How To Get Off Your Butt

Sometimes it’s difficult to get off your butt and do the things you need to do to accomplish the goals you choose. This includes both the big life-changing goals and the little ones as well.

Why is it so difficult to force yourself to wash the dishes when your goal is to have a clean orderly kitchen? Why does that trip to have the oil changed in your car seem to never happen? Why don’t you make that phone call to a friend? Why don’t you take the initiative to call about that job? Why don’t you sit down and write that blog post?

After studying up on this problem, I’ve concluded that there are several reasons why this happens that come in two broad categories: physical, mental, and sometimes both.

Physical

If I’m under the weather or my back is giving me problems, my motivation to do anything goes to zero. This is a purely physical reason things don’t get done and it happens to everyone.

Part physical and part mental reasons I sometimes don’t get things done happens when I lack energy. In the past, I’ve discovered that I lack energy because I’m not getting enough exercise, my diet sucks, and I’m stressing about the things I should be doing.

I write for a living and I’m obsessive about my projects. This creates three problems. I’m on my butt too long, I forget to eat, and everything else (including the dishes, weeding the garden, paying bills, etc.) goes on the back burner.

I’ve tried a variety of tactics to solve this problem. Some of them work some of the time, but none of them work all the time. Setting a timer doesn’t work for me at all. Allotting designated times for specific tasks seems to work the best for me on a day-to-day basis.

Another thing that works is to get the hell out of Dodge for a few days. Camping in either tent or a hotel works great if I leave my laptop and phone at home. Hint: tent camping where there is no reception is best.

Friendships have been saved by forcing myself to call someone and set up a time to have coffee or lunch with them. It’s less painful for me if I set the time a few days away. My monkey brain doesn’t feel quite so threatened that way and guilt holds me to the date. I know, it’s not perfect, but hey, what is?

Fortunately, I don’t have a physical disability that inhibits me from writing and researching. Some of you are not that lucky. The big question for you is then ‘What do I do now?’ Hint: sitting on your butt is not the answer.

Just so you know, you are not alone. There is a point in time when most of us can no longer perform physical or mental tasks well enough to include them in our future career plans.

The vista of choices at this point can be an exciting adventure or you can give up. Those are your two choices. If you choose to give up and wallow in misery for the rest of your life, that’s a waste of your valuable time. I will cover ways to deal with this when and if you find yourself in this situation next week.

For most of you, a physical disability is not a problem. Maybe you obsess over projects as I do. I see you out there. Some of you will fizzle out like a Fourth of July firework. You must guard against both the demands you put on yourself and the demands others try to place on you to prevent this from happening. Any major project like remodeling a house, starting a business, deciding to homestead qualifies. If you don’t figure out ways to prevent burnout, there’s an excellent chance you’ll end up being like said firework. That price is too high.

Emotional

Under the physical reasons above, there were both physical and mental elements that resulted in a lack of energy, but there can be purely mental reasons why you don’t get off your butt and procrastination is a big one. Procrastination and its cousins which include confusion, anxiety, and depression are all fear-based causes.

Unfortunately, these days we seem to be a fear-based society. Our monkey brains react like there’s a saber-toothed tiger around every corner hell-bent on eating us for lunch. Of course, it’s exciting to be afraid, but when fear gets in the way of your life, it’s time to do something about it.

Maybe you’re afraid of making a mistake. That’s okay, no one likes to make mistakes, but there would be no innovation without them. The best way to handle this fear is to acknowledge it. Have a conversation with it. “Hello little fear,” you say. The fear is not you, it’s a feeling from that part of your brain that thinks it’s saving your life

I can hear some of you screaming in my ear. I don’t have time to make a mistake. To you I say, unless you’re on your deathbed, go ahead and try. I’m older than dirt but I’m working on this blog and am launching a book project. If I die before I see either come to fruition, who cares? For others of you, it might be I don’t have the money to make a mistake. That’s the lamest excuse of all. There is lots of money. So, go ahead and screw up. When you do, it may cause some readjusting to your life. “Mom, can I borrow your couch for a while?” So what? You start over.

Now let’s talk about procrastination. You procrastinate because A. you don’t want to do a task because it’s unpleasant or B. you’re afraid of attempting to do a task C. you’re confused about how to proceed

When I procrastinate it’s usually because I dislike doing it, it causes me pain, or I prefer to work on a project. If I dislike doing something or prefer to do something else, I find breaking the task down to its smallest elements and doing those things one at a time works. For instance, paying the bills is a task I hate doing. I break that down into three parts. Gather up the bills, open envelopes and stack the statements, and pay bills. Sometimes that’s a three-day process. Works for me.

The most challenging are those tasks that cause me pain such as working in the garden or when someone I care about falls ill. Remember I told you I was obsessive about projects. This flaw in my character can cause an undue amount of pain when I go into the garden and decide to pull all the weeds or make the task of spending every waking minute working to help the person I care about.

The garden task causes physical pain, and because I know when I start the task, I will want to finish it, I procrastinate starting. The only way around this for me is to section off the garden mentally. That way I can have a sense of one project completed when I’ve weeded one small section and I have minimized the pain.

When someone I care about is ill, my full attention goes to help. Everything else goes on the back burner. Giving 100% of my mental energy to this type of problem isn’t productive since it is rare that even the sickest person requires 100% of your physical and mental energy. This is when I fall back on my favorite books to help me put things in perspective. It’s not perfect, but it helps.

Confusion is a huge reason for me to not get off my butt. The most confusing for me these days is what tech to use. The confusion comes from too many choices and insufficient data to make a choice. Since I know this is an ongoing problem and making a bad choice can cost copious amounts of time and money, I’ve decided to rely on a process.

If confusion firmly plants you on your butt, whether it’s deciding on a car to buy, or what is the best way to design your website, here are my suggestions. Hopefully, they will help you.

Find successful people. By that I mean they have found a car that’s reliable and meets any other criteria you choose to include. They have successful blogs that have the same purpose as your blog.
Look for folks who are in a similar financial situation. For instance, it would be an act of sheer stupidity for me to look at Exxon Mobile’s site to make my decisions. They can afford to hire teams of techies to create a customized site and maintain it. I don’t see this blog as ever generating that kind of revenue. There are two reasons for that. My goal is not to get rich, it’s to be of benefit. If it ultimately generates enough value and resulting revenue to pay for itself and support my family, that will be enough. That’s my happy place.
Know your knowledge limitations. If you don’t know anything about cars, get the opinions from someone who does or from a reliable source. A friend of mine used Consumer Reports to make his decision. If you don’t know anything about building a website or a business of any kind, refer to 1 & 2 above for the data you need to decide how to proceed.

Anxiety and depression can both completely take the wind out of your sails and turn you into a life-long couch potato. It helps to remember that these are feelings you experience they are not you. I’ve covered this topic in other posts which I’ve referenced below.

That’s it for now. See you next week. Be sure and join the family, we would love to have you.

Helpful resources:

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/resources/consumer-resources/

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm – Your local library might be a good place to look without needing to subscribe.

http://mamavic.com/feeling-sad-wash-the-dishes/

http://mamavic.com/want-success-heres-a-simple-tool-guaranteed-to-help/

http://mamavic.com/decisions-decisions-decisions/

http://mamavic.com/the-cause-and-cure-of-motivation-paralysis/

http://mamavic.com/procrastination-the-brat-within/

http://mamavic.com/fear-got-you-down/

http://mamavic.com/be-careful-what-you-think/

http://mamavic.com/how-i-conquer-the-blackness-of-depression/