How to get things done when your brain hates being told what to do

I have discovered an extraordinarily effective way to make myself completely incapable of doing something: I tell myself I have to do it.

That's it. That's the technique.

Something I was perfectly happy to do seventeen seconds ago? Tell me I need to do it now and absolutely fucking not. Something I actively chose for myself? Remind me that I've committed to doing it every day and, interestingly, I appear to have lost the use of my limbs.

Even something I genuinely, wholeheartedly, enthusiastically WANT to do can be transformed into double maths on a wet Tuesday afternoon if I give myself enough rules about how, when and how often I need to do it.

It's honestly quite impressive.

Since understanding more about my autistic brain, and particularly recognising PDA, Pathological Demand Avoidance, in myself, this has become one of my favourite experiments. Not, “how do I finally force myself to do what I'm supposed to do?” but what happens if I stop turning everything I want into a demand?

Because apparently I have been doing that for YEARS.

The demand doesn't even need to come from somebody else

This was the bit that really got me, because when you hear “demand avoidance” you might imagine somebody else telling me what to do and, yes, that can certainly awaken the tiny revolutionary living inside my nervous system.

But some of my most effective demands are entirely homemade.

Nobody else needs to tell me I have to post today, I need to be consistent, I said I'd write every morning, I should reply to that message, I need to finish this, I have to make some money, I've committed to this now so I can't stop after three days.

I am perfectly capable of manufacturing all of those myself, which creates the frankly ridiculous situation where I am simultaneously the authority imposing the demand AND the person rebelling against it.

There is nobody else in this fight. It's just me in a tiny one human industrial dispute.

And what makes this especially interesting is that I can do it to things I LOVE.

I can turn desire into homework remarkably quickly

Painting. Writing. Making things. Learning. Thinking. Coming up with ideas. Talking to interesting people about the weird shit their brains do.

These are not activities I have historically needed to be dragged towards. I absolutely love them.

But watch how quickly I can ruin it.

I start writing a blog in the mornings because I want to. It feels brilliant. I follow whatever thought is interesting that day, one thought becomes another, I publish it and I feel alive.

Then my brain notices we're onto something.

Ahhhhh. Excellent.

We should do this every day.

There should probably be a schedule. Perhaps a content strategy. We should decide the themes in advance. What time exactly are we writing? How many words? Could this become a newsletter? How does it lead into the Studio? We need to make sure we're CONSISTENT.

And somewhere between “Ooh, I want to write this morning” and “I have to write every morning”, something changes.

It's the same desk, same laptop, same person, same activity, except yesterday this was play and today it has a performance review.

So I started wondering whether the problem was actually me, or, more specifically, whether the problem was the way I was trying to manage me.

Enter Scientist Lauren and her tiny lab coat

Because if I know that hard demands can create enormous resistance in my brain, then repeatedly creating hard demands and getting furious with myself when I resist them is... not particularly excellent experimental design.

Imagine doing that in a laboratory.

Every time we expose the sample to Condition A, it stops moving.

Interesting.

Better increase Condition A.

Still nothing.

MORE CONDITION A.

WHY IS THIS SAMPLE SO LAZY?

At some point you might consider changing the conditions, you know the ol’ saying “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”...

So that's what I'm trying to do. Instead of treating my brain like an inconvenient employee who needs firmer management, I'm getting curious about what happens when I change the way the task exists.

“I have to” is becoming one of my little alarm bells

This doesn't mean everything following the words I have to is actually optional.

I live in the world. I have responsibilities. Deadlines exist. Other humans exist. Bills remain disappointingly committed to their monthly schedule. There are plenty of things I need to do whether or not I feel a delicious sense of creative autonomy about them.

So the experiment isn't, I shall simply never do anything I don't fancy doing again.

Iconic, obviously. Financially questionable.

The experiment is noticing what happens when my language starts removing every scrap of choice.

I have to do this.

Okay. What happens in my body when I say that?

For me, sometimes it's almost instant. Nope. Heavy. Avoid. I'll do it later. Perhaps now would be an excellent time to investigate the contents of the fridge despite having checked eleven minutes ago.

And rather than immediately layering another demand on top with COME ON LAUREN, JUST DO IT, I'm trying to get curious about what exactly my brain is reacting to here.

Because sometimes the thing genuinely isn't optional.

But there might still be a choice hiding inside it.

Sometimes I give myself choices inside the thing that isn't a choice

This has been fascinating because sometimes the outcome is fixed, but the route isn't.

The thing needs doing. Fine.

But perhaps I can choose whether I do it now or after my walk. At my desk or sitting outside. Music or silence. Easy bit first or horrible bit first. Twenty minutes and reassess or finish the whole thing. Write it or voice note it. Do it alone or body double with somebody. Make the polished version or make an absolutely dogshit first version.

Tiny choices, but choices.

