I Don't Feel Like It

There are so many things that I have to do- want to do. Things that I know I really should do. Things that if I did them would make me feel better about myself and have a sense of accomplishment. The problem is that I do not want to do them because I just don’t feel like it. I find myself telling friends and family that you have to push through that feeling regardless to get to a place where you start to reinvigorate yourself, and now that it is happening to me, I am struggling with taking my own advice. I just don’t feel like it. 

Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by

applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear. - Dan Millman

One of the biggest contributors to feelings of the stress of our own making is this I-don’t-feel-like-it attitude. Imagine all the things we would not get done if we listened to feeling and did not do all the things we did not feel like. We are not children. Most of the time, we do not have the luxury of laying in bed all day because we don’t feel like getting up. I have to go to work if I want to continue getting paid. So, we know we are capable of moving out of that funk when there is a carrot being dangled in front of us. 

Why aren’t we better with ourselves and our personal goals? It is possibly because the reward is not clear and apparent. Understand that the rewards are far greater than we can imagine. We are constantly cutting ourselves short for other demands and therefore we do not see how this contributes to our self-care. I am writing this blog because I need to even though I do not really feel like it. The satisfaction I will get from completing it seems small but means a great deal to me. Clearing my personal space of clutter feels like work but the light feeling I get helps me move on to the next thing. All these little things that I do not feel like doing contribute to my peace of mind and my overall wellness. More importantly, they set the stage that keeps pushing me through to the next thing. 

It does feel good in the here and now to give in to the I-don’t-feel-like-it attitude. I love staying in bed. I love watching television on my couch. Unfortunately the here and now turns into tomorrow and the day after that and so forth. It quickly becomes the past and we have done nothing. So if you are reading this, do that thing you know you need to and want to but don’t really feel like. Do it anyway and keep on doing it, moving on to the next thing and the next thing after that. You will thank yourself later. You will love yourself more. You will feel lighter and more accomplished and a little less stressed.