15. Cultivate Killer Followthrough
I know all too well the frustration of having something planned on my calendar, like a business task or a workout, and not wanting to do it at all when the time comes. Even when they’re things I’ve picked for myself, every cell in my body wants to grumble aloud. And if you can resonate, this episode is for you.
I’ve told myself in the past that the thing I planned couldn’t possibly be something I truly want because I have a voice in my head resisting it. But y’all, I’m glad this isn’t the case. If you’re going through this, you might feel defeated or confused right now, but don’t worry because I’m showing you why it happens and what you can do about it today.
Tune in this week to discover why we sometimes don’t want to do the things we’ve planned for ourselves, and how to outsmart this part of your brain to cultivate killer followthrough. I’m sharing a practice you can try out to help you get clear on why you would actually want to get that thing done so that over time, you can blow your own mind with what you accomplish.
If you love the podcast and want to take this work deeper, I have great news! I have space for new one-to-one coaching clients starting this month, so click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
If you want guidance in walking yourself through my deep dive strategy sessions, subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts! Make sure to follow the instructions here to receive an email from me with the PDF document!
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
Why we sometimes don’t want to do the things we’ve planned for ourselves.
The 3 imperatives of your in-the-moment brain.
How these brain functions were important to us at one time but can be unhelpful in our current existence.
The power of slowing down to ask yourself the reason for wanting to do something.
How you can not want to do something and do it anyway.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
FEATURED ON THE SHOW:
Leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to receive an email from me with my deep-dive strategy session PDF document so you can walk yourself through it!
Feel free to ask me any questions over on Instagram!
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week, we are talking about how to cultivate killer followthrough.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving womxn who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y’all. This week, we are talking about cultivating killer followthrough and how to outsmart the part of your brain that always says, “I don’t want to do that.” And I love this topic so much and I think it’s so important because many of us fall for that voice that says I don’t want to, myself included.
But before we want to get into that, I just want to tell y’all I am reading an audiobook, which I guess the book is reading itself to me. Anyway, I’m listening to an audiobook and I love it so much. And this podcast is obviously unsponsored but I’m just going to say it’s from the library and I love the library so much.
I think it’s so amazing that I can get audiobooks and e-books from the library and just have them on my phone for three weeks and then someone else can listen to them. I love it so much. I’m such a big fan of libraries.
Anyway, the book is called Boyfriend Material and it’s a pretty classic rom-com kind of book, but it’s about two gay men. And if you like rom-coms, you should go check it out. It is delightful and when you listen to it on audio, you get the added benefit that there are super fun accents, which I’m very much into.
So come for the amazing career guidance, but stay for the audiobook recommendations. So without further ado, let’s get into our topic. But first, I have a confession to make. While I really love my business and I love the work I do, all the time when it’s time to sit down and do actual work tasks, whether that’s posting on social media or creating new content, there’s a part of my brain that just does not want to do that shit.
Every cell in my body is like no. I sometimes even grumble aloud about the task as though it’s beyond my control and I’m not the exact person who designed my business to include this particular work. It’s pretty funny.
And don’t get me wrong. Like I said, I love y’all. I love sharing my thoughts, teachings, and stories with you, and I love the creation of content and really just thinking and writing and teaching about coaching tools. But I’m a human and I still have that part of my brain that’s like, I just don’t want to do that right now.
So that’s what I wanted to talk about. Why does that come up? Why, if I designed this business to be exactly what I wanted it to be, and why if I love my work do, I still have this voice in my head that says I just don’t want to?
And this is a question I’m sure many of you have encountered in your own life. If you want to finish that report, if you want to do the yoga class, if you want to drink less, why can’t you want to do those things when the time comes?
Turns out there’s actually a reason for that and the reason isn’t that you don’t truly want these things. And side note, that’s what I used to think when I was younger. I used to think, “Well, if I don't want to do these things in the moment, that must mean I don’t actually want to do it at all. And maybe I’ve just been lying to myself.” But luckily, I was wrong about that.
