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“The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.”
Ram Dass
How do you get things done?
As you may have noticed there are a lot of tips about that floating around online.
One of my favourite productivity tips that has enabled me to get more done is to adopt a habit of acceptance.
This is a very helpful thing to cultivate. Here´s two reasons why:
- Less suffering. Pain is unavoidable in life. Suffering is however optional. The funny thing about a problem is that the negative feelings you may feel because of it do to a large extent not come from the problem itself. It comes from your resistance to the problem. You can choose to accept things as they are at this moment. When you accept you stop creating suffering within your own mind.
- Less mental fatigue. You may sometimes be more tired because you get more done. But I have found that I feel less fatigued mentally and in better shape internally when working in an accepting mode. There is much less overthinking and negative emotions when you are accepting so I guess that makes sense.
As you can see, acceptance is useful beyond just the area of productivity and is something you can incorporate into any part of your life.
Now, how does acceptance help you to get things done?
A short answer would be: as you accept you stop feeding so much energy into your own inner resistance. You stop sustaining and strengthening it. It dissipates. Now you can use your mind, energy, creativity and focus to get things done instead.
Procrastination is an inner resistance to something. Acceptance is a solution.
How to develop a habit of acceptance
Now it would be nice if I had a few snazzy and easy tricks to share here that would quickly help you to create a consistent habit of acceptance. I don’t. I have a few tips though.
Be patient.
Acceptance is like a mental muscle. The more you use it the stronger it becomes. And the procrastination tends to become less and less severe overall.
Your mind has to get used to accepting as a habit that replaces resisting. So you just work at it. And gradually acceptance becomes more and more of a natural choice in your everyday life.
Appreciate the upsides of acceptance.
When you don’t feel like accepting appreciate how much easier and enjoyable life becomes whenever you accept things as they are and work from there. This will turn your mood around for the moment and over time makes it easier for your mind to replace the habit of resistance with the a habit of acceptance.
A practical way.
Talking about acceptance can become a little abstract. You may feel like “well, I know I should accept X or Y, but how do I that practically?”.
Here is one way that’s been helpful for me:
When you feel a negative feeling then accept that feeling.
Don’t try to fight it or to keep it out (like many of us have learned throughout life). Say yes to it.
Surrender and let it in. Observe the feeling in your mind and body without labelling or judging it. If you let it in – for me the feeling then often seems to physically locate itself to the middle of my chest – and just observe it for maybe a minute or two something wonderful happens. The feeling just vanishes. And your mind stops putting in new energy into the problem.
Is acceptance a magic solution that will make everything awesome?
Not really. You may have to do something you find boring. Acceptance might not make it the most fun thing in the world. But it can make it easier to get the thing done. And quite often you can – with the help of acceptance – become enthusiastic and really get into something you resisted and didn’t think highly of at first.
As you step in the mental state of acceptance you just flow with what you choose to do. Your day becomes lighter. There is little or no resistance arising within. Just being in that state feels pretty great. And as a bonus, you can get much done too. 
I’m curious, what is your best tip for developing a habit of acceptance?
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Superb tips – I am a procrastinator I’ll try your tips!
Henrik – Thanks for the insightful post. This line really hit home for me:
“Procrastination is an inner resistance to something. Acceptance is a solution.”
Of course that doesn’t make stopping procrastinating any easier for me =). It does take too much of my energy to procrastinate – energy that would be much better spent doing the positive things that I love. I especially like that you paired this with the entry on creating positive emotions.
I accept that things will not always be as they are, and that’s the good news. Instead of freaking out about things that seem intolerable at any given time, I accept that “this too shall pass.” Then, when things seem amazingly wonderful, I don’t allow myself to get too attached to that either by accepting the impermanence of that as well with the same saying. : )
Great post Henrick! I agree that resistance can really stop us and keep us stuck. Since you ask
my number tip for moving out of resistance and into acceptance is to stop complaining and shift your focus. (Is that one or two?) I know I have spent a lot a time in the past dwelling on something that went wrong, how it shouldn’t have happened, and who is responsible. These days I find it’s a lot more effective to stop – acknowledge what is (complaining won’t change circumstances anyway) – and move towards a solution-oriented focus.
I’m all for taking you advice and moving out of the suffering!
These meditations are very helpful, especially the “Yes” meditation
http://enlighten-me.co.nz/mainsite/Meditations1.html
Thanks for this helpful post. This is a subject that doesn’t receive that much attention in writings on productivity. Most of the time-saving tips out there focus on what we might call the “outer game” of productivity — for example, making checklists, keeping your files organized, not checking e-mail, and so on.
