08-20-2017, 05:27 AM
I've had this issue and what I've found is that I become more interested in learning but the mind is going for low hanging fruit in terms of learning, so in the past I just started picking up many things which gave me an easy fix in terms of a sense of short term achievement but got me no closer to the goal.
Actually sitting down and grinding it out with the actions and learning you want to do will still take effort and it's useful to have strategies for making that pain, fear and discomfort manageable.
Since I posed the problem to myself I have come up with a strategy which seems to be helping me and I'll share it in case it helps - note when I refer to 'you' I acknowledge that this may not apply to you or your style, I'm merely contributing to you in case it is useful for you or anyone else who may read.
Say you're sitting there at 1pm and you're at a loss, about how to start and you want to get through a set of tasks.
Step 1. Decide clearly that you're not going to work passed a certain time. Say you decide that at 6PM you're going to the gym and going to have an enjoyable evening. This is important, you have to respect yourself and your limitations, you're not going to work forever, and you care about yourself enough to treat yourself just for trying.
Step 2. Set out a task list, with a 'complete by' time. They have to be very manageable and in a maximum of 15 minute chunks. I'll walk you through what's in my notebook.
It's now 1:08.
Begin work - 1:10
List things that need to be done - 1:15
Go through list and expand on each, do I have what I need to complete these? 1:25
Pick top three tasks to begin in order of priority/and ease of completion. 1:30
ensure you have a digital clock near by to view the time, and how it is progressing you will note that this removes some of the anxiety about the work you're doing and how long it is taking - you will feel the value and space of one minute, two minutes, three minutes etc - and in doing that you will be able to enter into pleasurable flow states.
In 20 minutes you have a clear sense of what you can achieve - now repeat the process again with the first task you identified, what can you do in the next 5/10 minutes? it could be just locating the necessary books/resources and settling down... after that, say your goal is to read through a chapter of a text book with sub headings, your next step may be to, within 10 minutes note down each sub heading with a sentence on each about what you think each is.
Then your goal may be to spend the next 20 minutes reading under the first sub heading etc. so in your note book you will have something like
1.45 books, note paper and resources needed ready
2.00 clear on first chapter sub headings - what are they, what could be under each.
2.10 - understand first paragraph
yes 10 minutes on one paragraph, if you think it's complex stuff and it's a short paragraph, give yourself 10-15-20 mins, set yourself up for winning, and not failing with each of these - the time given should be enough to make you feel confident you can achieve the goal in that time, but just stretching enough to keep it exciting.
This has been working for me with work related tasks and studying, there may or may not be something useful in there for you.
Actually sitting down and grinding it out with the actions and learning you want to do will still take effort and it's useful to have strategies for making that pain, fear and discomfort manageable.
Since I posed the problem to myself I have come up with a strategy which seems to be helping me and I'll share it in case it helps - note when I refer to 'you' I acknowledge that this may not apply to you or your style, I'm merely contributing to you in case it is useful for you or anyone else who may read.
Say you're sitting there at 1pm and you're at a loss, about how to start and you want to get through a set of tasks.
Step 1. Decide clearly that you're not going to work passed a certain time. Say you decide that at 6PM you're going to the gym and going to have an enjoyable evening. This is important, you have to respect yourself and your limitations, you're not going to work forever, and you care about yourself enough to treat yourself just for trying.
Step 2. Set out a task list, with a 'complete by' time. They have to be very manageable and in a maximum of 15 minute chunks. I'll walk you through what's in my notebook.
It's now 1:08.
Begin work - 1:10
List things that need to be done - 1:15
Go through list and expand on each, do I have what I need to complete these? 1:25
Pick top three tasks to begin in order of priority/and ease of completion. 1:30
ensure you have a digital clock near by to view the time, and how it is progressing you will note that this removes some of the anxiety about the work you're doing and how long it is taking - you will feel the value and space of one minute, two minutes, three minutes etc - and in doing that you will be able to enter into pleasurable flow states.
In 20 minutes you have a clear sense of what you can achieve - now repeat the process again with the first task you identified, what can you do in the next 5/10 minutes? it could be just locating the necessary books/resources and settling down... after that, say your goal is to read through a chapter of a text book with sub headings, your next step may be to, within 10 minutes note down each sub heading with a sentence on each about what you think each is.
Then your goal may be to spend the next 20 minutes reading under the first sub heading etc. so in your note book you will have something like
1.45 books, note paper and resources needed ready
2.00 clear on first chapter sub headings - what are they, what could be under each.
2.10 - understand first paragraph
yes 10 minutes on one paragraph, if you think it's complex stuff and it's a short paragraph, give yourself 10-15-20 mins, set yourself up for winning, and not failing with each of these - the time given should be enough to make you feel confident you can achieve the goal in that time, but just stretching enough to keep it exciting.
This has been working for me with work related tasks and studying, there may or may not be something useful in there for you.
Your task is not to seek for Love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
