“The task” and how it becomes impossible:

Just do it, said Nike
It’s easy, says consultants, friends, family.
But when you look at it, The Task looks insurmountably difficult.

The Task then never gets done, gets done “half-assed” or gets fretted about so much that people groan and give up on you doing it.

How does the task get like this?
Now there’s the easy part!

We look at the task and it seems easy, but something gets in the way of starting it right then. Perhaps work, perhaps a planned meeting, perhaps just some other minor task in front of it. Perhaps it’s a deeper fear of not doing it the right way.

You are a thinker, a very deep, long-time thinker, and you get thinking about that task.

That’s all it really takes to make a task go from easy to insurmountably difficult. Suddenly there’s lots to do to make it work!

So then we break up the tasks into littler, more manageable bites – we think.

Whoops! Now it’s a taller mountain! Those little tasks become mountains of their own! We climb one, find it exceedingly exhausting…

And give up.

…

This is overthinking – plus anxiety.

It can often go farther, into an anxiety attack which shuts down the task from ever being done!

It’s awful, feeling like such a supposedly simple task is beyond us.

We feel like we don’t have the brainpower.
We feel like we don’t deserve good things.
We feel like we are imposters in a job beyond our abilities.
We feel like we will never be able to do that task ever in our lives – a truth – because those mountains never go away in our head. They are there to stay with this task!

How do we fix this, and bring down the mountains?

Outside help and support to show us how it’s done so easily. Watching videos, asking the person how it’s done, reading an article or two about the procedure…

Then we need to throw out the mountain. Start from the point where they said “it’s easy” and when you come across a hard point, change your thinking.

No “Oh no, I can’t do this part!”
Yes “Hm, I’m not sure how to do this part with my system. Let’s find a way.“

No “I’m too stupid to figure this out, it’s so easy for them why can’t I do it?”
Yes “I want to find the answer to this.”

Whatever tasks are in your head that are insurmountable, Write Them Down. Then throw out the mountain and start again with fresh eyes and a sense of wanting to know more!

I have five of The Tasks at the moment and am starting the Mountain Breakdown now. How about you?