't want
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to do something unpleasant, and it's unpleasant because it's done
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: instead of something else that you'd rather be doing, or
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: because you don't really know exactly how to do it,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: so it makes you feel uncomfortable. You're putting something off
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: because you're avoiding that feeling of disas comfort. The more
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: you do this, the more you avoid and put off
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: and put off, the more it depletes your ability to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: just make a fucking decision and roll with it. You
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: start thinking, oh, well, now I've put it off for
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: an hour, Fuck it, I'll just do it tomorrow.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: What's the point now? And you just back and forth,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: back and forth, back and forth.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: We all have a limited amount of sharp decisions you
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: can make in a day. As you progress through that day,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: our decision making quota, as in our sharp decision making quota,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: diminishes and it gets harder and harder and harder to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: make a decision bang on the spot and just go
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: ahead and.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Action that thing.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: So that's why habits are such a good way of
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: curbing people's procrastination because you're not thinking about it, you're
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: not arguing with self with yourself, you're not fucking around.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: If this is uncomfortable with you just fucking have one
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: hour where everything is exactly the same every morning and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you work through that thing. That's why habits are so
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: good for productivity, mainly because you're not in this back
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and forth arguing and wasting up your precious decision making quota.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: So for today, your task, I want you to look
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: at what it is that you're putting off the most.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Is it feeling out of form? Is it renewing your regio?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Is it something to do with your insurance company, is
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: it making a medical appointment, is it cleaning out all
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the shelves in the laundry.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is, or it.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Could be a bigger task, like I said, an essay,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: something to do for work, whatever it is, And I
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: want you to set a five minute timer. Five minutes
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: that is shorter than this pep talk. That is nothing.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: What even is five minutes as a percentage of the day.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: You can't even tell me that because it's so small.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: It's fucking nothing. It's literally about point three percent of
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: your day. It is nothing, or probably less than that.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: So I want you to set that five minute timer
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: and do five minutes dedicated to that task before you
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: do something like you that you want to do so
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: like delayed gratification. So, for example, say you're about to
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: get up and make yourself a coffee or a tea,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: you think not uh uh five minutes? Five minutes to
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: that fucking shelf in the laundry, okay, you set the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: tim up. Once the timer goes off, no matter what
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: you choose to do after that, you've already won. Okay,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: So if the timer goes off, you can ask yourself,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: can I hit another five minutes? And a lot of
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the time you're going to think, well, I'm here now
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: and it's actually not that hard, and I've gotten half
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the shelf done, I might as well just finish the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: rest of the shelf. But if you say no, I
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: can't hit for another five minutes because I really am
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: on a time crunch or that was exhausting and you
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: know that took a lot for me to do that,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: then you know that you're capable of doing five minute
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: blocks at whatever it is that you're trying to do.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: So either way, either outcome, whether you hit that five
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: minute time or again or not, you've won. If you
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: say am I really done after five minutes and the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: answer is yes, good on you for doing something unpleasant
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: that unpleasant for five minutes, but in most cases, the
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: chances are that you will want to hit another five
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: minutes because when you're already in it, the moment has begun.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: You're already in the flow.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: It is fucking happening, and you just have to keep
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: running on that fucking roll or whatever you call it.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: So I want you to do that today.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you have a list as long as your
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: arm of shit that you need to do life admin shit,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: stuff for work, stuff for yourself that you would like
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to get done, that you keep putting off because you
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: know it's uncomfortable. Okay, just start five minute time, aren't
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: do it today? Guys, thank you so much for listening.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that pep talk, and as always,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: remember be kind to yourself, be kind to your brain,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: don't take shit from anyone, and especially don't take shit
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: from yourself.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Don't care