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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.
Fear only switches on when the threat is close, which is exactly how you end up doing a week's work at midnight. It also floods the job with anxiety that makes it harder than it needed to be. The pull version is quieter but it starts earlier: a clear kitchen, an evening with nothing hanging over it, being someone who did what they said they would.
Qur’an and Sunnah
To whoever, male or female, does good deeds and has faith, We shall give a good life (Quran 16:97). The good life is described as something you move towards by doing, not something you get by dodging trouble.
مَنۡ عَمِلَ صَٰلِحࣰ ا مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوۡ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤۡمِنࣱ فَلَنُحۡيِيَنَّهُۥ حَيَوٰةࣰ طَيِّبَةࣰۖ وَلَنَجۡزِيَنَّهُمۡ أَجۡرَهُم بِأَحۡسَنِ مَا كَانُواْ يَعۡمَلُونَ
To whoever, male or female, does good deeds and has faith, We shall give a good life and reward them according to the best of their actions
Qur’an 16:97read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis combining planned behaviour and self-determination research found that motivation which feels self-chosen predicts intention and follow-through better than motivation that feels imposed. That is near this point without being the same as it, since what was compared was where the reason came from, not whether a person was moving towards something or away from it.
Martin S. Hagger; Nikos L. D. Chatzisarantis (2008). Integrating the theory of planned behaviour and self‐determination theory in health behaviour: A meta‐analysis. British Journal of Health Psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Something you are heading towards is available to you all week, while fear only shows up at the end.
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
You are allowed to decide not to write things down. What you cannot do is choose that and then be upset with yourself when you forget.
There is a sort of avoidance that looks like getting things done. Sorting the drawer, clearing the inbox, any mildly useful job that is not the one you are dreading.
Make the first move small enough to be almost silly. Open the document and type the date. Put the trainers by the door. Everything after that is cheaper.