Baby Steps..... ************************ It has come to my attention that a lot of my close friends and family member have been freaking out a lot lately. There seems to always be some “insurmountable” obstacle, “impossible” task, or “unfair” deadline that has them in panic mode. Some of the recurrent phrases I’ve heard in the past weeks include: “There’s no way I can get that done for my boss before next week!” “The Financial Aid department at my school is a bunch of jerks! How am I supposed to get all these documents signed by all of these people? That’s impossible!” “There’s no way I can type that paper in one week! That’s absurd!” Looking at a difficult task as a whole can lead to procrastination, avoidance, awfulizing*, or even anger. One way to go about solving problems with seemingly unsolvable obstacles is to break them down into smaller increments. This seems trivial and barely worth suggesting, but I challenge you to keep track of how often you and others view a task as a whole versus really breaking it down into its core steps. For example, a friend of mine recently had to create a presentation for work. Day in and day out she would complain about how “huge” and “monumental” this presentation had to be in order to impress her supervisors at his work. I was a little concerned as my friend has been known to procrastinate when it comes to large tasks not unlike this presentation. “My boss is such a jerk! How could she give me such a ridiculous assignment?” “Well,” I replied, “Calling your boss names probably won’t get your presentation done. Actually doing your presentation will get your presentation done.” “Dude,” she whined as she shook her head in disgust at her predicament, “It’s not that easy.” What ensued was a conversation about how she was looking at this project as a long, laborious journey. However, every journey begins with a single step. Then you just take one step at a time. Baby steps, even. Not long strides or giant leaps. Small, single, well-paced, baby steps. I explained that her immediate focus shouldn’t be on creating a world class, invigorating 35 minute masterpiece that will receive a Nobel Prize. Right now, let’s just take it one slide at a time. Instantly, she went from one huge goal to 25 smaller, much more obtainable goals. Something as menial as ironing a shirt can be broken down into 11 different steps with the completion of the previous step reinforcing the next. Give it a try the next time you’re faced with insurmountable odds. Like my friend in this story, you’ll see that horrifying, overwhelming mountain turn into a series of small, maneuverable hills. Eric Sudler, Psy.D.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 17:51:32 +0000
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