In the past weeks, I have experienced an overwhelming desire to lie down and just not do anything. It had been an amazing time but seeing as this is becoming my new normal, I had to do something about it before it became a lifestyle.
This led to a period of self-reflection and a discovery that I did not pursue many tasks because I felt overwhelmed by them. This overwhelmed feeling did not allow me start some goals that I had wanted to accomplish and for some other tasks, I had no excuse because I just did not want to do them. I recently incorporated these tips into my lifestyle and it helped me tremendously. I hope that they help you too.
- Distract yourself from the task.
This does not mean that you should not do the task but that for any task that you feel is daunting, you should combine it with something that you love. For example, I am not a fan of doing the dishes but when I play music or my favorite comedy show or podcast while I do them, it makes the task bearable. Soon, you forget that you did not want to do it as you laugh along or sing along to your favorite tunes.
2. Divide your goals into smaller achievable tasks.
It can be overwhelming to have this big goal you want to achieve but dividing it into smaller goals makes it seem easier, hence the success of afterpay. For example, you have a goal to lose 50 pounds in 3 months. That’s an amazing goal, but how do you accomplish that? It seems so far away. Breaking it into daily goals will lead you there without thinking of the three months in a stretch. Start one day at a time.
You can say that I will exercise twice daily for 30 minutes or you can say that I will burn 600 calories per day, whatever small goal that seems doable to you. At my laziest, I divided my workouts into 15 minutes and whenever I thought about that time frame, it felt very achievable. I’ll find myself saying: ‘It’s just 15 minutes’ and at the end of the day I would have done 45 minutes of workouts in total. It really helped.
3. Be honest with yourself.
This was a big thing for me because I would be dreaming big. I would find myself saying that I will walk daily for one hour, which seems doable right? Not for me. I don’t really enjoy going outside daily and if it rains, you’ll definitely not see me there especially now. That was not a feasible goal for me. Working out for 15 to 30 minutes with home workouts at a time was what worked for me and something I could keep doing consistently daily. So, what works for you? Ask yourself honestly what you can do realistically, that is the path to consistency.
4. Keep promises to yourself.
Now you have made this goal and documented it. For example, if you have said that you will study in 30-minute increments with breaks and your job is to keep that promise. It’s unfair to yourself especially when you have set an achievable goal to ignore yourself. At the most, you can reduce the size of the goal but don’t break promises to yourself. If you take a break, that is okay as long as you get back on track. Don’t keep promises to other people and let yourself go. You are important.
5. Adapt things to your lazy mode
I find myself sitting almost all day at my job and afterwards while I watch Korean drama. I also wanted to exercise more and I realized that I could also do this while I performed these tasks so I bought a desk pedal and this changed everything. Now I can sit and exercise which is a win-win situation. If you are studying and you know you cannot read physical or eBooks for a long time or you are not in the mood to read, then you can switch to watching videos or animated videos on the topic. Whatever you decide on, just ensure that you do what you can to meet your daily goal.
6. Have an accountability partner
You can have someone that you update with your progress or you can keep yourself in check by writing in your journal daily. You can use either method to have a means of keeping track of your daily or weekly performance.
7. Visualize yourself doing the task
This can be the night before or even some minutes before. I recently realized the amazing power of visualization and how it could stop me or encourage me to perform a task. If I decide that I cannot perform a task, it is working against me because I am visualizing it not happening or being possible. So, let us use this power for good. Visualize yourself performing a task you think is too big or just tiring and I tell you that you will suddenly have an idea on how to perform this task which takes the stress away and soon you would find yourself doing it with no problems or suddenly having more motivation to do it than the last time that you thought about it.
Finally, be kind to yourself, sometimes you just need to rest and that’s okay. Resting does not mean that you are lazy. It only means that your body needs time to rejuvenate. Set that as a goal as well, it is essential and not a bad thing at all.
Thank you for reading and I hope you have a good day.
Write down your goal today, do not delay.
With love,
Dumebi
FOREVERUNASHAMED 