Little bits of autonomy tucked inside the edges.

And sometimes that's enough to turn NO into ...fine, but we're doing it with coffee and the Mamma Mia soundtrack.

Deal.

Sometimes I make it an experiment

This is rapidly becoming one of the central principles of my entire life, because experiments have something that demands don't.

Curiosity.

“I need to post consistently for the next three months” and my brain has left the building.

“What happens if I post whenever I have something genuinely interesting to say for the next two weeks?”

Oh.

Well now I want to know.

“I have to finish this painting” becomes “what happens if I give this canvas 30 minutes and deliberately don't try to finish it?”

“I need to decide whether this idea could become a business” becomes “what happens if I give this idea a season?”

...go on.

An experiment isn't a sneaky way of pretending something isn't a commitment. Sometimes I absolutely am committing to something. What it changes is my relationship with the outcome.

I don't have to prove anything. I am gathering information. I can notice what happens, change variables, discover that my hypothesis was completely wrong without turning that into a referendum on my character.

And perhaps most importantly, I don't have to know the result before I'm allowed to begin.

Sometimes I need to find the desire underneath all the demands

This one hurts a bit.

Because sometimes I've piled so many shoulds on top of something that I can't remember why I wanted it in the first place.

I should grow my audience, I should post, I should sell, I should be more visible, I should finish the website, I should create the offer, I should make more money, I should be consistent.

Should should should should should.

Eventually you can build an entire business out of things you're apparently supposed to do and then sit in the middle of it wondering why you don't feel particularly alive.

So I'm learning to ask:

What did I want before I started telling myself how I had to get it?

Fuck.

There she is.

Because perhaps I do want to write, I just don't want to run Lauren's Daily Content Production Facility™.

Perhaps I want to paint, I just don't want every painting to justify itself by becoming a product.

Perhaps I want a successful business, I just don't want to build it using somebody else's definition of what successful business owners do every morning before 8am.

Perhaps I even want consistency, but my version of consistency isn't sameness.

Perhaps it's returning.

Again and again, in different ways, because I still care about the thing.

This changes how I think about procrastination too

I'm increasingly suspicious of the question “how do I make myself do it?”

Because sometimes that absolutely is the question. The bins need taking out, Lauren. This does not require a voyage of self discovery.

But when I repeatedly cannot make myself do something that I supposedly desperately want to do, I want better questions.

What happens when I think about doing it? Where does the resistance begin? Have I made this too big? Have I removed all the choice? Am I frightened of what happens if I do it? Have I attached a result to it that I cannot control? Am I trying to do it in a way that doesn't suit me? Whose rule am I following? Did I actually choose this?

And maybe the biggest one:

When did this thing I wanted become homework?

OOF.

Because maybe the answer isn't always more discipline. Maybe sometimes the way we're trying to make ourselves do the thing is part of what is making the thing harder to do.

Which is becoming a very Studio shaped thought

Imagine coming into A Season in the Studio with the thing you've been failing to “make yourself” do.

You want to write the book, make the art, launch the community, start the workshops, change the business, become visible, actually finish the weird creative project you have been thinking about for three years.

You already know you want it, so why aren't you doing it?

We could give you another productivity system. We could create some deadlines, make a colour coded plan, identify your KPIs and give Stickler the best afternoon of her life.

Or we could get interested in what happens when you actually try.

You sit down to write. What happens?

You decide you're going to post. What happens?

You put Tuesday morning in your diary for painting. Tuesday morning arrives.

What happens?

Because THAT is where I want to work.

Not only with the beautiful future version of you who has written the book, but with the actual version of you standing in the kitchen on Tuesday morning thinking, I said I was going to write today. I really need to write today. I've already missed two days. If I don't do it today I'm doing that thing again. Why can't I just fucking DO things?

Oh look.

The fridge could do with cleaning.

There.

That's the moment.

That's where we get curious.

Maybe it's demand. Maybe it's perfectionism. Maybe it's fear. Maybe People Pleaser has opinions. Maybe Hyper Achiever has decided that chapter one needs to demonstrate enough literary promise to justify the entire project. Maybe you're exhausted. Maybe you genuinely don't want this anymore. Maybe you desperately want it and have accidentally constructed a prison around the route you're allowed to take to get there.

We don't know yet.

Good. Now we have an experiment.

Because I am becoming increasingly convinced that getting yourself to do meaningful things isn't always about becoming better at forcing yourself. Sometimes it's about becoming much, much better at understanding the person you're asking.

And lately, when I notice myself standing over myself with a metaphorical clipboard saying you HAVE to do this, I'm trying to put the clipboard down.

Not necessarily the task. Just the clipboard.

Then I can ask myself, okay, how could we do this in a way my brain can actually come with me?

And LAWDY LAWDY

Turns out she's got ideas.

Chat soon scientists,

Lauren