Small Imperfect Action

Last week my husband and I both came down with some pretty nasty colds. We had to cancel plans with friends, and postpone tasks and errands that we no longer had the energy to do. 

One of the things that I ended up cutting from my to-do list was writing my weekly blog post. It was the right decision…and it also brought up a lot of shame and worry for me. Did this mean I wasn’t taking this project seriously enough? Why couldn’t I just “suck it up” and do it anyway? What if I never sat back down to write ever again? And I only continued to spiral out from there. 

For the first half of this week, I let myself stew in these thoughts. I guess I was thinking that if I forced myself to sit with the feelings of shame and worry, then I’d be holding myself accountable and taking responsibility for my inaction.

This type of logic is slippery, though. It can very easily trick us into believing that it’s here to motivate us. 

And I’ve found that far too often, it does the very opposite. 

It turns out that feeling guilty about deferring a task and then worrying that because you deferred it you’ll never do it again, is a recipe for continuing to defer the task. 

So instead, cut yourself some slack. Recognize you’re human and sometimes you need to change your plans. 

And if you’re anything like me, it’s also helpful to remind yourself that these thoughts and feelings are also totally normal. In fact, I find it helpful to  thank these thoughts for trying to help me (because ultimately they are trying to be helpful) and then tell them that they’re actually getting in the way.

The real antidote in this type of situation: take small and imperfect action. 

This very blog post is a case in point.