The real culprit, and actually, I don’t even like the word culprit because I feel like that’s very blame-heavy language. But the real thing that’s happening here is that different parts of the brain are oriented towards different preferences.
And so one part of the brain is oriented towards just keeping you alive. And I’m going to call this in-the-moment brain. And the in-the-moment brain is not concerned with your life goals and your lofty ideals and your dreams. All it wants to do is keep you alive and keep the species going. And it did not evolve for our current way of being, so it gets confused sometimes about what we need to be doing.
This part of the brain has three main imperatives, and that is to seek pleasure, to avoid paid, and to conserve energy. Evolutionarily, these drives made sense. The drive to seek pleasure meant that you would eat food, prioritize staying warm, and procreate with other humans, thus keeping you alive and creating more of you, more humans to follow on your footsteps.
And the focus on avoiding pain would keep you away from danger and keep you away from potential death situations unless the situation was really dire. And the drive to conserve energy would give you the best shot at being able to respond in a crisis situation, like being able to run away if an animal wanted to eat you or being able to capture prey if it happened to saunter by.
So having that energy to be able to spend quickly was important and prioritizing pleasure was important and avoiding pain was important. Basically, your brain developed these patterns to help you, but in our current existences, they can do just the opposite.
So here’s what this may look like. You want to finish that damn report today even though it’s not due until next week. But you also think it might be hard, or maybe annoying, so your in-the-moment brain is like, “This seems like it’s pain, maybe we should avoid it.” And your brain’s super smart, but it’s not always smart enough to slow down and see its own miscategorization. Instead, it keeps saying avoid, avoid, avoid, and it tries to divert you to seek some pleasure instead by inviting you to have a chocolate bar or take a nap or scroll on social media, whatever the thing is for you.
For me recently, it’s been TikTok videos. I didn’t have TikTok for a long time, but my girlfriend downloaded it and started showing me all these hilarious videos, many of them with cats. And so of course I downloaded it because I wanted to be able to see cats on my own time. And when my brain wants to avoid stuff, my brain’s like, “Let’s just go watch some TikTok videos.” So we all fall for this part of our brain sometimes. But it’s important to say it’s not actually helpful to avoid the task in this case, but your brain doesn’t really realize that. It just wants you to go away from the discomfort because it’s afraid it’s not safe there.
So this is the in-the-moment brain seeing that the in-the-moment task, even if you have a future-focused reason for doing it, even if you have a strategic reason to want to get it done, there’s that other part of your brain that’s like, I don’t know, discomfort, I don’t really want to, let’s do this other fun thing instead.
But what about some of the other examples I offered? What about the yoga class? If you think it’s going to be hard, just like that report, pain avoidance might be at play here as well. But even if it’s not, your brain may try to avoid this just on the basis of energy.
Yoga and other movement practices take energy. We have a lot of science that says spending energy this way can actually give us more energy back than it takes to do the activity. But that in-the-moment brain doesn’t really know that.
Instead, the in-the-moment brain is just trying to save all your energy in case you have to do something later that takes a big store of energy. So we can override this brain functionality with logic, and I’m going to get into that in a little bit. But for now, just let yourself be relieved that it’s not you. It’s just your brain behaving normally.
So if you’ve been really trying to start a yoga practice and you just can’t seem to do it, it doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong. It just is one of your brain’s normal programs that hasn’t been optimized for what you’re trying to do.
Let’s also talk about how the in-the-moment brain comes into play when it comes to the third thing I mentioned, which is drinking. The in-the-moment brain loves pleasure. Like we talked about before, it seeks pleasure, avoids pain, and conserves energy.
This part of our brain did not evolve for alcohol though. It also didn’t evolve for things like refined sugar. It evolved to help us ensure that we get adequate food, sleep, warmth, human touch, et cetera. But because of how things like alcohol interact in our brain, our brain finds it very pleasurable and it thinks that this means the alcohol is very important to our physical survival when in fact, it’s not.
A brain that really likes alcohol weirdly is actually a brain that is operating properly in a way. It’s just not encountering something that it evolved to encounter. So I’m obviously not a scientist but I’ve read a lot of books about this because I’m fascinated.
