2934: Feeling Confused, Overwhelmed, or Lazy? by Tonya Lester on Pursuing Your Dreams and Getting Unstuck

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[00:01:02] This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 2934, Feeling Confused, Overwhelmed, or Lazy by Tony

[00:01:09] Alester of TonyAlester.com and I'm Justin Malick. I read to you every day with permission from

[00:01:15] the authors. We have a bunch of shows to optimize your life covering different topics.

[00:01:20] Just search for Optimal Living Daily wherever you're hearing this and you should be able to find

[00:01:24] all of our shows. But for now, let's get right to it as we optimize your life. Feeling confused,

[00:01:35] overwhelmed, or lazy by TonyAlester of TonyAlester.com. My client, Annie, was a professional

[00:01:44] photographer who put her career on hold when she had children. Ten years later, she'd barely

[00:01:50] picked up her camera even though she loved photography and was eager to resume her career.

[00:01:55] Instead, she beat herself up for letting her skills go dormant. She criticized herself for

[00:02:01] being financially dependent on her husband and she lamented the fact that she lost her identity

[00:02:07] outside of being a wife and mom. At first what seemed to be tripping Annie up was how to get

[00:02:13] started. She'd sit down to write emails, old contacts, feel overwhelmed about what to write,

[00:02:20] and end up walking away from her computer. She had a passion project she'd begun years ago and

[00:02:25] thought might be good enough to get a grant to finish it but couldn't make herself sit down

[00:02:29] and actually apply. She'd tell herself the work wasn't good enough or that her subject matter

[00:02:35] wasn't current enough so why even try? Other days, a kid would stay home from school sick

[00:02:42] or she'd get a call that the school was desperate for volunteers to take on lunchroom duty

[00:02:47] and she'd say it was hopeless. Her schedule was too chaotic to try to do anything but get through

[00:02:52] the day. Her days flew by in a blur and she never got to her photography. We went through all her

[00:02:59] responsibilities to pare down what really needed to be done. Annie figured that barring an

[00:03:06] emergency she could do everything she needed to do for her family and still have two hours a day

[00:03:12] to devote to restarting her career. I said, two hours every day is a lot of time. No it's not

[00:03:20] she said already discouraged. I used to have so much energy I'd work 12 hours at a stretch.

[00:03:25] I don't know what's happened to me but she conceded that even 15 minutes let alone two

[00:03:31] hours a day was better than the zero she was currently doing. Unfortunately, once Annie cleared

[00:03:38] the two hours she started frittering away that time by returning emails ordering various household

[00:03:44] necessities and scrolling on Twitter. What is wrong with me? She asked why am I so lazy?

[00:03:52] I asked Annie to sit for a minute and notice how she felt. What were the sensations in our body?

[00:03:58] Was there something underneath the feeling of laziness? After sitting quietly and tuning into

[00:04:04] herself she opened her eyes and said I feel fear. Annie said she felt paralyzed every time she started

[00:04:12] to do any work. She's so fearful that her earlier career had been a fluke or that she

[00:04:18] didn't just have any talent anymore. What if I devote all this time and energy to something

[00:04:23] and it doesn't work? Has this happened to you? Do you wallow in indecision unable to figure out

[00:04:29] where to start or what to work on? Do you tell yourself that you just are a procrastinator

[00:04:35] unable to hold yourself accountable or move forward on projects, life changes or risks

[00:04:42] that are important to you? Do you fantasize about who you could be if you planned a

[00:04:46] big trip or went back to school or wrote a novel? Do you feel excited and happy while you're daydreaming

[00:04:53] only to come down to earth with a thud when it's time to actually work on the bright shiny thing?

[00:05:00] You're not alone. Most people feel this way when they're trying to make a change or to

[00:05:04] level up in areas that are important to them. Some part of them imagines that the disappointment

[00:05:10] of trying and failing is worse than the disappointment of doing nothing at all. If that part of you

[00:05:17] that is scared of failure is in the driver's seat, any movement is going to feel impossible.

[00:05:23] Instead, you're going to feel overwhelmed, confused and lazy.

[00:05:28] We hear a few things to think about when you're trying to bust out of that cycle.

[00:05:33] 1. Action Begets Action

[00:05:37] When you're feeling fearful and insecure, a common procrastination tactic is to let ourselves get

[00:05:43] hung up on how to begin. We wallow in indecision even when the decisions are relatively small.

[00:05:50] If you're looking for a new job, it doesn't matter whether you start by updating your resume,

[00:05:55] reaching out to your network or looking at job sites. Just pick something.

[00:06:00] If you set off on the wrong path, you can simply course correct and keep moving forward.

[00:06:05] We figure things out by doing them, not by thinking about doing them.

