🦶 TREE 194: It’s just mowing the lawn, Jeff

Sometime during the last mowing season I came to the conclusion that I was employing a suboptimal lawn mowing technique. I devised the broad outline of a better method. Then I carried on mowing in exactly the same way.

This spring I got the mower out of the shed and continued mowing in exactly the same way. Last Saturday – nearly a year after I got the idea – I finally mowed differently. It was better.

Inertia, you guys.

Mowing your own lawn is about as low-risk an activity as you can get. Yet my internal barrier to change was still active and effective.

My point is that if you are working on taking the next step, there’s a piece of your brain that is working on not taking the next step. Two things that you can do to help progress happen are:

• Remind that part of your brain feel that it is safe and this is a good change.

• Organise your environment to make the change as inevitable as possible. Decide in advance. Schedule it. Tell someone what you are doing.

Grow slowly
Jeff

This is a little melancholy for a Thursday, but such a good track from a stellar album. If you don’t have time for the whole thing, at least carve out another few minutes for No Country.

The Memory of TREE playlist – every song from every email: