“I don’t feel like much… and that’s exactly why you must go.”
This morning, I was playing with Claude and a prompt from The Mentor’s Deck by Seth Godin designed to help you unstick your thinking. I was trying to figure out how to help people (and myself) do the right thing, especially when the right thing is the last thing on your mind.
When you’d rather sink into the couch, watch Netflix, and wait for your mood to change.
When everything feels doom and gloom and you can’t imagine why you should even try.
When the world is, as it always will be, not perfect.
Claude asked me,
“Well, what do you do when that happens? How do you turn that vicious cycle into a virtuous one?”
I thought about it. I
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Walk outside.
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Hit the gym.
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Get into nature.
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Call someone who knows how to challenge my unhelpful thoughts and find the silver lining.
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Watch or read something that reminds me humans can overcome anything and build awesome sh*t out of any cirsumstance.
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Or, like this morning, rollerblading.
I learned this in a Precision Nutrition change psychology course:
If you want to break unhelpful patterns, you have to get to know them first.
Notice:
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What happens right before you spiral down?
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What triggers it?
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What’s the first step into that loop? What's the feeling right before it starts?
If you know the trigger, you can stop the program before it runs. You can swap it out for a better one.
For me, on mornings when I’m in a funk, I do the exact thing I feel least like doing. Rollerblading. Walking. Listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast on game design. And like magic, the day feels lighter. I'm locked in and better ideas are flowing.
Before we can grow, we have to stop letting unhelpful programs run our lives.
So, what are your patterns?
When/how do they start?
And next time, what will you do to interrupt them before they take over your life?
