The squishy in-betweens is what I call those times after you have made a choice, you know what you want to do, and you have identified the desired outcome. Now you have the squishy in-betweens. The time when you actually have to get to work on the thing.
How do you get to work on this thing that you have decided is important enough to name? I have been reading Be Useful, Seven Tools for Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger. I am enjoying it. His advice is not necessarily all that new or different; I do like hearing about his journey and the ways in which he has applied the seven tools. Arnold believes in thinking big; he aptly points out that it takes the same amount of energy to think small as it does to think big.
Small bites, baby steps, incremental tasks are all trusted methods for tackling projects, big or small. This is very true, and I know it works from personal experience. My struggle is to stay out of my own head, create a time on my calendar for a small bite each day, and then do the work. Why do I have to stay out of my own head? Because my own head will want me to tackle too much at once, try to schedule big blocks of time, hours on end. I know all too well that what happens is that life intervenes. Sometimes life intervening could look like a pile of dirty clothes, that box of old photos I have been meaning to sort for two years, or finding all the people I ‘should’ connect with on LinkedIn. Yes, life intervening can be just plain old procrastination.
I have often shared with clients my sincere belief that we are all much more afraid of success than failure. Failure is familiar, the familiar is more comfortable than the unknown, and the unknown is bound to create change. Most of us do not like change. It is so silly when you think about it because our possible success is a change we say we want. Why would we not want change? When I consider all the changes in my life on balance the changes have been for the better. When I acted from fear then the results were not great. When I have been an observer of my own life the results are not great. Procrastination is related to perfectionism. Moving away from perfection helps. Movement helps. Asking for help, helps.
