How I Quickly Get Out of a Rut
You read a lot of books, go to the gym regularly, and get your work done on time. But then something happens. You are tired. You have lost all the motivation you had to keep being great. And you can not even remember why you wanted to be productive in the first place. And the mental clarity you seemed to benefit from yesterday seems to have slipped away in the night. And unfortunately, this lack of motivation carries over into the other areas of your life.
The thought of going to the gym occurs to you and you are too lazy to do it. So you skip the gym that day. One day becomes two days, two days becomes a week. You also start buying more junk food, watching more TV, playing more video games. And not only do you not do the things you know you should, but you do not even want to. You can not even remember why you should be productive in the first place.
Why are we still here?
For many people, these long periods of success followed by long periods of self-destruction and failure seem to be a common pattern. And while this problem is a profound psychological one. I wanted to give you a practical guide on how to break free from these kinds of pseudo-depressive phases and become productive again.
Now before we dive into these really powerful strategies, I just want to say a few things upfront. This article is not meant to be a substitute for therapy if you are indeed suffering from clinical depression. I am not a doctor and I am talking about what works for me.
Strategy number one is to apply the principle of “do something”.
This principle is the catalyst for action. If you do not have the motivation to do something, you need something to trigger action, something to get the momentum going, something to get the ball rolling. And the principle of “doing something” is a means to do something when you do not have the motivation to do something. Most people think that you have to be motivated to do something. And motivation comes when you are inspired by something. Let us say you are browsing Reddit or something similar and you come across a video that has something at the end of it that speaks to you and inspires you to take action. That inspiration served as enough motivation to get you started on your goals.
But the principle of taking action states that inspiration, motivation, and action are not linear progression. It’s an infinite loop and you can start wherever you want. So it’s much more efficient to start with one action and let that action become the inspiration and motivation for further actions. Now you may think, thanks to the genius, if I am unmotivated to do something, I should just do something, that’s helpful. But in reality, you are acting without motivation all the time. Do you need a big inspirational inspiration to take a shower? No, it’s just something you do. These monotonous actions are the very actions you should use as the impetus for further action. If you are just sitting there waiting for inspiration to come to you, brush your teeth. Brushing your teeth is a small constructive action that gives you the impetus for further action.
If you have to write a huge essay, do not think, “Oh, I have to write my huge 4,000-word essay now. Just say, I’ll open the Word document and write whatever comes to mind for a minute. And that’s it. That’s all I have to do. But once you start writing, you’ll tend to want to write more because you have convinced yourself that you can do it. That’s a principle.
Strategy number two seems to contradict what I just said, which is to reward yourself for small successes.
You may cringe at the thought of rewarding yourself for showering or something like that because you know you are capable of so much more, but the need to reward yourself for small successes is a psychological necessity, especially when you are in a vulnerable situation. And it has everything to do with the fact that you have two sides to your brain. And I am not talking about right and left, I am talking more about the more primal part of your brain, which is closer to the brain stem and is responsible for motivation and emotions and things like that. And you are a more logical, abstract, moral part of your brain that’s currently more in the prefrontal cortex. So if your prefrontal cortex knows that it has to use the principle of “do something” to convince your primal side of the brain to do something, you mustn’t be too ironclad about it, because it’s a negotiation with yourself. Do not be a slave driver for the primal side of your brain, or it will not feel heard, will lash out, and will not do what your logical side of the brain wants it to do. So you have to use your higher judgment to compassionately guide the original side of your brain and win it over very gradually.
If you are too lazy to do anything but sit around all day, and you use the principle of “do something” to convince your primal side of the brain to brush your teeth, take a shower, put on something nice, and clean the kitchen, and you start getting tired and restless afterward, take a break. This may sound suspicious and the logical side of your brain knows you should be doing a lot more than that. Take it easy, reward yourself for doing something constructive for once after days of a dopamine rush, and just relax and take it easy. You may be thinking, how the hell am I going to get out of this rut if I do not take this momentum with me into the sunset?
Strategy number three is all about progressive overload.
It’s very similar to the philosophy of weightlifting and getting stronger. Instead of taking crazy measures over and over again until your primal brain snaps and you go into long periods of self-destruction, you should train yourself to live a lifestyle that you gradually get used to, that becomes more and more productive, and where you do more every day while rewarding yourself for the small successes and comparing yourself to what you were yesterday instead of what someone else is today.
So, for example, if you develop a plan for seven days to get out of a rut, that’s much more realistic than just trying to suddenly be productive. Let us say on the first day you can not do much other than go online for an extended period. If you can get yourself to do anything constructive on that day, that should be enough for that day. On the first day, you should just gradually do a little bit more and be happy with that. And the next day, you should remind yourself that that was not so bad and that it felt pretty good to take action and do a little bit more. And if you do that day after day, then gradually and organically both sides of your brain will align. And you will rise like a phoenix from the ashes and become the person you were earlier this month. I can not stress enough the importance of managing expectations, being patient with yourself, and letting your higher faculties communicate with the more primal and emotional sides of your brain.
This synergy between the two hemispheres of your brain is critical to your long-term success. And you can eventually live the kind of life you have always wanted to live in a very reliable and sustainable way.
