Can You “Just Do”… Anything?

I planned this for very many months, this blog. I (eventually) wrote nine posts as a buffer, but (also eventually) there came a time when I had to start posting. Which meant writing new things every week. Needless to say, I am not completing new posts at quite the rate I post old ones. Why not? It’s not for lack of topics, I came up with a list of 60 before I ever started writing. Nope, I’ve got ideas, I’ve got time, I’ve got a variety of places to write in, tea and hot chocolate in the cupboard, cozy blankets, natural light, etc. All I need to do is…. Just do it. Why can I not just do it?

So, this is pretty typical of me. Everything is going according to plan, but when we get to the part when I really have to just do it, it seems impossible. It takes me more energy and time to accomplish things than I feel like it should, and the helplessness and hopelessness creep in. And it doesn’t matter if there are other people in the world who take longer or have to try harder, because I’m not comparing myself to anything besides my own expectations. Which always seem to place success just out of reach.

I think the idea for this blog post came to me a while ago, but I wasn’t able to write it immediately (at this point, it’s been more than a month trying to finish it, actually). Paralysed by fear, see. (Among other things.) I thought I needed to plan out the correct posts to write in the correct order, but really, all I needed to do was sit down and type. And yet that sounds far too simple for the act of overcoming my worries and inertia.

Nike has it right, but also wrong. At some point, literally all you can do is “just do it,” but you have to have the right pieces in place first. The right location, the right skills, the right tools, the right knowledge, the right headspace. Simply exerting effort when you’re sitting on the couch, doom-scrolling, doesn’t get anything done besides fuel the fires of frustration. Maybe click a few Angry or Sad reacts on Facebook. But if you move that effort to a pen and paper, all of a sudden you’re producing something. You’re Being Productive. Are you guaranteed to produce great art, or some sort of work of great importance? Of course not. I cannot find a source for the sentiment that “practice makes progress,” but I believe it to be very true. As long as you have the right pieces in place, doing what you’re doing will only make you better at it.

And how do you get the right pieces in place? I’d offer a charmingly reductive “just do it,” but the truth is, there is a whole self-help industry set up to try to coach us to do the things we don’t (and do) want to do.

And yet… I don’t have an answer. I don’t have a fix for this problem that I know is not uncommon, but might possibly trouble me more than, well, the global average. It’s going to keep playing a villainous role in my life. It’s going to keep tripping me up every time I try to accomplish something, and that is impossibly frustrating. To be repeatedly thwarted by your own apparent inability to “just do” anything.

But here is something I will say:

I understand where it’s coming from. I empathize with this poor, misunderstood tendency. And here’s why. On the these-days-rare occasions that I manage to get myself together to do something, something typically goes wrong. Probably only slightly wrong, like I-can-repair-the-damage-if-I-can-just-get-myself-together-to-do-something-again wrong. Sometimes more severely wrong, like I’m-embarrassed-in-front-of-somebody-outside-my-core-group wrong (which is a huge deal for me and probably something I’ll talk about sometime). But it’s consistent, and my reactions are always out of proportion because I’m so out of practice at doing things. And I’m reasonably certain that a part of my brain is absolutely convinced that these errors are the life-threatening and very direct result of trying to do something in the first place. So this part of me is trying to protect me by discouraging me from ever trying.

I haven’t really given up, clearly. I’m here, writing. (By the time you are reading this, I may have long since doubled the two-month buffer¹ and will hopefully have found myself some kind of schedule for the ongoing future posts².) But getting here has been a bit like trying to cross a frozen pond. With each step I can hear the ice creak, and I know I could crash through into breathtakingly cold water at any second. The stress of it all, piled on top of two years plus of heightened fear³, leaves me exhausted. As a result, I retreat to my planning. The ice looks solid there, under that blog topic, so that will be my next step. But I just need a little rest first, says my anxiety. Freeze. Wait and breathe.  Stay and be safe.

There is a long list of things I cannot “just do” because they need doing, or because I want to do them, or becausesomeone else wants me to do them, or even because all three. Executive dysfunction plays a part, and that is definitely a topic I should add to my list. I know that I need all the right pieces in place and I’m not very good at divining what those pieces are or how to obtain them. And I’ve found that just hitting the gas without the right pieces can have unintended effects.

The point of all this? What seems like self-sabotage could really be a misguided attempt at self-preservation by your poor, beleaguered brain. So be kind and gentle with yourself as you try to get past it. 

¹ Spoiler: I didn’t!

² Eh…

³ For reference, at time of writing, I am looking back on two-plus years of COVID.