When you try to do anything, the opposing forces are willpower and desire (pushing forward) and internal resistance (pushing back). I’m usually low motivation / low energy and also easily distracted, especially with personal projects — in the moment they rarely seem important.
I’ve been thinking about it for a while. The obvious ways to increase and focus willpower really help (sleeping well, exercise, removing distractions, etc.), just as various mental gymnastics like morning pages and goal rewriting. But fundamentally willpower is limited and falls low on days when several factors occur together, such as lack of sleep, being slightly ill, eating a bit too much — the intense feeling of “do not want” (as I call it) just cannot be overcome.
Recently, certainly after reading Pema Chödrön, I realized that while resistance was steady, I expose myself less by making the next step smaller. Just like in math, there’s no limit to how small the next step is and how slowly I do it. By making the next step microscopic, I could think about the one after and still had the energy to do it.
This is a mental trick I use to get started on something that feels overwhelming, where the only path is oblique. I’m fine when I do get started, but without this approach, whole days are wasted. However, it’s practical for anything and the associated feeling of lightness helps build the habit.
The other day I had an interaction on X where my thinking was aptly illustrated:
Certainly, if it works for you, you can build up the discipline and the habits and “just do it”. I wish I were a person like that in everything. For example, I have no trouble doing intermittent fasting and have done an unbroken streak of more than 500 days now. Hunger is simply something I’m not too bothered about; but not other things.