I Donwanna

The fine art of stiffening one's resolve into action

I need to make myself do a Hard Thing, but instead I’m going to go clean the catbox, and then scrub toilets. Which is silliness, on the face of it. The hard task will likely take an hour, if that. When it’s done, I’ll be free to complete a project I’ve been working on for literal years, and will likely be able to surge forward and have done… soon. Whatever soon looks like. Faster than my progress when I would rather do the gross jobs than push through the hard thing.

We all, I think, have days like this. Pushing through the hard things to get to the fun times is the logical result of maturity and responsibility. There are tasks that must be done: file taxes, make a will, whatever it is you dread. Sometimes, there’s no real reward for doing the Thing. Taxes? Well, you have to do them again next year. Will? You don’t care, you’ll be dead. And yet…

We do them, any way we have to. Whether that is a mental commitment to ‘if I write today, I get to put a sticker on the calendar’ or ‘if I make it through this meeting I’m going to have a piece of chocolate’ or whatever reward you can use to carrot-stick your way through the hard and into the rest of your life. Sometimes it helps to know that if you don’t do this, no one else is going to clean up after you. You’re the end of the line, and your mother doesn’t live here. It’s what being an independent adult brings with it: freedom, and duty.

Discipline is difficult. Setting yourself up to get through the trials of life means having purpose and meaning to your life. Without those, why would you put yourself through the discomfort and inconvenience of doing what must be done? If there is no impetus to get it done, then why not just kick back and ignore it? I mean, I could just put my feet up and grab the nearest book, and neglect the Hard Thing and the cats, not to mention the state of the bathrooms (my poor husband). If I didn’t know that this would nag at me until I finally sit down and do it, I could just… not.

Only I can’t. My conscience bothers me. I’ve got two tabs I can’t close until I do the Hard Thing. Argh! Must. Go. Clean… no. Must do the transcription and get it over with. Time to put on the headphones and crank this out. I can do it.

What is your Hard Thing that is hanging over you? What can you do today, in an hour or less, to make progress on it, or, to finish with it entirely? What do you think that will feel like when you do complete the task? Hold on to that feeling, and get on it. I’ll be here to give you a cyber huzzah! when you’re done.