[00:06:11] 2. Be mediocre Nothing stalls momentum faster than worrying if

[00:06:17] you're good enough for viewing your efforts through a critical lens.

[00:06:21] Even the most talented among us don't set the world on fire our first time out of the

[00:06:26] gate. American radio personality Ira Glass describes the problem he sees with most creative

[00:06:32] starting out as a gap we have between our taste and our abilities. He says that the only way to get

[00:06:39] through it is to create a volume of work and keep at it until the quality of your work catches

[00:06:44] up with your ambitions. Annie wasn't able to get started until she admitted to herself that

[00:06:51] at least initially she probably wasn't going to be the same photographer she'd been

[00:06:56] and that was okay. The gap between her taste and her skills would close once she got to work.

[00:07:02] This is true for everyone, not just artists. Who you dream of becoming isn't who you are

[00:07:08] at the beginning. What stands in your way of becoming that person is good old-fashioned

[00:07:14] practice. 3. Consistency is the only metric Quality, opportunity and momentum always flow from

[00:07:24] consistent action. It makes sense to focus most of our attention on our systems and habits.

[00:07:30] Can you think of a single experience where you did something at least three times a week

[00:07:34] and didn't get better at it? As James Clear writes in Atomic Habits quote,

[00:07:39] you should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results

[00:07:44] end quote. We can't always control our outcomes but we have a lot of control over our process.

[00:07:51] For Annie her first efforts after her long hiatus weren't as good as what she was doing at the

[00:07:56] height of her career and she was rusty but when she started shooting every day even

[00:08:01] if it was just messing around with our kids she began to get back in her groove and her

[00:08:06] confidence slowly crept up. We make so many barely conscious decisions to avoid pain and

[00:08:12] disappointment but how much worse is it to take that risk, fail and then be able to move on

[00:08:19] rather than to live in limbo and in action? What eventually helped Annie get through her fear

[00:08:25] was to set a timer for 45 minutes and spend that time on her photography. It didn't matter

[00:08:31] how quickly or slowly she moved, what she accomplished or whether it was any good,

[00:08:37] she just had to only do photography related activities until the timer went off. If she felt

[00:08:43] up to it she'd set the timer for another 45 minutes but if not she could be done. A marathon is

[00:08:50] run one mile at a time. A book is written sentence by sentence. An instrument is learned

[00:08:56] note by note. Anything done consistently will eventually get finished and probably be pretty good.

[00:09:04] Predictably once Annie started working consistently it turned out she was not awful. She was every

[00:09:10] bit as talented and creative as she'd been 10 years earlier. Annie's projects quickly gained

[00:09:17] traction and 45 minutes grew into 90 and then more. By the end of a year her career had

[00:09:23] gained enough momentum. She had collaborations that kept her energy up and ensured accountability.

[00:09:30] She'd become successful by admitting she wasn't confused, overwhelmed or lazy. She was just scared

[00:09:37] and it's okay to be scared and move ahead on your goals anyway. You just listened to the

[00:09:46] post titled feeling confused, overwhelmed or lazy by Tonya Lester of TonyaLester.com.

[00:09:54] Thank you to Tonya. I'm not perfect and struggle with this sometimes too in different ways and

[00:09:59] areas of my life but the positive example I like to come back to in my own life is this podcast.

[00:10:06] For me it serves as a reminder that this can be done and it follows along pretty much exactly

[00:10:12] as Tonya described. Possibly one difference is that I did feel like my back was against the

[00:10:18] wall and that I needed to create something new or else go back to working for someone

[00:10:22] else full time so I did have that extra pressure but still the steps were pretty much what Tonya said.

[00:10:29] In the beginning I just needed to start moving reaching out to authors to get their permission,

[00:10:34] learning how to make a podcast, where to upload the files, all that stuff. I ended up buying

[00:10:40] an online podcasting program to guide me along the way and while that did help me

[00:10:45] I do want to pause here to talk about that aspect. Buying things tangible or intangible like

[00:10:51] a course might feel like action but it's really the lowest form. It can be easy for us to put our

[00:10:58] credit card in but then actually doing the work that's the hard part so be careful with that.

[00:11:04] It's really easy to want to buy business cards and a domain name like a website and not even do

[00:11:09] real work of actually doing what the business is all about so we have to be careful.

[00:11:14] But continuing on if you listen to episode one of this podcast I think this podcast has

[00:11:19] come a long way. I can say it was mediocre at first. I'm not sure how much has improved but

[00:11:24] I like to think it has over all these years since 2015. And then last consistency I've recorded

[00:11:31] this podcast when I'm sick or when I don't feel like it in the spirit of keeping up that consistency

[00:11:37] and I do think it's played a massive role in making this podcast successful.

[00:11:42] So all of that to say bottom line I agree with Tonya. And with that have a great rest

[00:11:47] of your day and I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.