Doing the things you don’t want to do.
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I quite enjoyed the article “Three Habits to Stay Healthy in a Hectic World” , written by Darius Foroux.
The part of the article that resonated the most with me was the third habit that he listed; “doing things when you don’t feel like it”. I believe that this is one of the key ingredients to success and even to happiness.
I know what you are thinking; “how can doing something that you don’t feel like doing lead to happiness?” Maybe that does sound crazy, but my experience has shown that it can, and does.
When you set out to achieve a goal, it will inevitably require that you change something in your life. You will need to form new habits. Doing things that are new to you will be required. This will require you to stretch, to come out of your comfort zone. To do new things that you frankly won’t be good at.
And that will be an immense blow to your ego.
You will need to face the fact that you are not quite as good as you thought you were, that maybe you don’t have what it takes. So you won’t want to do the thing that is going to move you forward. You will make up a million (mostly valid!) reasons why the time isn’t right, and that tomorrow is when you will get after it.
Just do the hard thing that you don’t want to do, the thing that will most move you forward.
And I can almost guarantee that you will feel better afterwards. You will be proud of yourself for taking action, for moving yourself closer to your goal.
It is not the achievement of a goal that brings the most joy; the joy is found in the process of making progress. That is where the real magic is.
So, do the hard thing. It will make you happier.
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