I hear this all the time from my coaching clients:
They intend to “catch up” over the weekend, but then, inevitably, they don’t feel like it. (Which is, you know, totally understandable. I don’t want to work on the weekend either!)
So on Saturday, they say to themselves “I’ll do it tomorrow”
And on Sunday morning, they say “I’ll do it tonight”.
And then Sunday night comes, and (shocker!) they don’t feel like doing it then either.
But now, they find themselves in an uncomfortable bind.
No, they didn’t do the work they intended to do over the weekend.
But they also didn’t really enjoy the weekend, because they spent so much of it simply dreading the work they needed to do.
It’s a lose-lose situation.
And, you might be wondering, why does this keep happening to YOU?
Well, in my experience, it’s that pesky “optimism” popping in, crowding out our dear friend “realism”.
But the good news is that this problem has a solution.
And that solution is to accept reality (harder than it sounds, but a skill you can improve), and prioritize your future self.
What if, instead of telling yourself that you’ll work on the weekend (when you definitely don’t want to, and, in your heart of hearts, you know you’re not going to), you experimented with taking “working on the weekend” off the table as an option for yourself?
And I hear you saying: “How? I have too much work to do during the week.”
But, hear me out, it’s totally possible that you’re already not doing the work on the weekend anyway, even if you tell yourself you will.
So really, in fact, the amount of work done isn’t going to change.
But how you FEEL about it, and yourself, definitely will.
Tell me, in which of the following scenarios are you going to feel better:
- Telling yourself that you’re going to “catch up” over the weekend, not actually doing any work, but having anxiety about the work you’re not doing.
OR
- Accepting that you’re not going to work and enjoying your weekend without “the thing you’re not going to do anyway” hanging over your head.
Me, I choose #2 every time.
And, with a little support, my clients do too
(Why do I choose it every time? Well, because I’ve certainly made the other choice in the past, and regretted it—every time.)