Everyone experiences that feeling of not being able to get anything done. Not just not getting things done because you ran out of time or had emergencies come up, but rather just that you can’t do it. Usually you’re mentally out of it or frazzled or just plain aren’t able to care enough right now to do anything. It’s kind of a mental exhaustion more than anything else. Sometimes we feel physically exhausted because of it too. What do you do about this? It’s not something that you can fix by learning a new skill. You’ve probably already got the skills to do what needs to be done. It’s not something that can be fixed by listening to some motivational speaker most of the time. Motivational speakers often stir up excitement that pushes us over the edge into action. When you’re mentally out of it, you’re no where near that edge. Here’s a few simple methods I’ve used over the years to want to get those things done, so I can actually be able to get them done.
- Walk away. Somethings you just have to walk away from things and take a break. This might be taking a few days of total relaxation where you don’t try to do anything or worry about doing anything. It might mean a few days of vacation somewhere nice and sunny. The important thing is to not think about what needs to be done at all if you can arrange it. When you get back, your mind is often relaxed enough to concentrate on what you have to do.
- Delegate it. This one isn’t something everyone can do depending on what you’re blocked on. If you’re a small business owner, there may not be anyone handy to delegate things to. Some things only you can do. However, there are things even small business owners can delegate. There’s plenty of options to outsource work on the internet. There’s temporary help you can hire locally. Heck, sometimes you can get your family to help out. The key is to get someone to ease your load and so you can ease your mind.
- Just don’t do it. Let it go. Just don’t do it. The majority of things get stuck on or mentally check out when they come up are things that we rarely absolutely have to do. There’s a small number of things that are so critical to our personal and professional lives that we absolutely have to do without fail if we don’t want to cause a catastrophe. The things we just can’t get ourselves to do are rarely thing things that earn us the most money, get the most clients, get the most things done or please the boss the most.
What’s the common thread here? We give ourselves a break. Why? So we can work through whatever’s keeping us from being able to do the things we think we should without the added pressure of feeling guilty for not doing them.
