People often think, when they’re tired or don’t feel like doing a task (or a habit), that there are really only two choices:
- Force yourself to do the task anyway; or
- Let yourself off the hook
And while there isn’t anything wrong with either of these choices, I’m here to remind you that they are choices. And they’re not the only choices.
What else can you do in that situation? Well, here are just a few other possibilities off the top of my head:
- Choose to take care of yourself, and then come back to the task when you’re more replenished
- Find a reason to do the task that inspires you to do it, even if you’re tired — for example, if you knew that doing a task would save a million people’s lives, you probably wouldn’t say, “Oh, but I’m too tired right now”
- Ask for other people’s help
- Find a creative approach that has you bringing play to the task while also honoring your tiredness
As you can see, there are choices, when we get beyond the only two choices that occur to most of us.
Let’s talk about our tendencies, then talk about how to pursue other options than the two main ones we’ve mentioned at the beginning.