Doing

Published by Lucas Pfeifer on Nov 20, 2020

What is something you want to accomplish but feel worried that you won’t be able to accomplish? Maybe it’s changing the world. Helping people. Maybe it’s just getting out of bed right when your alarm goes off so you have time to take a shower before your first class. Whatever the thing is that you are thinking of, I bet it has these two characteristics:

1. It’s in the future.
2. You need to do something to make it happen.

At this point, your brain might automatically write off the task, or procrastinate on it. Maybe you’ll be in a better position in the future to do it, or maybe you don’t have the skills you need yet. Looking back, though, you might recognize the harm of this approach. It typically doesn’t end well when you procrastinate on an English essay.

So why do we put off helping others?

You might think that you need to wait until you have more money or power. But why can’t you start right now? If you want to do good, start doing something, and then overcome your challenges as they arise. Don’t create challenges in your mind that don’t exist in reality. You can start by pledging a tiny portion of your income to charity. Stop reading and take concrete action. By spending five minutes right now, you set yourself on the path of altruism and kindness.

Now that you’re back, I want to reiterate the two conditions of any goal or desire:

1. It’s in the future.
2. You need to do something to make it happen.

At this point the voice in your head might be screaming: I know these things! They’re so obvious that they’re useless!

Then why is it important to begin with these two facts? Let’s start with number 1. Since it’s in the future, it’s a waste of time to imagine that event or make plans based on where you think you’ll be in the future. The future is unpredictable, and reality will be different than how you imagine it will be. When you catch yourself dreaming about your fantasy world, it might be useful to ask yourself: what step can I take right now to achieve this dream?

That brings us to number 2. There is probably an action (or many actions) you don’t feel like doing but think you must do to achieve the goal. I would ask:

Why is it necessary to complete this action before moving to the next step in your plan?

For example, maybe you think it’s necessary to learn a certain skill (1) before attempting to do something but you don’t feel motivated to learn that skill. Are you resistant to working on that skill because subconsciously you don’t think it’s important? Ask yourself, “What would happen if I just tried to do the thing without learning skill 1 first? The answer probably falls into one of two categories. You either:

A. Find out that you really did need to learn skill 1 first and go back to it.

Or

B. Find out that you did not need to learn skill 1 first and avoid spending time and effort that you didn’t want to spend in the first place.

The key is that you learned what you really needed to do before spending time doing it.

One final question to consider:

To change the world, do you really need to do anything else first? Or do you already have all the tools you need to start right now?