Procrastination

Procrastination. Let us talk about our fabulous procrastinators. Our driven, “I work best under pressure”, excuse telling, procrastinators. I was one of them. I still might be one of them. Procrastination is when you leave whatever needs to be done for the very last minute. A lot of people that I know, including myself, say that we work best under pressure and that we give off our best work when we are crunched for time. We thrive off of the “high” that comes from being able to accomplish something in spite all the setbacks and blockages. I want to challenge that today. I want to ask you, why is it that you are chasing that high? If that high is coming from achievement, why is not that met by being yourself without the added stress of waiting till the last minute? If it is just “look at what I’ve accomplished”, you have finished it regardless if you started it a month ago or the day before it is due. The product is in your hands no matter what. Why wait for the pressure to build up, the anxiety to skyrocket, the nervousness, the sleepless nights, the sinking feeling in your chest? Why continue to put yourself in these situations, and feel that way? But isn’t that what we tell ourselves? That we work best under that pressure.

 Logically, that does not make any sense, because you are using the little energy that you have to stress over these things. Why create these extra obstacles that are self-imposed when the end result is still the same? Cognitively, we know that makes no sense. Most will say, “yeah it’s better if I do it ahead of time”. But as you already know, I am not here to talk logic. I want to focus on the why. Not from judgement, not “you should know better”, but to understand the why.

If you really stop and ask yourself “why am I putting myself through this mess of anxiety and stress, when the anxiety could’ve been avoided if it was done sooner?” you realize it is not the high of the pressure of getting it done, but something much deeper than that. The “high” comes from the validation that we receive- validation that we have attained and overcome this in less time than other people would have, and in spite of all the challenges that we faced. It is that affirmation of our competency that we are looking for. Stop and let that sink in for a moment. Validation. What kind of validation? Well, what is that validation? Why does it feel more worthy of your effort or intelligence or even your self-worth by obtaining something through all of these obstacles instead of just attaining them through effective work? I had a client tell me today “Because otherwise it’s just handed to you. It is the easy way, you just got handed the success. You didn’t have to fight for it”. That is a struggle that a lot of us have, as well as me; where we feel a sense of pride by achieving something when everything else was against us. That sense of pride is a validation of worth, of being competent, capable, intelligent, of being strong- all of these wonderful things that it reinforces in us because we “overcame the odds”.

The issue is that it can become an addiction, and that is what procrastination is. You become addicted to that “high” - of being validated as being worthy. A lot of times, in order to achieve that sense of worth, we seek it from situations we create and as a result receive it externally instead of having it be from within us, from our own sense of self. When you do not have that intrinsically, you seek it from validation from others, and a lot of times we fall into the trap of creating self-imposed obstacles that we then have to overcome to feel that validation and worth. If you dissect it, the end result is still the same, the chapter was finished, the project got done, the paper was still written- they are still your words and your effort and your thoughts. We did not need to go through the rest of the pressure, the anxiety, the stress of obstacles and time constraints to have the end result. If you look a little bit deeper, your work is still your work. Why is it that your work is valued more when there are obstacles, with the flip side being that if it is not achieved with great struggle, it was “handed to you”?  

In session, (this is a real story) I have someone draw something on paper, and I sit there and watch them, and they drew a flower. And then I said, “okay move on to another side of the same piece of paper and draw something else”. They start drawing and I started throwing random stuff at them- wadded up pieces of paper, empty cups, etc. to cause distractions. It was completely unnecessary, though comical, and she looked at me like “what the hell are you doing”. But that is what it is, right? The end result was still that she drew 2 pictures. That is still her drawing, still her ability, still her talent and work that went into it. It is just that for the second drawing, she was bombarded with a bunch of unnecessary obstacles. The point of it was, she still had to work for those pictures; the external factors (while hilarious and absurd) does not matter because the end result was still the same. The point is the picture, not how she GOT TO the picture, but the picture ITSELF. That was her effort, her own skill, her talent, and her own thoughts that manifested onto the paper. So why not give credit for just that? That is enough.

We are enough. YOU ARE ENOUGH. What you have to offer is enough. Who you are is enough. We do not have to prove our worth to anyone, especially through overcoming those unnecessary obstacles, because there is no comparison. There is no comparison to you; there is no comparison to me. I am who I am, you are who you are, and there is no one else out there like us- good or bad. We get so wrapped up in trying to prove our worth that sometimes we create a reality that is self-sabotaging. Where we unknowingly, and sometimes knowingly, put these obstacles in our own path and all it does is rob us of the peace in the moment. Whatever little peace we could have is tainted because we are fighting these battles that we have set in front of us that did not need to be. Life is hard enough as it is and there are going to be obstacles that come from just living. We do not need to help it out by creating more self-imposed obstacles. So, the next time that you feel yourself possibly creating an obstacle, and one of the examples of creating these obstacles is procrastinating, ask yourself “what am I really looking for? Is it validation? Is it pride? Is itself worth? Is it acknowledgment? What’s really the force that’s driving me?”