And from what I understand, basically, when we would eat something like fruit, we get a little dopamine response and the dopamine is our brain’s way of saying, “Motivate us to do this again, this was helpful.” And then you have something like alcohol or white sugar and the brain gets a much bigger, an artificially large dopamine response.
And so your brain’s like, do this even more, this is way more important when it’s actually not. And from the point of view of keeping your body alive, alcohol is not necessary in any way. And neither is white sugar.
Now, listen, I am as my coach also calls it, a happy hedonist. So I still have alcohol and I still eat white sugar even though there are coaches who don’t. But I understand that that’s what’s at play with my brain. I understand that when my brain thinks alcohol is really important, or really wants a second glass of wine, it’s because my brain’s confused and thinks that’s really important for my survival when I know logically that it’s not.
So with all of these things, the in-the-moment brain is not trying to be bad. It’s not trying to fuck our shit up. I think sometimes it can feel like our own brain is our enemy. It’s not like that at all. Our brain is just confused about what’s going to help us stay alive and live a good life.
Or actually, to say a little bit differently, the in-the-moment brain doesn’t actually necessarily care about what’s going to help us live a good life. It just wants us to stay alive and it has a couple initiatives that it’s doing to keep us doing that.
Whereas that other part of the brain I was talking about earlier, the strategic future-focused part of the brain, that part of the brain is much better at logically planning out or thinking about I want to get this report done now so that next week I can do this other thing, or I do want to do the yoga practice because even though it takes energy, it’s going to give me more energy back and add all these other health benefits. Or like yeah, even though I really - part of me really wants the glass of wine, I’m going to say no because I want to wake up with a clear head and feeling good in the morning.
All that being said, at this point, you may still be throwing your hands up in the air like, “What? My brain, why is it doing this? How will I ever get anything done?” But fear not y’all, I have good news. When it comes to the in-the-moment brain, like I was saying, knowledge is 90% of the answer.
So let’s go back to my opening example. There’s all these work tasks that I have each week and there’s that part of my brain that just doesn’t want to do them when my calendar says it’s time to do them. And yet, every week here I am, doing all of those things.
I’m recording this podcast right now, I’m posting on social media, I’m doing all the things. And I don’t hate it while I’m doing it. That’s the funny thing. The truth is as I said, I like doing this stuff. I chose it as part of my business plan on purpose.
Yes, I get that I-don’t-want-to feeling right before I start, but it just doesn’t stop me. So what’s my big secret? I’ve already told it to you, but I’m going to tell it to you again in a very straightforward way.
I just know that the I-don’t-want-to is just my in-the-moment brain trying to enact those three things it cares so much about, which are avoid pain, conserve energy, and seek pleasure. Now y’all, I’m not a saint. I don’t even want to be a saint. And sometimes I also fall for my in-the-moment brain’s bullshit.
Sometimes for example, when it’s time to record my podcast or do some writing or post on social media, my in-the-moment brain will be like, “I’m tired, I should relax, and it’ll be easier to write it later.” And sometimes I fall for that and sometimes I don’t. It’s not a one and done with the coaching tools and it doesn’t need to be. The gold is in knowing that the I don’t want to do what I said I’d do isn’t actually you. It’s not actually relevant or important information. It’s just your in-the-moment brain being totally normal if also totally unhelpful.
You’re normal. Your brain is normal. There’s nothing wrong with you. Even if you just fell for your in-the-moment brain like five minutes ago, that’s fine. Because as soon as you realize that, you can be like, oh, it’s you again, thank you for trying to keep me alive, but actually, I do want to do this. That’s why I put it on my calendar in the first place.
And that’s the truth, right? On some level you do want to do the things. Whatever the things are that your brain comes in and is like, I don’t want to do them, you actually do. Whether it’s because you want the joy of doing them or the joy of having done them, it’s you that wants them done. It’s you that wants to do them.
