We often fall into the trap of dealing with a problem by going around it in circles.
We start with an anxious mindset. Then we churn out one doomsday scenario after another. We let our best villain voice take lead in our head; condescending, mocking, and with a British accent.
Next, in a valiant effort to “solve” our problem, we muster up a couple of possible solutions, immediately followed by reasons they will surely fail.
Round and round we go, coming full circle to nowhere, giving into the illusion that we’re “working” on it.
This circle is draining, defeating, and pointless. It keeps us from finding real answers, nor gives relief from pain. We get stuck, and stay there.
All that “work” and nothing to show for it. Except stress, and maybe an empty box of cookies.
Author Julia Cameron* defines this charade as our addiction to anxiety in lieu of action, because most of us hate to do something when we can obsess about something else instead.
You might be different. You might get frustrated or angry and want to throw in the towel with one hand and a finger with the second.
Or maybe, you shove it under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen.
It doesn’t matter.
Because either way, the way forward is the same:
Take one step after another, starting from where you are now.
Simple, anti-climactic, and in any accent you wish.
Ms Cameron contends:
Take one small daily action instead of indulging in the big questions. When we allow ourselves to wallow in the big questions, we fail to find the small answers.
The small step is the bridge; small enough under the radar of big (negative) emotion, but validating enough, when done consistently, to build our way out of the stuck.
*Author of The Artist’s Way-one of the best books I’ve ever read. It changed my life, and keeps changing it.
(Photo: Priya Saihgal)
Joel D Canfield says
We just had this conversation at a writing site: http://elizabethspanncraig.com/6666/the-benefit-of-small-goals/
Teresa Amabile writes extensively about the power of small wins. Contrary to popular thinking, the only possible wins are the small ones. Anything that looks like a big win is either a wild accident, a gift, or it’s the culmination of a series of small wins, and is itself one more small win added to the previous pile.
Ritu Rao says
So, so true. But the lack of glamor makes small wins a hard sell, not to others so much as to oneself. Any time I’m on the brink of losing hope or giving up, I have to remind myself not to look at the horizon but to look at what’s next.