The Art Of Procrastination
Do you procrastinate?
Do you make a list of things you need to do or would like to do but then find yourself doing everything else but what you had planned?
You might find you are distracting yourself from tasks by repeatedly falling into the trap of “ just checking” social media, only to find yourself still perusing 30 minutes later.
(Ever been on facebook on your laptop , then absentmindedly picked up your phone and clicked on your Facebook app to find yourself scrolling through Facebook …cough cough…… I’ve never done that.)
You quickly flick on the telly for a 5 minute breather before you start your work and then find yourself entering into the 2nd episode of a Netflix series.
A magazine or book catches your eye and before you know it, you’ve lost track of time and can’t remember what it was that you were going to spend the afternoon doing?
Well those are some of the traps I have found myself falling into when procrastinating.
Procrastination can also be eating food, drinking coffee, having a glass of wine …..anything really that takes you away from the task at hand.
The art of procrastination and I say art because we really can become very skilled at it, can have long lasting effects on your wellbeing.
And from experience, the self talk you have around it can be horrendous.
The things I would think and feel about myself around my ability to procrastinate was debilitating.
I would feel shame, guilt and worthlessness.
Why couldn’t I just get the things done that I had set out to do?
Why is this just so damn hard?
Cue: overwhelm!
I was the QUEEN of procrastination.
It should have been my middle name.
I would ruminate on everything.
It drove me absolutely crackers!
Procrastination caused me much stress and anxiety.
Oh…..the pressure I would place on myself to get something soooo right.
Soooo perfect.
My mind would talk myself out of even starting.
I would give up even before I had even begun.
But I spent plenty of time thinking about it.
I could have probably gotten half the things done in the time I spent thinking about “how” to tackle them and what I had on my list.
The big kicker for me was fear.
I had fear of not getting things right, and if they were not right, I had fear I would be judged.
And if I was being judged it was because I wasn’t worthy of producing anything worthwhile.
And if I wasn’t worthwhile, what was I good for?
The list would go on and on.
At the time I wasn’t acutely aware of those reasons.
Back before I built my awareness around my fears, all I simply knew was that I procrastinated an awful lot and it just made me feel useless.
Lazy, even.
I felt weak and that I lacked any willpower.
But the more I worked on my LOVE/HATE relationship of procrastination, the more this became apparent to me.
Procrastination is a by-product, a symptom of different aspects and elements of fear.
Not something that I was aware of in the midst of the procrastination.
But something that I have come to understand that has helped me change my perspective around why I might procrastinate certain things and how to overcome it.
Ah fear, my oh so familiar friend.
Always there by my side, keeping me safe and cosy in the confines of my self constructed box.
The box that kept me from having to put myself out there, try something new, take a chance or make a change.
Fear …how could you create such a mind play for me when you are just trying to keep me from being hurt.
Fear comes up to some degree in every single session I have had with a client in my work as a Kinesiologist.
Fear seems to be the constant for holding people back from change.
In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert ( and I am paraphrasing here and not at all doing her words justice) basically says “ Fear you can get in the car, you can come along for the ride, but that is as much as your doing. You are to be the passenger, and not the driver, courage is driving but you my friend are merely coming along for the ride. You are to get nowhere near the steering wheel….or the map for that matter.”
Fear will always be there.
Fear doesn’t really know how to take a hike.
And rightly so.
The purpose of fear is really to keep us safe from situations that feel threatening.
In primal situations, fear can keep us alive.
Once it has judged a situation dangerous, it literally puts the sirens on, pulls the handbrake up and makes you feel that if you are to carry out a certain task or act, you might be at risk.
You might even die.
But fear can’t differentiate between the intensity of situations.
It sounds the alert regardless.
Hello….procrastination.
So really…..why would you do that thing when the under current of doing that thing is that your not safe.
But as much as we need to thank fear for its well meaning actions (ie the need to keep us safe and alive) sometimes and often it over reacts based on past events and traumas.
It is red lighting something that indeed doesn’t require a red light.
It is over cautious, over zealous and an extremely dominant emotion.
If it could, it would keep you safe at home with a bunch of food tucked up under a blanket on the lounge.
And the thing with fear is….it really likes to recruit the mind.
It likes to be at the steering wheel of your thoughts and really likes to dictate the direction in which your thoughts and mind will take.
Now once someone starts to realise that and starts to understand more about their fears, this is when fear can start to loosen its grip.
Once you realise what fear is all about and what the motivation behind it is, you can start to take a hold and see it for what it is, and what it is doing.
It’s mainly when we aren’t aware that fear is in the driver seat, the mastermind behind our decisions that we feel powerless to change a situation.
When you can see what’s going on you start to create options for yourself.
