Over(thinking) isn't the same as doing
Bad news – thinking isn’t acting
I know, I know.
When you spend a lot of emotional energy thinking, and let me tell you, I am a champion over-thinker, it’s easy to feel like you’re actually doing something.
Thinking feels like acting because of the emotional energy you exert on that hamster wheel in your mind, which is exhausting.
Unfortunately, despite the very real fatigue thinking, should-ing, shame-ing and guilt-ing can cause for you, the end result is just more shame-ing, guilt-ing and exhaustion.
In 2014 I was laid off from a full-time job at the University of Maine at Augusta. In those first few months before I found even a part-time job, I spent hours everyday looking for other jobs.
Looking.
I might even update my resume and draft a cover letter.
But at the end of the day, despite my exhaustion, I hadn’t applied for any jobs.
Sure I’d taken some action. But if I was being honest with myself, I’d spent more time contemplating whether I wanted the job – as though someone was reaching through the screen and offering it to me right then and there. I’d imagine myself working at that particular place and wonder where I’d live and before I knew it, I’d drained myself without having taken any action at all.
I’ve had to be careful of this phenomenon in recent weeks especially, as I approach the reality of the racial injustice in our country. Like many others, I see what is going on and I think about the problem and read about the problem and talk to friends about the problem and I try to try to understand the problem and…
I do nothing.
I have to accept the reality that thinking isn’t doing. And talking isn’t acting. Have you ever decided to commit to a thing – let’s say running – and then hop on line to find out more about running? Maybe you bought a new pair of shoes and matching shorts and a top.
Those things make it feel like you’re truly beginning a process, but what if you never get past buying the shoes and downloading the Couch to 5k app? Well, in coach speak, it means that you never got past the preparation stage.
In human behavior there is a model known as the Trans-theoretical model of change which highlights the six stages we go through in our preparation to make change.
Pre-contemplation
Contemplation
Preparation
Action
Maintenance
Termination
In the pre-contemplation phase, you have no intention of changing anything in the next six months. You’re either unaware that you need to make a change or you are too focused on the cons of changing a behavior. In other words, a friend suggests that you join reach out to me for coaching - or that you join the gym where I work, Spurling Fitness.
But all you can think about is how hard it will be to find time to workout, how much it will cost, and how intimidating the entire process might be (it's not, I swear-promise I really focus on the kindness thing).
In the contemplation phase, you intend to change a behavior in the next six months. You’re no longer focused on the cons – you are now weighing both the pros and the cons. Now when you think of joining the gym you are also thinking about how good it will feel to move, the results other people have had and how it will feel for you to get those results, and how you could probably make it work in your schedule three times per week.
What if we never get beyond the first or second stage though?
Take a minute right now, and pull out a sheet of paper. What are some of the actions that you are mulling over right now? List them out. My current example is writing my next book.
Now make two columns under each of those actions: one labeled thinking, and one labeled doing. Let's define doing as carrying out a series of tasks. Let's define thinking as reflecting on those tasks that need to be carried out.
Research by psychologists Arie Kruglanski, Tory Higgins, and their colleagues suggests that we have two complementary motivational systems: the “thinking” system and the “doing” system — and we’re generally only capable of using one at a time.
If you tend to focus more on your thinking system, you will get caught up in a life of inaction.
What you want is progress, in life and career. But you can only make that happen if you find ways to kick start your "doing" system.
Which is why my advice to many people when it comes to doing is in the name of my upcoming fitness book: "Start Where You Are." (Which is also the name of an excellent book by Buddhist nun Pema Chodron.) You can only move into the "doing" column by starting.
So start.
Begin.
Pick a point and go.
Action breeds motivation. So do yourself a favor - take a look at those goals you wrote out on that piece of paper - list out a few actions and choose one. Then set a timer for 10 minutes and start. The only rule is this: you can either do that action (in my case, it's writing) or NOTHING for 10 minutes. So you can't check social media, or your email or the news or pick up the dog toys strewn around your house from your 13-week old puppy.
Make today the day that you start.