The Paradox of Getting Out of Your Head and Being Active
source: image by Husam Cakaloglu on istock.com
I don’t know about you, but I’m a total head case. All I do is spend time in my head. Remembering old Katy Perry lyrics, that one movie, that one thing. And I’ve gotta tell you: it makes it hard to get stuff done.
Searching for the antidote is like a wild goose chase. What will make me get out of my head? What is it that will make me productive?
There are no good answers to this. Everybody has their own take, but there’s one nugget that keeps popping up.
Just start doing something. Anything. Do it for five seconds. Then you’ll find yourself actually working.
This sounds incredibly simple. Of course! Just start acting. How hard is that? It turns out much harder than you thought.
The problem is that the process of acting and the state of being in your head are two different things. And when you’re stuck in your mind, the hardest thing you can think of is getting to the action.
This is the paradox. How can you get out of your head when the problem is, by definition, that you are stuck in your head? How can you move from one space into another?
Logic has it that it requires picking something to do and doing it. But that’s the issue with being stuck in your own head. You can’t pick.
Every task seems like climbing a mountain and getting started is like trying to gain traction climbing up a steep slope. It doesn’t work.
So, what do we do?
Something I started doing is I made a list of all the activities I was interested in doing. I wrote each down on a separate piece of paper and crumpled them up. I put them in a mason jar and now when I want to do something, but don’t know what, I mix up the papers and then pluck one out.
Whatever I picked I’ll get started on.
I have things in there like writing, knitting, reading, playing the piano, and sewing. You could adapt this for anything.
It’s a simple solution, and it’s not perfect, but it’s a start. It takes away having to make the choice of what to do and that’s half of the battle.
When you don’t have to choose what to do, it takes away the decision and makes it that much easier to get into action.
The second half of the equation is finding the motivation. The getting traction part. Out of everything I’ve read, the most prominent advice is to promise that you will work on it for x amount of minutes. Let’s say you promise to do it for two minutes.
In those two minutes, you start to move past the resistance and get into a space where it starts to flow better. This will work better if you give it more time, let’s say five minutes. But when everything feels like a hurdle, the best thing you can do is just pick up your leg.
So now, the action of getting out of your head isn’t as daunting. It’s still a challenge, but it’s more feasible now.
Acting doesn’t have to be the antithesis of getting out of your head. For the most part, being ahead case is still an action. Maybe not an active action, but it’s still a passive action, and that means you’re already doing something, just not the thing you want.
All you’ve got to do is try and make the transition. Here’s to hoping it goes well.
