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Notice the question you are asking yourself. If it is do I feel like doing this, the answer will be no today, no tomorrow, and no on the day it is due.
A question that always returns the same answer is not helping you decide anything. Swap it for a plainer one: what are the first two minutes of this, or when would I rather be doing it. You are not trying to talk yourself into wanting the task. You are taking wanting it out of the doorway.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Take action! (Quran 9:105). It comes as a plain instruction, without waiting for the feeling to arrive first.
وَقُلِ ٱعۡمَلُواْ فَسَيَرَى ٱللَّهُ عَمَلَكُمۡ وَرَسُولُهُۥ وَٱلۡمُؤۡمِنُونَۖ وَسَتُرَدُّونَ إِلَىٰ عَٰلِمِ ٱلۡغَيۡبِ وَٱلشَّهَٰدَةِ فَيُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمۡ تَعۡمَلُونَ
Say [Prophet], ‘Take action! God will see your actions- as will His Messenger and the believers- and then you will be returned to Him who knows what is seen and unseen, and He will tell you what you have been doing
Qur’an 9:105read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of trait self-control across a wide range of behaviours found the pattern fits people running on steady habits better than people making heroic efforts of restraint. That supports building routines that do not consult your mood. It is correlational, so it describes how people who cope well tend to be set up rather than proving what to change first.
de Ridder DT, Lensvelt-Mulders G, Finkenauer C, Stok FM, Baumeister RF. (2012). Taking stock of self-control: a meta-analysis of how trait self-control relates to a wide range of behaviors.. Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
If the gate never opens, the gate is the problem.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Working towards something you want will carry you further than working away from something you dread. Before you start, name in your own words what the finished thing gets you.
Sitting exactly halfway between two options is its own kind of exhausting, and it produces nothing. If you have been weighing something for weeks, the weighing has quietly become the activity.
If someone close to you has become the person who chases you, that arrangement is wearing you both down, even on the days it works. It is worth naming out loud and changing on purpose.