As a procrastinator in recovery;
It took me spending sometime alone with myself to understand why it was I was procrastinating. Why I had all these dreams and grand ideas and only spoke about them? Planned them out, made a vision boards but when it came to actually implementing my ideas that’s where all the motivation and discipline abandoned me. Why simple tasks made me anxious? Why I felt so stuck in so many aspects of my life?
I was in the cycle of frustration for years waiting for the break through moment the ‘ah ha’ moment that would shift a gear in my brain and give me the unlimited motivation, discipline and desire I had always wanted.
Let me tell you the truth one procrastinator to another. That day is not coming. No ‘Eureka Moment’, no teachable moment that switches gears never to go back again.
I have done all the all nighters. Doing coursework at 3am with a fraction of my brain capacity promising I’d never do it again only to do it the following week. I have stayed late to finish work I didn’t do in the day because I was too distracted only to do it again the next day. I always hated doing it yet felt fine to continue on that path.
There is no consequence that will make you fix up. You think there is but you are already ‘comfortable’ with the consequences you are living in the consequences…
You might even find yourself relieved when you get caught out because it’s not as bad as what you imagined.
Long Term Implications
When you are young the consequences don’t seem that deep. What is a lost night of sleep? a grade slightly lower? rushing through your work?
It becomes how you do everything actually and the tasks we procrastinate about become more and more menial that when do we actually do anything?
We distract ourselves on social media, playing video games, watching tv living vicariously though those chasing their dreams and it is enjoyable but deep down there’s that feeling of knowing that in this one life we have, this short life, that we will not reach our potential and the goal gets further away from us.
As you get older and reality looks more and more concrete and you’ve ‘made peace’ with the kind of person you are so your ambitions hope and dreams become realistic to what is directly in front of you. The impact on your self esteem, contentment and general mental health takes a dive and it manifests itself in our life in so many ways.
The Truth About Procrastination
This cognitive dissonance of procrastinating, not showing up for myself and sometimes down right being lazy juxtaposed with me having grand plans and being an ambitious I’ve always felt like I was brilliant, intelligent and had so much to offer the world yet I didn’t. This person that was actively making my life hard was me. It made me sit down and finally confront myself and what this issue was. The main answer I found was fear. As you get older the stakes get higher failure isn’t as cute.
Doing the things you want to do takes a lot of bravery, discipline and consistency. Not motivation and desire.
I have started and stopped so many things learning languages, playing instruments, taking up a sport, the gym the list goes on and on and in that long list of things lies reminders that you can’t achieve anything. You’re not particularly great at anything, that you won’t do anything when you put your mind to it because its not like you decided to do those things thinking you’d quit you just do and that’s who you are. Thats what I landed on.
It actually doesn’t have to be.
As I have taken myself to task yet been kinder and more patient with myself I have learnt a lot and in doing so I’ve learnt a lot.
1. Confront Yourself. Why do I Procrastinate?
You know you have the problem but have you ever sat down and asked yourself what it is specifically you are avoiding? How it is affecting your life? What issues do you foresee if this isn’t something I’m actively dealing with? What are you scared of?
Having made peace with who I was also a lie. I was anxious, sad and was prone to getting depressed because I felt trapped in who I was. I also didn’t like myself. I was becoming someone who was flaky, unreliable and my self contained mess started affecting others and being reliable was something I once took pride in. It was more of a defeated surrender. Until I confronted this part of me that for some reason didn’t want the best for me. I saw myself as two halfs of the same being but one side was constantly winning out keeping me in the same space making me the person I did not want to be. I at one point likened in to an abusive relationship with myself.
You can’t help yourself if you don’t like yourself. You’ll criticise yourself, be disappointed in yourself, remind yourself of your past failings but in all of that when have you ever encouraged yourself consistently, sought out help consistently, forgiven yourself consistently. Those are the traits you want to be shooting for. You show up for yourself when you decide you like yourself and want more.
2. The Plan
Whatever life you want for yourself you need to have a plan. No one just steps into their dream life, career, financial goals etc. Write out what you want and be as specific as possible so when you refer back to it you are clear on what the aim is if you start losing sight. But what this gives you is a point of reference.