You’re the one who chooses what goes on your calendar. Anything can be a drag when we look at it with the I-don’t-want-to frame, and everything looks better when we’re like, wait, I do want to, or at least right, I actually chose that, I’m choosing it for a reason.
So I want to also just pause here to say when you slow down and you’re like, wait, I chose this for a reason, you can also ask yourself like, what is the reason? Because sometimes things do just wind up on our calendar out of habit and it’s possible you’re like, oh, I don’t want to choose this.
But I want you to at least slow down and look at it through the lens of if I’m the one who put this on my calendar, why did I put it here? If I did want to do this, why might I want to do it?
Because when we bring our brain back around to the choosing, the fact that we are choosing or have chosen to do it and to the reasons, why did I choose to do this? Why do I want to do this or why do I want this to have been done?
Listen, I’m never all that excited to do laundry, but I want laundry to be done. I want to have my clean laundry, so I can really get on board with my reason. I don’t have to be super excited about the activity.
So get clear with yourself on that. You are running your life. Even when we have jobs and we work for other people, I spent most of my career working for other people. We are the ones choosing what we’re doing and we have a lot of agency.
And when we take that agency on and we really own it, I think it makes everything feel a lot more fun and a lot easier honestly. So take some time to think about, wait, if I did want to do it, why would I want to do it? And why is it on my calendar at all? What will I get out of doing it? What will I get out of it being done? Et cetera, et cetera.
And I think you’ll be really surprised how much more you can get done when you can really spot that the I-don’t-want-to isn’t personal. It’s not about you. It’s not about the to-do item. It’s just that part of your brain that is again, always trying to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy.
Alright, so just to review, part of our brains always doesn’t want to do stuff, whether we actually really want to do it or not. And we don’t have to take that shit seriously. And we can still decide what we want to do, think about why we would want it done, and then go out and do it.
And the more we do this, the easier it gets. So just give it some practice and blow your own mind with what you can accomplish. And of course, as always, if you have follow-up questions about this, come find me on Instagram and send me a direct message or just post and let’s have a conversation about it because I am 100% here to help y’all create amazing results and do all kinds of cool things.
And handling this part of your brain that doesn’t want to is a big part of that because it’s part of the brain. It’s not going away. So instead, we just got to learn to manage it.
And if you love what I teach and you want some help taking things a little bit deeper, and figuring out how this all applies to your own life, I’ve got good news for you.
I’ve got space for a few new one-on-one coaching clients starting this month, so let’s hop on a call. I’ll give you some coaching right away to help you get going and if it seems like a good fit, I will share with you how we can work together. Just head on over to my website and click on the Work With Me button and get started there.
Also bonus, my coaching offering is totally virtual as to better serve my global audience, and yes, I do work with people who are not native English speakers and we’ve had great success doing that. There’s even a testimonial on my website with someone in that category so you can check that out on the testimonials page. Alright y’all, have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving womxn who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y’all. This week, we are talking about cultivating killer followthrough and how to outsmart the part of your brain that always says, “I don’t want to do that.” And I love this topic so much and I think it’s so important because many of us fall for that voice that says I don’t want to, myself included.
But before we want to get into that, I just want to tell y’all I am reading an audiobook, which I guess the book is reading itself to me. Anyway, I’m listening to an audiobook and I love it so much. And this podcast is obviously unsponsored but I’m just going to say it’s from the library and I love the library so much.
I think it’s so amazing that I can get audiobooks and e-books from the library and just have them on my phone for three weeks and then someone else can listen to them. I love it so much. I’m such a big fan of libraries.
Anyway, the book is called Boyfriend Material and it’s a pretty classic rom-com kind of book, but it’s about two gay men. And if you like rom-coms, you should go check it out. It is delightful and when you listen to it on audio, you get the added benefit that there are super fun accents, which I’m very much into.
So come for the amazing career guidance, but stay for the audiobook recommendations. So without further ado, let’s get into our topic. But first, I have a confession to make. While I really love my business and I love the work I do, all the time when it’s time to sit down and do actual work tasks, whether that’s posting on social media or creating new content, there’s a part of my brain that just does not want to do that shit.
