Anticipation

Anticipation can be deliciously sweet. A child waiting for Christmas; a lover awaiting the arrival of their loved one. these forms of anticipation are wonderful.

But anticipation can be painful as well. When we start to anticipate work, that is not such sweet anticipation. We start to think about what the work entails; we look to the future, to all the tasks that needs to be accomplished ad we multiply those tasks by all the problems that we can imagine arising. And suddenly anticipation is working against you.

When anticipation is creating a negative response, the best thing to do is to dive in and face the project and face the problem. Instead of letting the anticipation grow--and with it the emotional drag--break out of anticipation by taking action. Unlike the child waiting for Christmas or the lover waiting for the loved one, when it comes to work, we are not forced to wait, but instead we can take action.

I was thinking about this partly because the thought of trying to write a blog entry every day creates its own anticipation, and on busy days, or on lazy ones, that anticipation makes the task seem bigger than it needs to be.

Taking action defuses the negativity that anticipation can create. Instead of wondering about what might happen, you have to focus your energy on the present moment and on making something happen.

With my clients with large projects, it's a common complaint that there is so much to do, or that they are uncertain of where to go. But that is negative anticipation speaking: by taking action, by engaging the project, you can enter into a place where the things that you are worried about take on new forms as you engage with them and realize that many of them were built into intimidating forms by our fears.