Me: completes task
Reward center: “I pretend I didn’t see that.”
Brain: “Did you realize that while you were doing that there were thirty other things you didn’t do?”
Or my personal favorite:
“There’s a chance that the thing I’m attempting isn’t going to be perfect straight away, so maybe I shouldn’t even try.”
This is why I’ve started giving myself treats after I finish something like dishes (sometimes during, too). It’s not much, but it helps get through it!
But you can just have the treat without doing the task.
Just take the treat.
Do it.
You know you want it.
There’s nobody stopping you.
There’s no immediate consequence for just taking the treat.
Just take it.
Do it.
I’m thought I was clever and set up a whole central system to log the tasks that I need to complete and I did it in such a way that now I have no idea where to start and the list has grown so long it’s overwhelming to even look at
I feel this so much.
i think the thing that has worked best for me is taking the tasks i need to do and splitting them into the smallest steps possible, and just do at least one of those subtasks (ideally as many as i can manage) and then grabbing my brain by the collar and informing it that i will feel satisfied with myself today because i did a task. And if i really cannot manage to split up tasks and do anything, then at least invent some task you can do even if it’s technically pointless, like doing one (1) situp or whatever.
Eventually it has become second nature to split up the tasks like this, and my brain has begrudgingly accepted that it’s supposed to feel rewarding.
