We are all guilty of procrastination at some point. Procrastination is not the same as listening to our hearts and leaving things to another day. Procrastination is when you know you want to do something but you put it off yet you can feel your heart telling you to do it.
Procrastination is a voluntary deal. As writers it is when we do all the chores, etc before sitting down to write and then wonder why we’ve run out of time. Procrastination is to do with emotional disregulation, of lacking emotional clarity, so we put it off and give it to our future selves as if they can deal with it better than our present selves. But of course if our present selves couldn’t handle it why would our future selves be any better at it, especially with the guilt that then comes with it for not having done it in the first place. And so as we all know we then put it off again, and again and again, which explains why so any things get harder to impliment as we get older.
It is almost a kind of self harm, but a self harm of our future selves.
So we need to ask our present selves the “why” question rather than trying to get through our procrastination with grim determination. Perhaps the “why we’re procrastinating” question will reveal that we don’t think we’re good enough to, that we have doubts that we’re up for the task. But if we feel we’re not good enough [that enough word again] then our future selves will feel even less like they can do it!
So what do we do?
We ask the questions of where did this idea that I’m not good enough come from and then we treat ourselves with compassion as the answers come up.
If we are kind to ourselves, compassionate with ourselves, give ourselves the grace to forgive ourselves for believing we are not good enough, then we can start slowly to move forward. We can learn to be curious about ourselves in a gentle way not a condemning way, and what we must do is keep ourselves safe from allowing the procrastination to hold us back.
Also we must not compare. I’ve been reading Stephen Kings “On Writing” book. He started submitting stories in his teens and has been writing prolifically in, at times in challenging circumstances, for over fifty years. His philosophy is to write about 2000 words before doing anything else. I could so easily have been doing that if I hadn’t been procrastinating, but I didn’t. Instead I am 63 and have put off the “big write” till now.
So I could sit here condemning myself and giving my 63 year old self a hard time for not putting in more time and effort beforehand. But, you know what, I cannot go backwards. I can only start where I am now. I can use the present to move forward because the past is the past and it is gone. What good is it going to do me if I spend all my present energy trying to change the past? Daft idea when you see it written down but it is what a lot of us try to do a times – that whole “if only” syndrome.
So each day as I feel myself wanting to go and do something else, to procrastinate with my own writing, I gently ask myself why, and slowly, slowly I am moving forward with writing what I want to write with a confidence I have never had before.
Perhaps it also helps to know I am a lake not an ocean and am secure in that.
Aspirational Adventures 