Follow A Plan Not A Mood

If you are not getting things done, then this may be where you are going wrong.

We are used to doing what thoughts tell us. I don’t feel like it right now…I don’t have time right now…

Learning to step back from thoughts about whether or not you feel like doing something will allow you much greater freedom to do something whether you want to or not.

This is a powerful treatment used to treat depression called behavioural activation. People who are depressed do very little because they don’t feel like it (because they are depressed). And when they don’t do stuff, they feel more depressed.

To break the cycle we ask our clients to schedule activities and do them regardless of how they feel. This acts as a way of jump startingactivity and helps clients discover that they need not be at the mercy of their thoughts.

You don’t have to feel depressed to make use of this theory. If you are not achieving the things you want, then check whether when it comes to getting things done you are following a mood not a plan.

If you are then simply start actively scheduling in what you need to do by writing it down in your calendar. That won’t make you suddenly feel like doing it when it pings up in your calendar, but do it because you are honouring a plan you have made with yourself.

Learning to commit to your plans just as you would with a friend will not only supercharge your productivity but totally change your relationship with yourself.

Honouring your commitments to yourself is the start of building bullet-proof confidence because you’ll soon discover that if you do the things you commit to, then the world’s your oyster.

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