The next part of the plan is identifying the obstacles that are in your way? What are the things that help you easily slip into procrastination mode? What are the tasks that fill you with anxiety that you actively avoid? You know yourself and how you tick if you’ve asked yourself the questions above. So write that down too. Identify how to eliminate potential problems that future procrastinator you will try and slip into.
3. The Steps
Break everything up into steps. A checklist of actionable things you need to do. Break the list up into things that are short, medium and long term. Giving yourself a task a day or a week, start small and make them realistic. Nothing comes over night I know this you know this.
4. Support and Accountability
People give the advice move in silence and to some extent it is true but for this terrible. It can be embarrassing to tell people you are struggling, that you have fallen so far off you’re not syre where to go. It is those who are close to you and love you that will remind you that outside of these things you’re struggling with you are great, you have dreams and that you are more than capable even when that part of you that doesn’t want to die says otherwise.
I have found telling those close to me I know are in my corner who see me for what I can be not just who I am will check in on me will leave me wanting to report back with progress I’ve made. Tell a friend or two ask them to keep you accountable and tell them the action you taken.
5. Checking in and checking off
As you make your plan of action and you have written some realistic actionable goals you’ll have a list of your short term, mid and long terms goals. Make a habit of looking at them daly and checking them off when you’ve completed them
6. Start small and build momentum.
As you start to complete your smaller tasks and you become consistent it will spur you onto do a little bit more each time. Maybe an extra task a day maybe you jump onto the next task early. What you will find is task aren’t as daunting and you’ll be asking yourself ‘What can’t I do?!’
7. Seek out help as much as you can.-
This is a big one. Part of life is learning how to do everything absolutely everything but it’s not everything we have to learn from scratch so take out as much guesswork for things as possible. Do research, ask someone doing something similar, watch a YouTube video. There’s so much resources out here that remove guesswork which takes up valuable time that can overwhelm you trying to do everything from scratch.
Identify challenges you know who you are and the things you can and will do to sabotage yourself. For me it was social media. As soon as life became real I was on TikTok twitter, instagram. So I deleted them. I said from Jan to March I’m not going to be on it. When Netflix became the next vice I didn’t delete it I gave myself three episodes of any given show a day. I have a friend we call each other and work silently next to each other as we both work from home. You need to think of your saboteur sometimes in the frame of war. They may win the battle you may fall of but if you identify what made you fall off and approach it making a change you will start winning way more.
8. Understand you may fall off
and you can definitely get back on. When you are a chronic procrastinator you lose confidence in yourself. A lot of skepticism a lot of pessimism enforced by sometimes decades of past behaviour. You need to forgive yourself for always giving up on yourself in the past and understand that new habits can replace the old. You may be moved by this message that movement doesn’t promise anything those feelings will fade and the you you’ve know will start to sabotage you. If you need to hear these steps again you can come back. u
9. Give yourself some credit.
I have never been someone with a clean room. It is only recently that I have been consistently able to see the floor and when I wake up and the sun is shining on the floor and reflecting off it it serves as a reminder to me that I can do it. I have tried for years to keep a clean room to no avail. My mum’s words didn’t do it for me I was even okay with my friends seeing the state of my room because I didn’t care at least I thought I didn’t. You deserve a nice space to work in.
10. Create Enjoyable and productive environments
I work mainly out of my room. The curtains are always drawn to let the light in. My desk is tidy enough to work on. I have multiple playlists I work too. No vocals more soundscapes. I call my friend sometimes and we might have a chat or work together in relative quiet. I have time scheduled in for play and breaks and make a game of doing mundane taks.
A lot of this is sounding like hard work organisation and it is. Going through life with a plan and purpose may be hard but what is harder is living a life without one and wasting it away knowing you are not reaching your full potential. In the trying I have found that I’m happier even in failure than when I’m idle and not making progress.
Procrastination is a learned habit that can be replaced with better ones. Procrastination is manageable and it doesn’t have to have a hold on you.
Take Care! X
Please leave a comment if you have your own tips on how to tackle procrastination, if you’ve found this useful or share to someone who might find this helpful x
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