Why do we have good days and bad days?
You’re not going to find the answer here unfortunately, as I struggle just as much as the next person.
But what you will find here is tactics for moving forward in the face of the bad days anyway. Not through the brute force of willpower, but through simple strategies that reliably work and get us unstuck on the days we feel decidedly…stuck.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the quantity of things to do, then get it all out of your head and onto paper.
Overwhelm happens when we know we have a lot to get done, but we can’t make sense of where to start or what to do next. As the founder of the Getting Things Done framework often says, the brain is great for having ideas but terrible at holding them.
We trust our brains more than we should. We cross our fingers that if it’s between our ears, it should be fine to stay there until we need it again. What happens instead is the tasks, ideas, and to-do items fill our brains like a stack of papers chucked into a small room with the fan on high. It’s in there somewhere, but good luck finding it when you need it.
Instead, pull out a piece of paper and write down anything that has your attention - projects, tasks, deadlines, upcoming meetings to prep for, all of those little things you need to get done at home. Getting them out of your head and onto paper allows you to do what your brain cannot - organize and prioritize.
And you get the unexpected benefit of feeling lighter, more clear. The clutter has been removed so you can focus on what’s next.
If you’re feeling lazy or defaulting to procrastination, then do the smallest possible tasks to build momentum.
Pay a bill. Send one email. Plan your day on paper. Put in a load of laundry. Wash the dishes in the sink. It doesn’t take massive action to beat procrastination. It takes small wins that naturally recenter you and allow you to build on the seemingly meaningless task that you just completed.
You’re not a bad person because you procrastinate. You’re human. But you also have a choice to live in that procrastination, or to change your state through small progression.
If you have a big project in front of you, then define the next 2 things you need to move the project forward.
Most projects never see the finish line, not because of incompetence but because the gravity of the project overwhelms what’s next. It’s akin to running a marathon and only being able to think about the 26.2 instead of the mile in front of you.
What are the next 2 steps you need to take? And have you prioritized those 2 steps on your calendar by blocking time for them? If you can do that, the 26.2 fades and the next mile appears in front of you. String enough of those together and the race takes care of itself.
If you can’t do the whole thing, then just do something.
Doing 10 pushups is better than doing nothing at all. Going on a short walk is better than feeling guilty about skipping your run. Making 2 cold calls is better than scrapping them altogether just because you’re busy.
When “perfect” is the bar, we have lost the game before it even started. F*ck perfect. We live in the real world, not Instagram. Sometimes we just don’t have it. And that’s okay.
Break the thing down into it’s smallest component, and just do that. Our identities are built on evidence, not ideas. And when we give ourselves evidence that we take consistent action, not perfect action, we become the person that we thought was on the other side of perfect.
✌️ and ❤️,
Adam Griffin
Certified High Performance Coach™
👉 Forward Coaching