Work is afraid of you more than you are of it.

Did you ever realize how things work out for us when we least expect it? And most of the time, it works out when we have zero favor within it. What I’m trying to say is, you’ll keep finding ways to do everything else but that one thing you really need to fixate on. You’ll keep finding ways to delay your next step of growth.

Last week, I had to add the finishing touch to one of my projects, so I tried waking up earlier. I set 6 alarms starting from 6 AM and still ended up sleeping till 10 AM. Then I woke up, had my meals, and was ready to invest my time but then remembered that I needed groceries for lunch. I went for it, came back home, and wanted to cook right away, even though, when cooking is my first priority most of the time, I delay it too. I cooked and ate, then finally sat with my task.

Did you see a pattern?

Your mind is always tricking you into doing the side tasks while moving your concentration away from the main one. When cooking is my main task, my mind tricks me into doing ANYTHING else besides cooking. And when my main task was writing, my mind tricked me into doing that same task, which it fought to keep me away from, cooking!

Your mind will do anything to delay your growth, but it’s your mind, and you can trick it back just fine. It’s not a big deal.

There you go, the first and important step. Get yourself into this belief that it’s not a big deal. It’s just your own mind playing tricks like a child, and you need to be a parent to yourself for just a certain amount of time, till your work gets done. Like I said in the title, the work is afraid of you more than you are of it, the chances are high that you’ll need to be your own parent for a while to bring yourself into productivity and the most comforting thing about this is you can act like your idea of an ideal parent or a parent that you always wanted.

Healing happens within yourself, slowly and steadily. You can’t force yourself out of bed suddenly on a random day. You need to communicate with yourself like you would with a 5-year-old, in baby language.

When you have a load of work, suddenly your mind takes you to the article about why napping is important. When you want to nap, your mind tells you to scroll your phone in case you miss a good opportunity. Your brain always brings your wolf in sheep’s clothes. It makes you trip while justifying why tripping is good for you. The more you can grab a fair and unbreakable attention towards it, the more you can walk towards your goals every day.

Now, what is a goal?

The world made the word goal so shiny that we refuse to set anything as a goal if it’s not fancy enough. But just spotting the tricks of your mind can be an amazing goal too. So tomorrow, your goal is not waking up early, not working out, not cooking, but to track the way your mind is going through the day.

Think about a task, make a move towards it, and focus on how your mind is distracting you. Get to know your mind. Regain your mental clarity because your answer is within the doubts. Start this mindful practice, and you can see how subtly your mind affects you, so you have to start in that same subtle way, too. This might take time, 4 weeks or more, but when you learn about controlling your thoughts in an efficient way, it’s going to serve you for a long time.

Let me know in the comments if anything from this article was relatable to you, or you can share your story too. See you soon!