This Psychiatrist's Tip Can Help You Feel "Less Like A Tumbleweed" In Everyday Life

Ever feel like a tumbleweed, mindlessly blowing through an open plain with no sense of direction? OK, that's a bit of a dramatic metaphor, but you get the idea—you may have the drive and motivation to reach a certain goal or benchmark, but you feel you lack the agency to make it actually happen. You're not alone.

Positive psychiatrist Samantha Boardman, M.D., author of Everyday Vitality, calls this feeling the "intention-action gap"; you have the right sense of determination, but you struggle with turning those dreams into a reality. "How do we close that [gap]?" she poses on the mindbodygreen podcast.

The idea actually comes from psychologist Gabriele Oettingen, Ph.D.: She theorized that the pervasive notion to "think positively" doesn't actually help people achieve their goals. "It's actually more demoralizing and undermining when what we daydream about doesn't come to be," Boardman states. "If it's just in your head, it's not going to happen in the world." 

Of course, your goals may be much more complex and nuanced than the above phone example—but the point here is to dissect those goals into manageable steps rather than simply manifesting them into existence. In a way, focusing on the negative (or the obstacles) can ultimately inspire you to problem-solve your way around them.