28 Apr You Gotta Brush Your Teeth
There’s a classic video known as “The Soccer Player” that trainers often show in motivational interviewing workshops. In the video, a middle-aged man is starting to play soccer again and realizes his smoking and alcohol use are getting in the way. As he explores ideas for making a change, he says he would “rather just do it and not think about it.”
The man goes on to explain that overthinking any task makes it painful. He remarks, “Do I think about brushing my teeth? If I did, I wouldn’t want to brush my teeth. Oh no, I gotta brush my teeth tomorrow. That’s going to be pretty bad, you know that. I gotta brush my teeth later… and then tomorrow I have to brush my teeth again.”
In my family, the phrase “You gotta brush your teeth” has become shorthand for the heaviness of thinking rather than doing. Whatever is on our list that seems dreaded or tedious or crummy becomes even worse the longer we keep thinking about it and putting it off.
If you know there’s something you have to do, waiting all day or all week or all month to do it usually makes it seem a lot bigger than it needs to be. When you do it right away, you can be done with it.
So if you see me out with my family and happen to hear me say, “You gotta brush your teeth…” don’t be surprised if a toothbrush and toothpaste never appear. Most likely, you will see someone huff a little bit and then set off to get a dreaded task done.