Every cell in my body is like no. I sometimes even grumble aloud about the task as though it’s beyond my control and I’m not the exact person who designed my business to include this particular work. It’s pretty funny.
And don’t get me wrong. Like I said, I love y’all. I love sharing my thoughts, teachings, and stories with you, and I love the creation of content and really just thinking and writing and teaching about coaching tools. But I’m a human and I still have that part of my brain that’s like, I just don’t want to do that right now.
So that’s what I wanted to talk about. Why does that come up? Why, if I designed this business to be exactly what I wanted it to be, and why if I love my work do, I still have this voice in my head that says I just don’t want to?
And this is a question I’m sure many of you have encountered in your own life. If you want to finish that report, if you want to do the yoga class, if you want to drink less, why can’t you want to do those things when the time comes?
Turns out there’s actually a reason for that and the reason isn’t that you don’t truly want these things. And side note, that’s what I used to think when I was younger. I used to think, “Well, if I don't want to do these things in the moment, that must mean I don’t actually want to do it at all. And maybe I’ve just been lying to myself.” But luckily, I was wrong about that.
The real culprit, and actually, I don’t even like the word culprit because I feel like that’s very blame-heavy language. But the real thing that’s happening here is that different parts of the brain are oriented towards different preferences.
And so one part of the brain is oriented towards just keeping you alive. And I’m going to call this in-the-moment brain. And the in-the-moment brain is not concerned with your life goals and your lofty ideals and your dreams. All it wants to do is keep you alive and keep the species going. And it did not evolve for our current way of being, so it gets confused sometimes about what we need to be doing.
This part of the brain has three main imperatives, and that is to seek pleasure, to avoid paid, and to conserve energy. Evolutionarily, these drives made sense. The drive to seek pleasure meant that you would eat food, prioritize staying warm, and procreate with other humans, thus keeping you alive and creating more of you, more humans to follow on your footsteps.
And the focus on avoiding pain would keep you away from danger and keep you away from potential death situations unless the situation was really dire. And the drive to conserve energy would give you the best shot at being able to respond in a crisis situation, like being able to run away if an animal wanted to eat you or being able to capture prey if it happened to saunter by.
So having that energy to be able to spend quickly was important and prioritizing pleasure was important and avoiding pain was important. Basically, your brain developed these patterns to help you, but in our current existences, they can do just the opposite.
So here’s what this may look like. You want to finish that damn report today even though it’s not due until next week. But you also think it might be hard, or maybe annoying, so your in-the-moment brain is like, “This seems like it’s pain, maybe we should avoid it.” And your brain’s super smart, but it’s not always smart enough to slow down and see its own miscategorization. Instead, it keeps saying avoid, avoid, avoid, and it tries to divert you to seek some pleasure instead by inviting you to have a chocolate bar or take a nap or scroll on social media, whatever the thing is for you.
For me recently, it’s been TikTok videos. I didn’t have TikTok for a long time, but my girlfriend downloaded it and started showing me all these hilarious videos, many of them with cats. And so of course I downloaded it because I wanted to be able to see cats on my own time. And when my brain wants to avoid stuff, my brain’s like, “Let’s just go watch some TikTok videos.” So we all fall for this part of our brain sometimes. But it’s important to say it’s not actually helpful to avoid the task in this case, but your brain doesn’t really realize that. It just wants you to go away from the discomfort because it’s afraid it’s not safe there.
So this is the in-the-moment brain seeing that the in-the-moment task, even if you have a future-focused reason for doing it, even if you have a strategic reason to want to get it done, there’s that other part of your brain that’s like, I don’t know, discomfort, I don’t really want to, let’s do this other fun thing instead.
But what about some of the other examples I offered? What about the yoga class? If you think it’s going to be hard, just like that report, pain avoidance might be at play here as well. But even if it’s not, your brain may try to avoid this just on the basis of energy.
Yoga and other movement practices take energy. We have a lot of science that says spending energy this way can actually give us more energy back than it takes to do the activity. But that in-the-moment brain doesn’t really know that.
