Taking action

It’s Monday and there are so many things to celebrate! No snow this morning, then it snowed this afternoon and now it’s just wet – we might as well celebrate both snow and the lack of snow because there are merits in either situation. A brand new week has begun full of possibilities and mystery; I love Deepak Chopra’s phrase “the wisdom of uncertainty” and these days I understand that the last thing we actually want is to know what will happen in the future. How boring! Finally (but I am sure everyone else has loads of other things to celebrate) I have written over 1,000 more words of Chapter One, all done immediately following a very invigorating tramp through the snow, not a soul in sight, on the silent marshes. I suspect I might just live in one of the most inspiring places on earth.

Oh yes and another reason to celebrate: I spent this morning taking action. That really yucky, uncomfortable sort of action that we can all put off that entails filling forms, writing letters and generally engaging with our Big Problem. As always, it was much easier, more pleasant and more quickly done than I expected.

Oddly, I’ve always loved the word “procrastination”, I think because “cras” is the Latin word for “tomorrow”, so it literally means putting off until tomorrow. I love words, especially the richness and diversity of the English language and I get really excited when I find out how they developed. Plus, we all know the feeling of putting something off that we really could do today, while simultaneously knowing that we would be soooo much happier if we just got on with it right now.

Action is a very, very important part of an anti-worry lifestyle because we can actually spend a lot of time worrying about the things that we are putting off, and procrastination can be a part of denial or trying to control the uncontrollable. Actually getting down to doing what we can, and facing up to the things that we can’t control, helps to make worry that bit less relevant.

I have a few weapons for dealing with procrastination and making action easier. As I was sharing yesterday, it always helps to make a commitment to someone else, or even a group of people. It’s one thing to write down on my to-do list or in my diary what I intend to do, but quite another to announce to a Facebook group or a friend or family member that I am going to tackle a certain task on a certain day. I’ve just made myself accountable and I don’t want to have to explain why I haven’t done it.

It also helps to avoid thinking about the task too much before doing it. I practise surprising myself. For example, a while ago I had a phone call I really didn’t want to make, so I didn’t let myself think about it once I had decided when to do it. Even when the phone was ringing, I avoided projecting about the conversation and told myself I would be able to handle whatever happened. And, of course, it was easier than I expected. Partly, I suspect, because I hadn’t worked myself up beforehand!

The other, rather trivial-sounding tip, which I learned many years ago, is to do those things really quickly. Not, of course, to be sloppy or slip-shod (just like those two words next to each other), but not to labour the point. Get everything ready, get focussed and GO! Set a time limit if necessary, and especially if it’s an open-ended task, then get your head down and do your thing and look forward to feeling really pleased that you have taken action.

I applied all of these this morning and it was a breeze. Looking forward to plenty more action during the rest of the week, then I can be as serene as these lions at Colchester Zoo. Unless, of course, they are shutting their eyes to a Big Problem that they ought to be taking some action on…. Thoughts on a postcard or, preferably, in the comment box below.