The Key is to Keep Moving

What do you do when you're not feeling yourself but still have lots to do? 

Maybe the holidays have you singing the blues or there's been a setback in your personal life that makes striving towards your goals a herculean feat. 

We've all experienced times where everything just felt like a grind. So how do you work through your feelings while attending to your responsibilities?

It starts with being honest about where you're at. This requires taking some personal inventory and allowing yourself to be where you are. 

The next step is to write down a few things you can do for that day. It could be something as simple as taking a 10-minute walk around the block, or making your bed. 

The important thing is to just keep moving. Two things happen as a result:

1. You start to build momentum

2. It become progressively harder to ruminate on what's troubling you when you place your focus on a task

Next, be consistent in your actions. Keep going for that morning stroll and making that bed. You'll start to re-establish a routine and in time you can begin to add more complicated and pressing tasks. Start small and work your way up.

Finally, one of the best ways to get your mind off yourself is to do something for someone else. 

When I graduated from drama school I was in a complete daze. I was so focused on my own needs I got tired of hearing my own voice. The trivial things in my life started to masquerade as crisis.

But the minute I began volunteering I literally didn't have time to worry about myself. I felt a profound sense of meaning in helping someone navigate through their own obstacles, which gave me some much-needed perspective on my own.

The important thing is to take one small step a day and to not quit.

How You Spend Your Time Has Enormous Symbolic Value

I've been talking about a book I recently picked up called, Only the Paranoid Survive by the former CEO of Intel, Andrew S. Grove. Not surprisingly, he addresses how leaders should consider their time:

"One more word about your own time: if you're in a leadership position, how you spend your time has enormous symbolic value. It will communicate what's important or what isn't far more powerfully than all the speeches you can give. Strategic change doesn't just start at the top. It starts with your calendar. "

Poet Annie Dillard once said, "How we spend our days is how we spend our lives." 

The two could not come from more contrasting spectrums. Grove was the CEO of a multinational corporation, while Dillard is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer. Still, both seem to understand that how we spend our time is different that how we talk about our time. 

In my own life, I used to talk a great deal about the importance of personal relationships and family. Yet, each week when I took a glance at my calendar I had the sobering realization that very little of those 168 hours went to either. I was talking a big game but not backing it up with my actions.

It seems whether you look at your time through the lens of work life or personal life one thing is for certain: actions speak far louder than words. And theory alone means nothing without initiative. 

Be Quick, but Don't Hurry

One of the pillars of legendary UCLA Basketball Coach John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success," is a lesson in being swift in your actions, but carrying out the task with care a precision.

We can approach our creative endeavors deliberately and carefully, while maintaining a sense of urgency and belief in what we're doing.