Instead, the in-the-moment brain is just trying to save all your energy in case you have to do something later that takes a big store of energy. So we can override this brain functionality with logic, and I’m going to get into that in a little bit. But for now, just let yourself be relieved that it’s not you. It’s just your brain behaving normally.
So if you’ve been really trying to start a yoga practice and you just can’t seem to do it, it doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong. It just is one of your brain’s normal programs that hasn’t been optimized for what you’re trying to do.
Let’s also talk about how the in-the-moment brain comes into play when it comes to the third thing I mentioned, which is drinking. The in-the-moment brain loves pleasure. Like we talked about before, it seeks pleasure, avoids pain, and conserves energy.
This part of our brain did not evolve for alcohol though. It also didn’t evolve for things like refined sugar. It evolved to help us ensure that we get adequate food, sleep, warmth, human touch, et cetera. But because of how things like alcohol interact in our brain, our brain finds it very pleasurable and it thinks that this means the alcohol is very important to our physical survival when in fact, it’s not.
A brain that really likes alcohol weirdly is actually a brain that is operating properly in a way. It’s just not encountering something that it evolved to encounter. So I’m obviously not a scientist but I’ve read a lot of books about this because I’m fascinated.
And from what I understand, basically, when we would eat something like fruit, we get a little dopamine response and the dopamine is our brain’s way of saying, “Motivate us to do this again, this was helpful.” And then you have something like alcohol or white sugar and the brain gets a much bigger, an artificially large dopamine response.
And so your brain’s like, do this even more, this is way more important when it’s actually not. And from the point of view of keeping your body alive, alcohol is not necessary in any way. And neither is white sugar.
Now, listen, I am as my coach also calls it, a happy hedonist. So I still have alcohol and I still eat white sugar even though there are coaches who don’t. But I understand that that’s what’s at play with my brain. I understand that when my brain thinks alcohol is really important, or really wants a second glass of wine, it’s because my brain’s confused and thinks that’s really important for my survival when I know logically that it’s not.
So with all of these things, the in-the-moment brain is not trying to be bad. It’s not trying to fuck our shit up. I think sometimes it can feel like our own brain is our enemy. It’s not like that at all. Our brain is just confused about what’s going to help us stay alive and live a good life.
Or actually, to say a little bit differently, the in-the-moment brain doesn’t actually necessarily care about what’s going to help us live a good life. It just wants us to stay alive and it has a couple initiatives that it’s doing to keep us doing that.
Whereas that other part of the brain I was talking about earlier, the strategic future-focused part of the brain, that part of the brain is much better at logically planning out or thinking about I want to get this report done now so that next week I can do this other thing, or I do want to do the yoga practice because even though it takes energy, it’s going to give me more energy back and add all these other health benefits. Or like yeah, even though I really - part of me really wants the glass of wine, I’m going to say no because I want to wake up with a clear head and feeling good in the morning.
All that being said, at this point, you may still be throwing your hands up in the air like, “What? My brain, why is it doing this? How will I ever get anything done?” But fear not y’all, I have good news. When it comes to the in-the-moment brain, like I was saying, knowledge is 90% of the answer.
So let’s go back to my opening example. There’s all these work tasks that I have each week and there’s that part of my brain that just doesn’t want to do them when my calendar says it’s time to do them. And yet, every week here I am, doing all of those things.
I’m recording this podcast right now, I’m posting on social media, I’m doing all the things. And I don’t hate it while I’m doing it. That’s the funny thing. The truth is as I said, I like doing this stuff. I chose it as part of my business plan on purpose.
Yes, I get that I-don’t-want-to feeling right before I start, but it just doesn’t stop me. So what’s my big secret? I’ve already told it to you, but I’m going to tell it to you again in a very straightforward way.
I just know that the I-don’t-want-to is just my in-the-moment brain trying to enact those three things it cares so much about, which are avoid pain, conserve energy, and seek pleasure. Now y’all, I’m not a saint. I don’t even want to be a saint. And sometimes I also fall for my in-the-moment brain’s bullshit.
