Forcing Yourself to Do a Task Versus Letting Yourself Off the Hook

When you’re tired or facing challenges, more options are available to help you through.

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People often think that when they’re tired or don’t feel like doing a task (or a habit), there are really only two choices:

1. Force yourself to do the task anyway; or
2. Let yourself off the hook

And while there isn’t anything wrong with either of these choices, I’m here to remind you that they are choices. And they’re not the only choices.

What else can you do in that situation? Well, here are just a few other possibilities off the top of my head:

• Choose to take care of yourself, and then come back to the task when you’re more replenished
• Find a reason to do the task that inspires you to do it, even if you’re tired—for example, if you knew that doing a task would save a million people’s lives, you probably wouldn’t say, “Oh, but I’m too tired right now”
• Ask for other people’s help
• Find a creative approach that has you bringing play to the task while also honoring your tiredness

As you can see, there are choices, when we get beyond the only two choices that occur to most of us.