Do you recognize that moment when you know what to do and what to focus on, but then a colleague comes along with another project for you to do? It sounds kind of interesting, it makes extra money, and so you think, “Yeah, why not?” You take on that project, and then you’ve spent your entire day on it. At the end, you realize, “I haven’t actually done the things I intended to do.”

That happens to me more often than I’d like to admit, and it is a challenge. Because not only do the important tasks get pushed aside, but it also stresses me out. The more I give in to the distractions of my environment, the less I feel like I’m in control. It’s like I’m supposed to be the captain of the ship, but I continue to let the ship be steered by another captain without even realizing it. Not only will I probably not get to my destination, but I’ll end up at the destination of the other captain. There’s a sense of powerlessness to it, a stress, because I can’t control the ship anymore.

So, in this blog, I’ll share the three main things I’ve learned so far in my ongoing quest to tackle this challenge.

1. Increase the Pain 💥

I was recently listening to the book Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins. He made a point that stuck with me ever since: our strongest motivator is pain. The reason why we don’t change is because changing is painful. We don’t like pain, so we avoid it. But if the pain of not changing is bigger than the pain of changing, that is when we’ll take action.

And this is relevant to my problem as well. Because, believe it or not, doing the thing that is most important to you is often also painful. You REALLY care about it, so you don’t want to mess it up, and it often requires stepping out of your comfort zone. But not doing it isn’t that painful—especially in the short term. No one will be mad at me if I don’t post this blog. I won’t lose any money, and there’s no real deadline.

But as soon as a college presentation comes along, with a deadline, a teacher who expects you to do well, and a class full of people who will watch you struggle if you didn’t prepare… then the pain of not doing it is far greater than the pain of doing it. Meaning that I will leave my blog behind and start working on the college presentation instead. And THAT is the fundamental issue. There will always be more urgent things, whether for study or work. But if you let those urgent tasks overshadow your personal, important projects all the time, you’ll hardly make any progress.

The solution? Increase the pain of not writing my blog or building my business. There are multiple ways to do this. I won’t get into them too deeply here—that’s for another time—but here are a few:

1. An Accountability Buddy (or Group)

I got this concept from the amazing book The 12 Week Year, and I’m planning to write a blog post on this. It works like this: someone (a friend) keeps you accountable by checking in on your progress and helping you move through obstacles.

2. Pay for Not Doing It

We can use a platform like Beeminder, for example. This platform will take money from you if you don’t do the thing you said you would do.

3. Personal Reviews

This is a bit of a weaker system but still effective. Here, we review our own progress and check in on our goals, reminding ourselves of the work we still want to do or have already done.

2. When Out of Control, Start Knitting 🧶

Michelle Obama wrote an amazing story in her book The Light We Carry. She said that whenever she feels out of control or overwhelmed, she starts knitting. She explained that it helps because, in moments like that, it’s important to focus on what you can control. Knitting is one of those things that is completely in our control.

And it helps. Remember when I told you about the day I took on a project from a colleague? Well, on that same evening, I started cleaning the house—doing something that I could completely control. And it worked, at least to get rid of that stressful feeling of not having agency in my life.

3. Don’t Overthink It 🚀

This point might seem unrelated, but I’ve experienced that it actually is related. I noticed that the reason I wasn’t getting the important things done wasn’t just because other projects took priority, but also because the stakes of my meaningful project felt too high. Going back to the pain and motivation example, the pain of working on the project was too high. I wanted it to be perfect or felt like I needed the perfect time and perfect idea before being able to execute.

But what I realized is that it’s a matter of taking action and shifting course as you go. The same is true when you step into a ship and set out to discover new lands. Oftentimes, there isn’t yet a map or a clear picture of what the journey will look like. The same can be true for a meaningful project—which, in my case, is starting this blog and website. I’ve never done that before; I don’t know the map. But it’s when you’re actually sailing that it becomes easier to see where to go next.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. If you have anything you want to share, feel free! And have a wonderful rest of your day!