It’s an invisible wall. Solid and unmoving. I’ve been
hitting it without realising it’s there.
My attention has been focused elsewhere. Managing the
immediacy of the lockdown, adjusting work patterns, home life, scrabbling to
find positives and possible ways forward, rather than treading water and
waiting.
Yet it’s becoming more obvious there’s an obstacle in my
way, that I can’t see.
I’m trying to get back into the routine I had, and get on
with the activities I saw as critical and a priority.
But my attempts to do this take me nowhere. And I berate
myself for procrastinating, which I know comes easy when I don’t really want to
do something. Some how though, this is different.
And it’s disconcerting because I’m not sure what this means.
What effect will this have for me longer term. What am I missing if I ignore
it?
It’s there, yet I can’t make sense of it. So am I wasting my
precious time trying to figure out what it is and how I overcome it?
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I’ve talked before about fear and procrastination, and I’ve
found ways to help me through those situations, which is why this feels
different.
So how do you deal with an unknown? Something that’s
difficult to make sense of and unclear what the impact would be if you ignore
it.
It may not be obvious at first. It’s taken me a while to
realise there’s a repeating pattern going on. And I find it helpful to
acknowledge and thank myself for having spotted what’s happening and choosing
to do something about it.
Sounds a bit cringeworthy when I say that, yet I also know I
could have easily continued to ignore it and then it would have grown into
something much bigger and harder to deal with. Acknowledging to myself that I
spotted it, helps remind me that it’s worth paying attention to the little niggles
that sit there and don’t go away.
So what can you do?
At first, I tried numerous ways of ending my procrastinating
tactics; blanking out time in my calendar, turning off my email, attempting to
do the work first thing before anything else, creating a reward
incentive.
Then I dismissed it as no longer being such an important
activity!
After realising, this was simply ignoring a problem that
wasn’t going away, I sought inspiration looking for different ways I could
approach it.
I tried to reason and make sense of what has stopped me from
simply getting on with this work.
And now I’ve realised that it’s an invisible blocker that I
may never full grasp.
What’s become more apparent is there’s a balance, that as
I’ve swung one way (I’ve got to fully get to grips and understand what’s
stopping me doing this) to the other way (ignore and not bother), I’ve become
immersed so deeply with everything that it’s preventing me from taking a look
down at what’s really going on.
Some activities rightly no longer have the priority I once
gave them. They still have importance, but the emphasis has changed.
Whilst I usually rely on gaining a deeper understanding to
help me solve problems, a lack of information makes that difficult to do. So
I’m focusing on what it takes to get something done. Finding a crack in that
invisible wall that gives me a finger hold.
I’ll think “what was that all about” later.
And what makes the difference now, is that having got my
head around the importance of these activities and adjusted their priority
within my work, the frustration I’ve been feeling has lessened. And that’s
helped me move on with the things that do matter right here and now.
