Dealing with distractions

There are going to be distractions in our lives so, how do we deal with them?

First of all, behaviors are always a result of the stories that we are telling ourselves. So if I find that I keep getting distracted from getting something done, there is probably a lousy story in the background. A story like ~ I’m not good at that, or that is not fun, or this is going to be hard, etc. will have me non-consciously searching for distractions.

I don’t ever get distracted from skiing, playing volleyball, or playing in the mountains. But, I could easily get distracted from administrative tasks. There are different stories running in the background for administrative tasks than there are for playing.

However, we always have the ability to tell ourselves a more useful story which makes it easy for us to behave differently.

Secondly there is emotional maturity – the ability to do what needs to be done, the ability to do the “right” thing, even when we don’t feel like it. At every moment we are either taking a step in the direction of the person we want to become or we are taking a step away from that and towards the person we do not want to be. So when the distraction presents itself, I can ask myself, “which direction would I like to move” and then take the appropriate action even when I don’t feel like it.

Finally, there is nooks and crannies vs all or nothing. When we start using the small pockets of free time in our day to our advantage, we can get a lot done. For example, I can make a call when I’m waiting in the carpool line to pick up my daughter from school instead of staring out of the window.

So often people do all or nothing. For example ~ I need to make a bunch of calls today but I don’t have an hour set aside to do that. So I end up not making any calls.

In this example, picking up my daughter could be one of those life distractions. But I can work around it by using the nooks and crannies in my day and end up being productive and effective rather than distracted.

Much Love,

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