Sometimes you do know what you need, but you just don't have enough motivation or will to act. You may even think very hard: How can we stop being passive?
You are not alone.
Solving the passive state of doing things is indeed a challenge that each of us will encounter. But to solve this problem from the inside out, we must first understand the passive generation mechanism.
There are usually three main reasons why we are passive.
Negative behavior can easily lead to difficulties in our life and work, because everything we do is difficult to complete.
Of course you can complain about yourself. But that doesn't change anything. People who have this kind of passive behavior will feel disappointed and painful to themselves for most of their lives. But when the disappointment and pain are over, they will continue to be passive and let time go on.
Then why are they like this? Negative behavior may come from many different sources, but there are three main reasons.
Lack of motivation is the most common reason for passivity.
Traditionally, motivation leads to action. When you are motivated, you will naturally have the will to do something. You can be lazy when you have no motivation.
You may suddenly wake up one day and want to exercise, so you go to the gym to exercise. But on other days, you may have no motivation at all. As a result, you can't finish the exercise.
Maybe you will feel that without motivation, you will do nothing! However, it is a "myth" that we should always have the motivation to do things, because our human "constitution" cannot keep the motivation forever.
Even though you were in good spirits and in a good mood that day, you just didn't want to do anything. This is a very common phenomenon. So what should we do?
The solution is to guide your motivation through action.
Don't believe me? You can recall your life experience. For example, if you don't want to attend some parties, you would rather stay at home than go out. But because of the face problem, you went anyway.
Then I didn't expect that you had a good time with other friends at this party, and even had some unfinished business when you got home.
Or a job you don't want to do, but you force yourself to take action. Then I didn't expect that after you start to act, you will have an impulse to do things well.
Yes, motivation sometimes leads to action, but motivation is not always the case. On the contrary, action can bring motivation.
This view seems counterintuitive, but as long as you do something when you feel less motivated and negative, you will find that motivation and productivity are slowly catching up.
Lack of a sense of need for goals will also put us in a passive state, because we don't know what we are doing these things for.
Because there is no strong sense of need for the goal, or those things that are difficult to achieve do not bring much meaning to themselves, many people prefer to spend a lot of time on things that are meaningless and can be completed without much effort. For example, brushing short videos, staring blankly, sleeping, playing mobile phones and so on.
In other words, if you want to achieve your goals, you need to find and create meaningful needs for these goals.
Think about it, what is our motivation to go to work every day? To support the family, to buy a house and a car, and to earn more money? No matter what it is, these have become our sense of purpose in completing our work.
But in life outside of work, for example, if you want to improve your ability, you can still create such meaningful goals for yourself and find your sense of need for action.
For example, I am studying video production recently. Why would I do that? Because I think it is difficult to improve the influence of my knowledge dissemination just by writing articles. After all, unlike other accounts, I work as a team, and everyone collects firewood with a high flame.
In order to make the contribution of writing an article more meaningful, it may be better to spread the content of the article by video. This is my need for the goal.
So even if I am busy enough, I still have to write articles and books, and now I have to take time to learn video production, so that I will have the motivation to do it instead of feeling cumbersome.
Find your sense of need for the goal, and you will naturally have the motivation to act.
What is "analytical paralysis"?
It is when what we want to do involves analyzing and thinking about these steps that we are easily paralyzed and lead to passive behavior.
For example, if you want to learn to shoot videos, you can learn through books, websites and videos. But these channels provide us with a lot of information. We don't know where to look, where to learn and what resources can help us, so you are paralyzed in the analysis and don't want to move anything.
Many times, the learning methods envisioned by our brains are "overnight", thinking that after reading an article about improving communication skills, we can solve our own problems immediately; Seeing an article about self-growth, I hope I can get a brand-new change.
But the problem is that this kind of thing cannot happen. We need to analyze what we have seen, heard and learned, establish correct practical steps, and then master them step by step.
When we can't 100% guarantee that something will work normally from beginning to end, and then try it ourselves, we will choose to stand still and do nothing.
