I Don't Feel Like It

“I don’t want to” is very different from “I don’t feel like it.”  They are often confused.

I want to be healthy and in shape.

​I don’t feel like avoiding sugar, eating spinach, protein and lifting weights. 

I want to have plenty of money. 
I don’t feel like working hard all the time.
Desire generally for me when it comes to goals is more about wanting something on a more generalized scale: I want to get in shape.

That does not mean I will feel motivated to work out.   These two are not the same. They are more like cousins who’ve met once and are cool with each other, but they then go their separate ways. 

This is an important thing to know though. You’re not going to feel like going for that run necessarily. You may feel like it.  You may build up a streak of running daily, and then it’s not necessarily that you feel like it, but more likely you just have far fewer hang ups about just doing the darn thing.  Then you’re doing it, and not worrying all the time and debating and playing mind games. Do I feel like it? Do I want to? Am I motivated?

The thing is sometimes you will really feel like it and that’s great.   The other thing is that often you likely won’t feel like it but for one reason or another you need to do it.

We often reserve this “doing” for our “musts”  I “must go to work” “I must pay my bills” “I must shower” and so on.  What happens with those things? WE DO THEM! 

We don’t spend hours deliberating about whether to go to the meeting or not, you don’t ask yourself all the time “Do I feel like paying the bills?”  No, you do the things you must do in order to function and keep the groceries coming in.

So what I propose is that you expand your circle of musts, and worry less about what you feel like doing.

To be clear, I don’t approach writing a blog post the same way I approach going to a meeting for my day job.  They feel different.  

BUT there is a thing here, and that thing is that you start.

You start the thing, and then it kind of takes on its own force, suddenly you’re not questioning and umming and oohing, you’re doing. It can even feel like magic (maybe it’s flow)  and you look up and sometimes it’s done! Or it’s at least partially done.
So, what can you start on? That you don’t feel like doing?

Can you text a friend you’ve been meaning to?
Can you look up that class you’ve thought about 100’s of times?
Can you start to write that blog post?
Can you start jogging?

Starting isn’t the point, but if you start, you may find you more often than not keep going.

What can you start?