The secret to doing everything you ever wanted to do...

Many things can deflect us from getting
where we want to be.

A friend of mine posted an article on Facebook recently about a method of getting up early in the morning by not thinking about it, but just doing it.  The article is here. 

I've been mulling it over and started thinking that most things are only difficult to do when we stop to consider the alternatives.  Like staying in bed rather than getting up, or watching a movie, rather than working on that creative project.

The moment we stop to think about it, we can come up with a dozen other things we could do, most of which might be easier or preferable to the thing we really should do.

But, if we stop even allowing ourselves to think of alternatives and just do the thing we are meant to do, then we’re probably more likely to get it done.  Which really goes without saying.

I’m re-reading a book at the moment: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.  He talks a lot about Resistance and the different guises it takes to prevent us from doing the thing we ought to be doing.  He says that, as a result of giving in to ‘Resistance’, we end up feeling 'like hell': deep down ,we know we’re not doing what we’re born to do, and we become restless, seeking many ways of distracting ourselves: TV; music; games; sex.

But Pressfield, with great insight, writes: ‘We will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc., but only by doing our work.’ (Pressfield, 2002, The War of Art.)

If we want to write a novel, there is no five-point quick fix method.  The only way is to write a novel.

If we want to get up early and go for a run, hitting snooze and staying bed won’t help.  The only way is to get up and go for a run.

The secret, then, to doing anything and everything we want to do is...to do it.

I’m trying to learn (note the tentative nature of this statement!) to block out the alternatives to ‘doing the work’; they will never serve to assist me with the projects I so desperately want to complete.

Don’t think, do. 

It sounds like something Yoda would say.