Bad news – thinking isn’t acting
I know, I know.
When you spend a lot of emotional energy thinking, and let me tell you, I am a champion overthinker, it’s easy to feel like you’re actually doing something.
Thinking feels like acting.
But it’s not.
In 2014 I was laid off from a full-time job at the University of Maine at Augusta. In those first few months before I found even a part-time job, I spent hours everyday looking for other jobs.
Looking.
I might even update my resume and draft a cover letter.
But at the end of the day, despite my exhaustion, I hadn’t applied for any jobs.
Sure I’d taken some action. But if I was being honest with myself, I’d spent more time contemplating whether I wanted the job – as though someone was reaching through the screen and offering it to me right then and there. I’d imagine myself working at that particular place and wonder where I’d live and before I knew it, I’d drained my mental energy without taking any action at all.
I’ve had to be careful of this phenomenon, in recent weeks especially, as I approach the reality of the racial injustice in our country. Like many others, I see what is going on and I think about the problem and read about the problem and talk to friends about the problem and I try to try to understand the problem and…
I do nothing.
Thinking isn’t doing. Talking isn’t acting.
For many of us, myself included, this phenomenon gets in the way of our progress, because we never get past the contemplation part of the process.
We buy bins with the idea of going all Marie Kondo on our closets, but then the bins just sit there and finally you start piling your new shoes in them because where else are you going to put your new shoes? I mean, just as an example - certainly not something that I’ve done…
In human behavior there is a model known as the Trans theoretical model of change which highlights the six stages we go through in our preparation to make change.
1. Precontemplation
2. Contemplation
3. Preparation
4. Action
5. Maintenance
6. Termination
In precontemplation, you have no intention of changing anything in the next six months. You’re either unaware that you need to make a change or you are too focused on the cons of changing a behavior.
I would eat healthier, but I hate cooking and don’t have time and my kids won’t eat what I cook.
In contemplation, you intend to change a behavior in the next six months. You’re no longer focused on the cons – you are now weighing both the pros and the cons. Now when I think about cooking, I look up recipes, maybe buy a cookbook and decide that I can watch baseball while I make dinner so it might not be too bad…(the process, not my dinner. That might still be bad…)
Then we move into preparation – and this is sometimes the sticking point. Depending on the task at hand, some of us may never get past this stage. The preparation is downloading the Couch to 5K app, buying that book on Intermittent Fasting, buying a new matching outfit for the gym. Or maybe it’s buying a book about Ireland because someday we’d like to go there.
Depending on the change we’re trying to make, it’s easy to mistake our emotional labor for action. Because make no mistake about it, spending that kind of emotional energy is incredibly draining. Thinking and contemplating and processing are important. Recognizing and being open to change is incredibly significant.
But it’s not enough to just know the truths about yourself and your behavior. If you truly want to make a change, it’s time to stop thinking, to stop talking, and to start acting.
I’m reminded of the line from a college writing class:
Don’t tell me, show me.
Don’t talk. Do.