do you have trouble changing your course of action

Post Reply New Topic

Just wondering, if you start something, do you have trouble "turning around" if you need to?

Maybe best explained with examples:

I left a test an hour early because I got mixed up with the time. I realized my mistake, my prof would have been fine with it, but I couldn't make myself reverse my course. It worked out fine, but I would have taken the whole time. I was so upset afterwards and really worried about the outcome. It is like my brain locks and I can't change course.

Or I'll find myself going along with something I don't want to, and I really go mute. I get stuck on course. I'll say "okay", but I think it is that the person is so certain about what I should be doing I get swept up in it. Conversely I can put my heels in and not be moved at all. I call myself a paradox for a reason.

Just wondering.

Yeah, if I try solving some problem, even just something small like the wireless is not working, it could become more complicated to fix than I had envisaged and, if I have food going cold or something like that, my wife might say "it doesn't matter, just leave it" ...as if I am able to stop doing it - I am not capable of that. Once I set my mind to that task I find it extremely difficult to abandon it until I have found a solution. It actually makes me angry that she even suggests that I give up. Sure it is useful in some situations but I think it drives her a bit crazy.

Yes - "lock on."

i have troubles changing course.

Yes, I think so.

It is like I have been preparing my mind to do things one way, and memorising and filling my head with that plan ... and then someone wants to change it without notice and I am rattled and just hold onto the plan as something that I have worked myself up to do.

I think I have to put so many things into place inside my head to accomplish a task, that I cannot quickly undo all that and put the things I need to do for a different plan into my head.

I think it is an executive function issue. (But also a social issue - many plans involve interaction with other people, and I have to plan and prepare for that interaction, so changing the plan means throwing away all my preparations and starting all over again on the long slow process of building up my confidence in the plan and rehearsing it in my mind).

Yes, I can identify.

I have explained it to others in the past by using the term inertial.

It is as if I have a very large mass, and any change in course requires a intense expenditure of energy. Once I am on a course, I very rarely can be detoured. And if I am stationary, choosing to remain neutral or otherwise avoid something.... it is nearly impossible to get me moving in any direction.

knowing this is how I operate though, I try to have goals in mind that inherently allow for fluidity. This i simply a change in perspective from the onset. For example.

Instead of going to the store to buy bread, milk, and eggs. I'll go to the store to "purchase the foods I'll need for the next three days, or of which I'm out of and need to be replaced".

The difference being... as I'm walking through the store, I might recognize that I'm also out of butter. If I went to the store to buy bread, milk, and eggs... I'll very likely decide to come back and get it later, despite already being there. If however, I'm at the store to "purchase the foods I'll need for the next three days, or of which I'm out of and need to be replaced" then I would go and retrieve some butter as well.

Don't know if that'll assist anyone else, but figured I'd share, as it has drastically altered the impact that being inertial has had on my daily life. I get a lot more accomplished when I simply use a differentially stated goal.