However, what is often overlooked is that, if we are resisting our work on the inside, none of these techniques will actually help us get more efficient. Dissolving this resistance by putting our loving attention on it is a key step in any strategy for finding productivity.
In gratitude, Chris
I am in love with this idea. I know without a doubt that the reason my last project was so painful was because I kept avoiding it. So it kept growing larger.
Taking the couple minutes to look for acceptance might’ve saved hours in the long run.
And thanks for admitting that it’s not easy. Still, I like the idea of admitting that something is going to suck and just accepting it and doing it anyway, instead of waiting for it to be easy or fun.
Learn insight meditation and practice it regularly for two years. It teaches you how to sit quietly in patience and objective observance. It’s this patient and observant state that leads to insight.
I really like this accepting technique. I think it just might work for me. For the past few months I’ve been putting in all my energy into not accepting a harsh reality. By accepting that reality that reality would probably lose its power/terror over me.
Thanks!
When I read this post, it reminded me of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. If you haven’t read it yet, I strongly suggest that you do.
Great post, very helpful.
I would highly recommend the speech “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass, it is the audio version of the intro of his book (with the same name)
I don’t know if this would be considered self-acceptance…but when I am troubled by others, perhaps by their behavior – and I feel the need to be “self destructive” – e.g. over eat or drink alcohol – I say the following. DO NOT LET THEM WIN. I say it over and over. I tell myself that if I sabotage my health, physical or mental, I am letting giving up my state of mind to others. When I tell myself “DO NOT LET THEM WIN” – I regain self control – self mastery.
I hope that makes sense.
Thanks for all the feedback and tips, guys! As doudymind said,The Power of Now by Tolle is excellent to learn more about acceptance. I also recommend the audioversion of Stillness Speaks by the same author.
I´ll add the Ram Dass speech to my to-listen-to list, thanks for the tip barret.
Shanel: I have actually been doing pretty much the same thing lately and tried to not get too attached. It´s some interesting and useful stuff.
This is a very useful tip, makes life a lot easier and makes ME a more agreeable and cheerful person overall!
I try to accept things by thinking of the consequences of NOT accepting. The issues/work always get bigger when they are avoided. And then I try to think of the consequences of getting the thing out of my way (not having to think about doing it, more time to enjoy the other things I do like, lots of other good outcomes!)
Logic more or less wins over laziness
As we all try to “GET THINGS DONE” (and I am a big David Allen proponent), sometimes we miss the attitudinal things that create the environment for productivity and peace.
The Positivity Blog is one of my favorite….gives generally good, useful advice.
As David Allen says, what you resist, you become.
This quote is one of my favorites…..
“The truly able, it appeared, had only so much time to squander on disillusion and self-analysis. Then those destructive vanities were turned round and put to the business of doing what had got to be done. The truly gifted, as opposed to the merely clever, were too busy running things to be bothered.”
Gay Place
Billy Lee Brammer
I read the acceptance post over the weekend, looking down the barrel of a very difficult week with lots of pass/fail activities. And it did help, as I chose to accept my challenges. I was going to move forward either way–the question is, would I do it at peace or not?
Like most things, this lesson can be applied as broadly as you like. And, I suppose a person can be too accepting….were the great geniuses of the world people who accepted things as they were? The classic phrase is to accept what we can’t change….without belaboring the point, I do believe if I would be healthier mentally if I accepted the challenges and “put to the business of dong what had got to be done.”
Great tips.
However, you can only have the habit of acceptance if you like what you do. And also, if you know for sure you are on the right path.
If you are not sure, you cannot be patient. You have to figure out quickly… because time is the scarcest and most important resource.
Fantastic post!Overcoming resistance is simply choosing the way you see things. If I am really struggling with resistance and I just can’t seem to get at it, I visualize how it will feel to have that item off my plate for the day. It is much less burdensome than carrying around the knowledge that it has to be done sometime!
Fantastic blog filled with great info. I’ll be back again!
Shelley
http://www.benaturallywell.com/blog/add-your-blog/
http://www.benaturallywell.com/forums
I found while reading this that it really is so completely true that to accept things as they are, really is the best way to deal with everything. I have been in an abusive realtionship for a few years now and my problem was accepting what and who he really was, once I did accept what and who he really was, I was able to finally release him from further control over me. Abuse is very difficult to break free from when you love the person, not understood by others if they have never been through it. Thanks for having this posted, it cleared the muddy water for me.