Protect your plan from a scattered mind

Out of a scattered mind comes scattered actions.

It’s not enough to be clear on what you’ll do today although necessary.

It’s necessary to also know what you won’t be doing today and the exact steps and measures you will put in place to make sure you don’t do those things.

How will you protect your plan?

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I’m at my desk, I have two hours of deep focused work planned ahead.

10 minutes into my focus I stop to check my email. There is something that needs my attention, I resolve it.

I get a little dopamine reward for being helpful and needed.

But my integrity, sense of free will and self esteem all take a hit because I broke a promise to myself.

Not long after someone walks into the office with a request for my opinion. I provide it. I get my dopamine reward.

This time though I blame them for the interruption. I think this will protect my integrity but it does something worse.

In blaming them I convince myself that I don’t have ultimate responsibility and that what I’m trying to achieve isn’t actually possible.

This thought floods me with both overwhelm and a sense of helplessness.

I’ve got my phone in hand again… what the hell?

My brain changes to make days like this easier and so more likely to repeat.

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Our brain is never not extracting meaning from the world and adapting. Our feelings are cause and effect.

When we make ourselves a promise and we fail to keep it we lose trust and confidence in ourselves.

When we point to others as the reason that we can’t keep our promises to ourselves we feel hopeless because we are telling ourselves that we aren’t in control of our lives.

It’s our job to make promises to ourselves and then work out what has to happen in order for us to keep them.

The reward for this is confidence, clarity, fulfilment and excitement about the future.