Do you ever find yourself feeling afraid, resistant, or just plain stuck about getting started on something you need to do? Of course you do. We all do. Whether it’s not knowing how to begin, going out for a walk on a freezing morning, filing your income taxes, or placing follow-up calls to prospective clients, that blocked, stuck, or resistant feeling can be a powerful obstacle.
A common example for self-employed professionals and creatives is the package of feelings and thoughts called “writer’s block.” When writer’s block descends, you can become paralyzed. The idea of writing anything at all may seem so overwhelming, you can’t even begin.
In The Truth About Writer’s Block, writer, editor, and writing teacher Dawn Raffel describes her solution: “So how do we avoid being paralyzed by fear? I wish I knew. My best shot to date is to trick myself, even though I should and do know better, into writing ‘just a few sentences.’ I know full well that ‘just a few sentences,’ if they are good ones, creates an entryway into a world, one that is full of promise and terror, and from which there might be no turning back.”
Dawn’s advice is worthwhile whether your own blocks stem from fear, resistance, confusion, overwhelm, or any of the million other reasons you can get stalled. My own version of “just a few sentences” is “just five minutes.” If I convince myself to spend just five minutes writing or exercising or doing paperwork or making calls, I’ll almost always find that five minutes stretches into ten, fifteen, or thirty.
Spending just a few minutes on a task starts to build your muscle memory. Every time you intend to tackle a challenging task, then you follow through to work on it and see some progress, your task-tackling muscles get that much stronger. In response, your blocks become weaker and less frequent.
The next time a block surfaces, try spending just five minutes to remind yourself that you can. You may find that this jump start is enough that your block begins to dissolve.
