Checked replies so far, no one has given you the right answer.
Whenever you don’t do something, you have a reason for not doing it. If you find yourself stuck in a cycle of intending to do, and not doing, it’s always because you’re not taking your reason for NOT doing it seriously; you’re often habitually ignoring it.
When you successfully take your reasons for not doing something seriously, either you stop wanting to do it, or you change how you’re doing it, or your reason for not doing it simply goes away.
So, what does it mean/look like to take your reason for not doing something seriously? It doesn’t look like overanalyzing it in your head—if you find yourself having an internal argument notice that you’ve tried this a million times before and it hasn’t improved things.
It feels like listening. It feels like insight, like realizing something important that you hadn’t noticed before, or had forgotten about.
If you keep pursuing strategies of forcing yourself, of the part of you that wants to do the thing coercing the part(s) that don’t, then you’ll burn out. You’re literally fighting yourself; so much of therapy boils down to ‘just stop hitting yourself bro’.
Got over my avoidance of responding to replies here after a bit :)
I’ve tried a lot of self-help flavoured stuff (atomic habits etc.) before and it hasn’t worked, and Focusing seemed quite different. I’ve given it a go and I think I’ll try and work a bit more with it. After just a short session, I feel like I gained a significant insight, that I have a crippling fear of “being in trouble” that manifests as a tightness in my lower chest, and seems to activate a lot when I think about specific things I’m avoiding. Thanks for the resources, and the new way of looking at the problem.
Checked replies so far, no one has given you the right answer.
Whenever you don’t do something, you have a reason for not doing it.
If you find yourself stuck in a cycle of intending to do, and not doing, it’s always because you’re not taking your reason for NOT doing it seriously; you’re often habitually ignoring it.
When you successfully take your reasons for not doing something seriously, either you stop wanting to do it, or you change how you’re doing it, or your reason for not doing it simply goes away.
So, what does it mean/look like to take your reason for not doing something seriously?
It doesn’t look like overanalyzing it in your head—if you find yourself having an internal argument notice that you’ve tried this a million times before and it hasn’t improved things.
It looks like, and indeed just basically is, Focusing (I linked to a lesswrong explainer, but honestly I think Eugene Gendlin does a much better job)
It feels like listening. It feels like insight, like realizing something important that you hadn’t noticed before, or had forgotten about.
If you keep pursuing strategies of forcing yourself, of the part of you that wants to do the thing coercing the part(s) that don’t, then you’ll burn out. You’re literally fighting yourself; so much of therapy boils down to ‘just stop hitting yourself bro’.
Oh nice, stavros already got it before I posted :)
This is the path forward.
Got over my avoidance of responding to replies here after a bit :)
I’ve tried a lot of self-help flavoured stuff (atomic habits etc.) before and it hasn’t worked, and Focusing seemed quite different. I’ve given it a go and I think I’ll try and work a bit more with it. After just a short session, I feel like I gained a significant insight, that I have a crippling fear of “being in trouble” that manifests as a tightness in my lower chest, and seems to activate a lot when I think about specific things I’m avoiding. Thanks for the resources, and the new way of looking at the problem.
Ouch, you beat me to my answer, but I’m always glad to see fellow practitioners :)