How to Make Yourself GET IT DONE, Even When You Just Don't Want To!

Nov 21, 2022

by Rebecca Coffey

How to Make Yourself GET IT DONE, Even When You Just Don't Want To!

What items are on your 'to-do list' that you tend to push back?

Heidi Grant, the senior scientist at the Neuroleadership Institute and Associate Director for the Motivation Science Centre at Columbia University, has a few strong suggestions for you.

Here are some of the most probable reasons:

1) Are you putting something off because you fear you may mess it up?

Psychologists label two ways to look at this: A Promotion or Prevention Focus. If you are afraid you'll do it wrong, decades of research show that prevention motivation is enhanced by anxiety about what may go wrong. If you are focused on avoiding loss, it is clear that taking action is the only way to get out of danger. So, if you're already afraid you'll do something wrong, why not use it to your advantage and adopt a Prevention Focus? Instead of seeing the completion of the task in terms of how much better off you'll be, see it as a way to avoid loss or hang onto what you already have.

Of course, if you tend to focus on completing a task due to what you'll gain and this works for you, by all means, keep it up!

2) Are you putting something off because you don't feel like doing it?

Heidi Grant suggests you "make like Spock and ignore your feelings [in this case]. They are getting in your way"! Did you buy into the idea that you must feel like taking action? Grant tells us this is 100% nonsense and that, on some level, you need to be committed to what you are doing and want to finish it... start your days earlier, or get healthier... but you don't need to feel like doing it. Just do it. Nothing is stopping you.

3) Are you putting something off because it is boring, hard, or unpleasant?

Try an 'If, Then' approach. IF it is 4 pm, THEN I'll get dressed, grab my gym bag that is already packed and waiting by the door for me, and go do my workout. IF Sally does not mention the schedule change I requested before the end of our discussion, THEN I'll ask her about it before the discussion ends.

So get to it, friends! What exactly are you waiting for??

-Rebecca C :)

Sources

Google, 2022, 'Google Images', viewed 21 November 2022, https://images.google.com/

Grant, H 2014, 'How to make yourself work even when you just don't want to', Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, February 14, pp.1-2