You start to create different choices and this can be the start of great change.
And more and more you find you are no longer procrastinating.
So what is the opposite of fear?
I guess you could say it’s courage.
Courage would help us move forward, stop the procrastination and make a move.
Make a change.
But where does courage come from?
You can’t just conjure it up out of thin air.
Maybe some people can, but for most of us, it’s not possible.
Courage usually sits on the other side of fear.
And to get to courage, we really need to sit head on and face a fear.
Move through the fear to arrive at courage.
By doing this we are showing ourselves and our fears that we are willing to move forward, willing to take a stand.
And the result of that forward movement is courage.
These steps don’t have to be big.
Or taken all at once.
They can be gradual.
Good things can take time.
And that’s ok.
A few ways in which I faced my fears to avoid the procrastination were:
1.) Just trying something. Just start something. Doesn’t really matter what it is.
I made a move to do one simple thing that initiated the task I had been procrastinating.
Sometimes the fear can be the overwhelming feeling of not knowing where to start. So I wouldn’t. But by just picking a small thing, a small entry point to the task and doing it, I was able to push aside the mind chatter and just do it.
In some cases, before I knew it, I was at the tail end wondering what I was worried about in the first place.
2.) Creating a connection to myself, my own internal wisdom.
With the help of kinesiology I was able to dig into my own fears and emotions and find out what was standing in the way of me and what I really wanted to do and why I wasn’t doing it.
Once I started to create this connection I was then able to tell if the procrastination was really that the timing wasn’t right to do the thing I wanted to do or whether I was stalling out of fear or resistance.
I was able to start getting a real sense of what the true picture was.
Connection to myself came from a willingness and curiosity to know more about myself and what made me tick.
Kinesiology showed me how to drop into my heart space where this connection resides and I started to discover a whole side to myself that I never in my wildest dreams could have imagine existed.
3.) I found out what my limiting beliefs were around certain tasks I wasn’t doing.
And when I found out what they were, and became aware of where they came from and why, I was able to clear the beliefs and move forward.
Now if your wondering what a limiting belief is ( and I really need to write a whole other blog post about this because they are pretty big).
Limiting beliefs are sneaky little things that usually reside in your sub conscious.
A lot of the time you aren’t even aware they exist.
But the sneaky thing about them is….they are running the show.
They are the quiet achievers.
Literally….you have built your life on them and they are controlling you and the way your perceive yourself and your experiences without you sometimes ever knowing.
How rude !
We all have limiting beliefs, dozens of them.
I discovered a few whoppers that were driving my actions :
“You can’t be a successful business women and a successful mum at the same time.”
Boom….that caused me major struggle when trying to build a business as a Kinesiologist whilst still being a devoted Mum to my two girls. I felt constantly hopeless at both jobs.
“All work is hard.”
This meant being up late, studying, reading, sorting things for the kids. Burning the candle at both ends. Ending up in burnout no matter how much I had on my plate. Life was just tough. Everything was work and it was hard. As you can imagine, I was one cranky gal !
“These are just the cards you’ve been dealt”.
In that case there was no hope of change for me. I was who I was. And I just had to deal with it and carry on. ( Forget that ! )
“I am not worthy to receive money for my gifts.”
So this set me up for failure to think I could ever make a living from something I was actually good at. I struggled in the beginning before I discovered this little winner. I found it even hard to ask for payment after a client session and I couldn’t work out why.
This list went on.
But these were some biggies that really set up the foundations for my procrastination.
When I worked through those, the grips of fear and procrastination started to lose their hold and I was able to change and up-level in a way I never thought possible.
Some other common beliefs I come across with my clients are :
“It Runs In The Family.”
“ That’s impossible.”
“ No pain, no gain.”
“Misery Loves Company”
“ What if something happens”
“ Don’t give up your day job.”
“Theres always a catch.”
“ Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”
“ It’s not safe to be me.”
The list really does go on.
Now you can see if some of these are undercurrents to your life, it’s going to make doing certain things pretty fearful and hard.
There is always more to procrastination than meets the eye.
It’s a matter of getting to the root of what is the cause of procrastination.
And that is sometimes easier said than done.
From my humble experience, that is where Kinesiology can make a world of difference.
By using Kinesiology we are able to identify what the underlying ( sub conscious ) causes are that are keeping you in a pattern of fear or procrastination.
We can shine a light on what’s really going on and with that in your awareness you can become empowered with the ability to make changes.
Lasting changes.
Changes that will see you capable of doing whatever your heart desires.
So if you are ready to put an end to procrastination, get in touch and book in for a session, or a few.
There is no point bumbling through life feeling cranky at yourself for not getting things done.
There’s just no need.
Let’s check out what’s in the driver seat for you.