So how to solve this problem?
First of all, forget all this. Although your brain is excellent at many things, in fact, sometimes the desire to complete 100% will limit your actions. Because it gives you ten reasons why you shouldn't do this.
So, choose to trust your intuition!
When you want to learn how to shoot videos, you can learn anything that comes to mind. If you think you can learn a skill by reading, you can read a book. If you think this skill needs to be learned by watching videos, then find relevant videos to learn. In short, let yourself explore first, accumulate first-hand direct experience, and then slowly build learning steps.
After all, experience is not only the best teacher, but also the most direct way to experience, learn and enjoy reality.
Now we know what caused our passivity.
Next, you need to explore ways to stop being passive and find your own driving force.
Many people can't take the initiative because they are used to being passive, so everything will start from a passive state and eventually nothing can be done.
And an active person, they will take the initiative from thinking first, then guide them to their own behavior from thinking, and then unify them to stimulate their own actions.
In other words, when you have an idea and are ready to put it into action, if you concentrate on thinking from the beginning: "What is the first thing I can do?" Then this "active thinking mode" will establish a psychological tendency and make you more active.
"Active thinking" is the choice you give yourself to act, not the outside world. Of course, this kind of "active thinking" must start with simple steps, otherwise you will be easily affected by "analysis paralysis".
So, if you can clearly know what to do first, whether to turn on the computer, take out the camera or pull out the memory card, and so on. Before you start to act, as long as you know what to do first, it's hard for you to keep delaying yourself because of thinking.
No matter what you do, you'd better reduce the resistance to action psychologically before you start. A common way to reduce resistance is to think about what you can do at once.
With the blessing of this active thinking, your next move will naturally be built.
The boss arranged the employees in terms of work items, tasks and indicators. Therefore, when employees come to the company every day, they can do things according to the planned worksheet.
But the project of life, time is in our own hands, even if we arrange full goals for ourselves, it is difficult for us to take the initiative to complete it. Unless we make a breakthrough in action.
Many people have been content with the status quo and can't take action to pursue their goals because they can't find a breakthrough or lack a breakthrough, so they can't take action.
What is a "breakthrough"?
Imagine you are walking in a circle. How to leave this circle? Is it necessary to dig a hole to let yourself out? As long as you drill out along this breakthrough, you can take yourself to another level and reshape yourself.
Passive behavior is such a "cycle". If you want to get out of the passive cycle, you need to establish a breakthrough for yourself. So how to establish this breakthrough?
The answer is to find something that is related to the goal, but not difficult, and just immerse yourself in it and do it.
As things are not difficult, we don't have to work too hard. Then when you immerse yourself in it for a period of time, according to the above point of view, build motivation through action, and you will gradually accumulate action potential energy.
Because when the brain comes into contact with a strange thing, it will be more or less resistant, but if it is challenging and not too difficult, the brain will be happy to accept it. Once accepted, establish a habit path, and then stick to it so that you won't feel very tired.
For example, if you see other people making short videos, it seems very interesting. You really want to learn, but you don't know if you can learn. Then you can try this method. First import your own video into the computer, and then open the video editing software. With this gap, even if it is delayed, this small task will certainly be completed.
In short, after you have an idea in your mind, don't worry about whether you did well at first, but jump in and study first, and through small steps of practice, open a breakthrough, accumulate potential energy for action, and make your ability to pay every day very small, so that you can always stick to it.
Closely related to the above viewpoint, although you can never accurately predict the future, it is always useful to consider the future development.
These considerations include:
Considering all these problems and your other personal problems will provide a good basis for you to take action.
With these "thinking ahead", you can now refocus all your attention on the "present". Although it is important to think about the future, don't stay there because it doesn't exist.
Only now, you can only take care of the immediate things. When you can handle the present, you will find that your whole future and life are gradually built.
From passive life to active life, these practices are often inseparable. You have read this article and know what to do, so do it now!
Your new life will be born for you.