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Languishing

April 22, 2022

The commercial lease I was looking at fell through a couple weeks ago and I’ve been looking for a new lease ever since. The search doesn’t take up all my time but I haven’t been making the best use of my remaining available time. I was ready to put all my effort into the move in and now that can’t happen. I’ve been languishing a bit.

Languishing can be difficult to identify. On the surface, it seems like a practical decision-making problem: “which of these options should I do now”. But it’s really a focus problem. You’re not looking at any of the options very clearly and as a result you can’t figure out what is what. No wonder the decision is hard. If you could see the difference between a rock and sandwich, choosing which one to eat and which one to build a house out of would not be a tough decision.

The key here – as in most important things – is to recognize the feeling and your behavior and thoughts.

Instead of fighting what seems to be an indecisive mind, embrace the feeling and get a better understanding of what it feels like. Check in with the body and see how it manifests. (If this is difficult, another suggestion is to picture yourself outside of yourself looking at yourself and making observations on how that you appears to be feeling).

Then, look at the actions you’ve been taking lately. Are you flitting from idea to idea but not working on anything? Waffling relentlessly between two or three options? Learn to recognize those actions and their related feelings.

Recognizing the feelings and actions is not fun. It’s also not so that you can control and “turn them off” somehow. You are learning to recognize this state so that you can recognize it for next time. And then use those signals as a trigger to a better action.

Once you have the trigger you can set the response in the form “When I feel/do (this)… then I automatically do (this)” You have to commit to the response wholeheartedly. Do not let yourself lie to yourself. Do not give it the occasional free pass. Make it automatic. No second guessing – because that will let the bad habit back in.

For me, the response is “pick one and work on it and use the 5 minute rule“. Choosing one thing finally lets me focus on something. Maybe I get focused and see that it is not the right thing, but at least I’ve eliminated one option.

You might want to check out my related post, Which Of These Is Keeping You From Getting It Done?

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Posted Under: Productivity Tags: #CreativeProcess

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