Sometimes for example, when it’s time to record my podcast or do some writing or post on social media, my in-the-moment brain will be like, “I’m tired, I should relax, and it’ll be easier to write it later.” And sometimes I fall for that and sometimes I don’t. It’s not a one and done with the coaching tools and it doesn’t need to be. The gold is in knowing that the I don’t want to do what I said I’d do isn’t actually you. It’s not actually relevant or important information. It’s just your in-the-moment brain being totally normal if also totally unhelpful.
You’re normal. Your brain is normal. There’s nothing wrong with you. Even if you just fell for your in-the-moment brain like five minutes ago, that’s fine. Because as soon as you realize that, you can be like, oh, it’s you again, thank you for trying to keep me alive, but actually, I do want to do this. That’s why I put it on my calendar in the first place.
And that’s the truth, right? On some level you do want to do the things. Whatever the things are that your brain comes in and is like, I don’t want to do them, you actually do. Whether it’s because you want the joy of doing them or the joy of having done them, it’s you that wants them done. It’s you that wants to do them.
You’re the one who chooses what goes on your calendar. Anything can be a drag when we look at it with the I-don’t-want-to frame, and everything looks better when we’re like, wait, I do want to, or at least right, I actually chose that, I’m choosing it for a reason.
So I want to also just pause here to say when you slow down and you’re like, wait, I chose this for a reason, you can also ask yourself like, what is the reason? Because sometimes things do just wind up on our calendar out of habit and it’s possible you’re like, oh, I don’t want to choose this.
But I want you to at least slow down and look at it through the lens of if I’m the one who put this on my calendar, why did I put it here? If I did want to do this, why might I want to do it?
Because when we bring our brain back around to the choosing, the fact that we are choosing or have chosen to do it and to the reasons, why did I choose to do this? Why do I want to do this or why do I want this to have been done?
Listen, I’m never all that excited to do laundry, but I want laundry to be done. I want to have my clean laundry, so I can really get on board with my reason. I don’t have to be super excited about the activity.
So get clear with yourself on that. You are running your life. Even when we have jobs and we work for other people, I spent most of my career working for other people. We are the ones choosing what we’re doing and we have a lot of agency.
And when we take that agency on and we really own it, I think it makes everything feel a lot more fun and a lot easier honestly. So take some time to think about, wait, if I did want to do it, why would I want to do it? And why is it on my calendar at all? What will I get out of doing it? What will I get out of it being done? Et cetera, et cetera.
And I think you’ll be really surprised how much more you can get done when you can really spot that the I-don’t-want-to isn’t personal. It’s not about you. It’s not about the to-do item. It’s just that part of your brain that is again, always trying to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy.
Alright, so just to review, part of our brains always doesn’t want to do stuff, whether we actually really want to do it or not. And we don’t have to take that shit seriously. And we can still decide what we want to do, think about why we would want it done, and then go out and do it.
And the more we do this, the easier it gets. So just give it some practice and blow your own mind with what you can accomplish. And of course, as always, if you have follow-up questions about this, come find me on Instagram and send me a direct message or just post and let’s have a conversation about it because I am 100% here to help y’all create amazing results and do all kinds of cool things.
And handling this part of your brain that doesn’t want to is a big part of that because it’s part of the brain. It’s not going away. So instead, we just got to learn to manage it.
And if you love what I teach and you want some help taking things a little bit deeper, and figuring out how this all applies to your own life, I’ve got good news for you.
I’ve got space for a few new one-on-one coaching clients starting this month, so let’s hop on a call. I’ll give you some coaching right away to help you get going and if it seems like a good fit, I will share with you how we can work together. Just head on over to my website and click on the Work With Me button and get started there.
Also bonus, my coaching offering is totally virtual as to better serve my global audience, and yes, I do work with people who are not native English speakers and we’ve had great success doing that. There’s even a testimonial on my website with someone in that category so you can check that out on the testimonials page. Alright y’all, have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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