How To Stop Sulking And Get Anything Done, Right Now.
At the time of writing this article, I’m focusing both my frontal lobes on these two important truths:
- “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” (an actual quote by Blaise Pascal)
- Everything you’re meant to do, is already hardwired into your brain. Your job is to harness and manifest that skill in the right amount, with the right prioritization.
The single most dangerous psychology behind procrastination
Disclaimer: This is the bad cop part of the post.
Repeat after me — the worst thing that you can do to yourself is to admit that you’re okay with not being the best that you can be. Repeat it till it gets hardwired into your brain, and repeat it till you understand.
No amount of supplemental motivation will make this painful truth go away — it is harsh to have unrealistic expectations of yourself, but to have no expectations from yourself in the hour of need, you’re not doing yourself a favor. You might think you’re building a bridge, taking a creative break, or if you’re more romantically inclined… “struggling with creative blocks”, but the reality is, the moment you’ve stopped trying to be the best at what makes you happy, you’ve taken the first step towards quitting.
And it works like a viral loop, because the farther you go away from the things that make you truly happy, the lesser general excitement you sustain about your daily life, and that contributes to further lowering of your own expectations to accommodate the self-pitying, until you push yourself down a really bad downward spiral, going so far down that you start feeling comfortable in those depths. You tell yourself once in a while that it’d be great to see yourself at the ‘end of the tunnel’, towards the “light”, but can you really imagine yourself functioning in that “light” you’re so fondly fantasizing about? Can you imagine outliving your problem the way you’re operating right now, and can you see yourself in that enhanced productivity mode that you obviously need to be in, to stay happy that way?
Disclaimer: This is the good cop part of the article.
The good news is, there is an easy and time-tested way to come out of procrastination in the moment, every time.
It is called the “element of elimination”.
But my favorite name for the process, is “X marks the spot”.
The story begins with the Mahabharata, an Indian mythological epic, where one of the protagonists, Prince Arjuna, is being administered a test in archery skills alongside his peers (teenage royals) by Guru Dronacharya — the designated trainer of rulers in the making.
As legend goes — the guru took all the princes out to a nearby jungle, and revealed his grand examination setup — a small freshwater fish, nailed to a significantly high branch of an old tree. The goal was for the princes to shoot exactly one arrow, bang in the middle of the fish’s only visible eye.
Before letting any of the princes ‘attempt’ to shoot an arrow, the guru asked them all one question, pointing in the direction of the target.
“Tell me, what do you see?”
And each pupil would respond with how the tree was tall, how it was a difficult target, how they were planning on avoiding wind resistance, how far back they were planning to shoot from — the details.
The guru, unimpressed with any of the answers, did not allow any of the princes to shoot an arrow. He seemed rather hell bent on producing only successful attempts — a theme I plan on discussing in one of my later posts.
But then it was Arjuna’s turn, and when the guru asked him what he saw, he responded:
“I see the eye of the fish.”
The question was repeated to him, indicating that he was supposed to elaborate further. But our little Arjuna seemed too stubborn to change his answer. He kept saying he saw the eye of the fish, and he was allowed to shoot, and surprise surprise, he made the target.
That’s not a feel good story. I force myself into believing this, because growing up in the subcontinent, I realize that it takes massive effort to create a piece of content that sustains through hundreds, maybe thousands of years of public memory without distorting the essence. Irrespective of the format in which the Mahabharata has been retold, some key aspects remain the same, because they are just based on pure logic.
Even something as old as that ancient text doesn’t stop to let us brood over the fact that the only way to excel inside a peer community that has become too comfortable with its current state of being, is to eliminate the unnecessary and focus only on your one important target.
Focusing on one target makes your entire life seem effortless.
Every Indian ascetic/yogi worth listening to today, is clear about one thing — the path to true salvation lies in realizing how effortless the journey is. Now, there’s a finite set of links to distinguish between your life’s true purpose and all the other things you may be good at — but once you start eliminating the worries about all the other things that you’re not good at producing results with, you are left with a singular goal, which becomes effortless because you have all this potential inside you, which you aren’t going to use for anything else!
It’s really that simple. You need to look at the fish in the eye and not look at anything else till you’ve hit your target. And in the process, don’t beat yourself up too much. But don’t try to stop midway, try to hunt a bear because it’s fun and lament over not being a good hunter.
If you are the type of person that handles motivational Quidditch talk with a decent amount of comprehension, then…
Play to your strengths, Harry.
Disclaimer: Yes, the author is a potterhead.
