0:00

Hey, everybody, it's Eric from the one you

0:03

feed and I'm doing something a little bit different

0:05

today. It's just me and

0:07

I'll be talking to you about

0:09

one of the concepts that comes up on the

0:11

podcast a lot. I've

0:13

gotten feedback from a bunch of listeners saying

0:15

they'd like to hear more from Chris and I

0:18

who we are, and just hear more

0:20

from us in general. So this is an

0:22

attempt at doing that. We

0:25

don't have all the fancy audio

0:28

equipment. I'm not at Chris's, so I

0:30

am sitting at my house, so this will not sound

0:32

as good as it normally does, but we

0:34

will go with what we have, and

0:37

I think going with what we have is a good way

0:39

to segue into the

0:41

concept I want to talk about today because it comes

0:44

up over and over again on the show,

0:46

and it's the idea of taking

0:48

action even when we don't feel

0:51

like it. This

0:53

this idea that our mood

0:56

we have to be in the right mood to do something,

0:59

is very pair a list for us, and I'm

1:01

as guilty of it as anybody. And

1:04

doing the podcast right now, this actual

1:06

talking is an example of me trying

1:08

to break through that I didn't really feel

1:11

like doing it right now. It's something I've been

1:13

wanting to do. I had a lot of good excuses

1:15

about how I wasn't ready, or I needed to

1:17

do this, or I needed to do that, and

1:19

finally I simply said, all right, plug

1:21

in, let's go. So here

1:24

we are and and and getting

1:26

unstuck is

1:28

is a lot like that. When we're

1:30

when we're feeling or we're feeling stuck

1:33

in the spot and unable

1:35

to take action that we know that we need to take.

1:38

There are some tools that we can use to

1:41

break that down. And uh, I

1:43

think the first tool that is

1:46

just to realize that we're stuck, that

1:48

we're procrastinating, and even recognize what

1:50

we're doing. Um Todd Henry said

1:53

on the podcast at one point that you

1:55

must be conscious of how today's choices

1:57

beget tomorrow's regrets.

2:00

So it's important for us just to

2:02

to to break out of the habitual

2:04

stream and realize that we are not

2:07

using our time as well as we would

2:09

like. And I think that's really a clear first

2:11

step. The second thing for

2:13

me that I do is I try and break

2:16

the work down in my mind into the smallest

2:19

possible increments that I can. This

2:22

does a couple of things for me because

2:24

I get stuck and have a hard time

2:26

doing things, usually for one of

2:28

two reasons. I'll probably think of a third before

2:30

I'm done, but we'll start with the first to the

2:32

first one is that it feels overwhelming,

2:35

it's too much to do it,

2:37

it just seems like it's a long way

2:39

to get there, etcetera. So what I

2:41

do if I break it down into the smallest possible

2:44

chunk I can, I've just really

2:46

reduced the amount

2:48

of time and the overwhelming feeling.

2:51

And then the second thing that I run into

2:53

a lot is that I don't

2:55

I'm not quite sure what to do or I can't

2:58

see my way all the way to the end, know

3:00

the task or whatever the work is. And

3:02

again, by breaking it down into small

3:04

pieces of work, I can find one that

3:07

that I can get after. So, for

3:09

example, today doing this, I

3:11

simply said, all right, I'm gonna plug it in

3:14

and I'm going to talk and we'll see what happens.

3:16

And and that was enough for me to

3:19

break it down into a very small piece.

3:21

I didn't have to worry about how he'd edit the final

3:23

piece. I didn't have to worry about whether it was

3:25

any good, whether it was gonna be any music, I

3:28

was gonna plug in and talk, and

3:30

I took the pressure off myself also that

3:32

it had to work. I was just gonna do it

3:35

and then um. So

3:37

that's an example of breaking things down

3:39

into a really small piece. Another classic one

3:42

for me is getting through my

3:44

email inbox. As an example, if I'm

3:46

overwhelmed and there's a ton I will just set

3:48

a timer for myself, you know, I'll set

3:50

it for two minutes or five minutes and say, all right,

3:53

I'm gonna get started on this. It's

3:55

usually enough to get me moving, and

3:57

then when the timer goes off, I'm usually

4:00

in motion and I can keep going. And

4:02

that has been a way that I've learned to tackle

4:04

all kinds of things, whether it be clean

4:07

out my email inbox, recording the podcast

4:10

exercising. Exercising is

4:12

one where it's a it's let me get

4:14

the clothes on to go to the gym. That will be my first

4:17

thing that I do, so I break it down to that level.

4:20

Cleaning the house is another classical one. Set

4:22

the time or five minutes, let me see what I can get

4:24

done. Usually after five minutes, like I

4:26

said, I'm moving, I feel better and

4:29

I want to keep going. And this

4:31

is something I think that we all wrestle with, and

4:33

I do think it's one of the key components to living

4:35

a better life, is to being able to motivate ourselves

4:38

when we don't feel like it, we're not in the

4:40

mood. Our moods are

4:42

extremely capricious and

4:44

not a great way to base

4:47

our life on how we feel. And yet I think

4:49

that's what a lot of us do. I know I

4:51

certainly have done that plenty of times

4:54

in the past and and still can do it today

4:56

if I'm not not staying on top of

4:58

it. There's a there's a phrase

5:01

that says something like we can't think our way

5:03

into right action. We have to act our way

5:05

into right thinking. And this is an example

5:07

of that very small breaking the task

5:10

down into the smallest increment that I

5:12

can think of, and then committing to doing

5:14

that increment and ideally committing to

5:16

do it right now. It

5:18

seems to help an awful lot with doing

5:20

those things. So that is all

5:23

for our short little chat here

5:25

together. Hopefully it was helpful to

5:27

you guys. I love the listener feedback.

5:29

I'd love to hear from you. You guys, anything

5:31

that you want to hear more of, you want to hear less of.

5:34

UM, it's it's great to hear from you. I

5:36

know we're getting lots and lots of listens

5:39

and downloads, but the more I hear from

5:41

you guys, the better that is. So thanks

5:43

so much for listening to the show. I hope that it's

5:45

helping you in feeding your

5:47

good wolf and we'll talk again

5:49

soon. Thanks very much, See Yah