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| Two of the grands agree that the best way to procrastinate is in your PJs with a book |
On March 11 of this year I included a partial list of how I see people gumming up their lives, and then I cleverly forgot about writing the sequels. So you will see that I added two more items to the list:
- laziness
- lack of exercise and an improper diet
- fear
- greed and stinginess
- depression/anxiety
- drugs and/or alcohol
- poor choices in relationships
- guilt from real mistakes or imaged mistakes
- too much TV or cyber instruments
- meaninglessness
- unwillingness to change or fear of change
- loathing of self
- anger and hatred of self or others
- narrow mindedness
- purposely failing so you stay stuck
- not paying attention to your internal radar
- procrastination, ha!
Some clients I've worked with have been ridiculously good at procrastination. I go out of my way to point out that this is a waste of time, talent and further more, the loss of a good opportunity. I say that, except that it isn't always true. In fact the reason most people procrastinate is that there is usually a reward hooked up in the delay.
Case in point. Recently my neighbor's sheep all escaped and roamed into our yard, chomping madly. I thought this was really funny to have a free mow but Mr. G was less amused. So he swore he was going to rush out there and round them up, driving them back--- cowboy style--to the farm from whence they fled. Except he got distracted by an article he was reading and the next thing we knew our sheep banditos had mosied back home all by themselves, wagging their tails behind them. Sometimes the old saw, 'don't just stand there do something' is better reversed: "don't do something, just stand there'. So there is apparently an art to procrastination. When applied lightly, it will serve you well.
Things have gotten so bad, I'm going to join Procrastinators Anonymous.....Soon. Sally Popin
Then there's the other form of procrastination which is more tortured for both those witnessing and those caught in the throes of ineptitude. In my work I found the clients who were the worst procrastinators were usually bound up in perfectionism, laziness or fear. Many a time a client and I had to brainstorm rewards or as a last resort [with their permission] blackmail to get results. "How desperately do you want this to get this book done?" I asked a favorite client and she answered 'desperately'. Alas, since the rewards we planned together were not effective, we resorted to blackmail. She wrote a check out to an organization that she found revolting [I believe it was to 'Newt for President' or something anti-feminist] and I accepted it and said, "I'll gladly send the check if you don't complete the agreed upon chapters." Blackmail won the day, the book got finished. You'd think that the imagined satisfaction from completing the book, even a difficult one, would spur someone on to finish. Sadly, for that client and many others, you'd be wrong.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. VoltairePerfectionism has a halo for a disguise. People say rather proudly, "well, you know I'm something of a perfectionist..." and I'd think: "and you either have OCD or are a terrible procrastinator." Neither of which is something to brag about. I think most people realize that most phobias are based on fear and perfectionism is a kissing cousin to obsessive compulsive disorder, hence, fear based. Where the perfectionist gets in their own way is by saying to themselves, "this could be so much better if I just_________[fill in the blank], so can't finish this now, I'll work on it later." Deadly words. And I know as does Mr. G [who was a boss of many people], this is the nightmare of many a boss-- to have a perfectionist on their staff.
So how do you wrench someone away from their erroneous thoughts? Slowly, slowly let them come to the conclusion that change is possible and imperfection makes the world go round. By definition humans are defined as being flawed, lovely, complex, complicated and interesting creatures. Perfect is not possible for anyone except babies. We are not gods or goddesses. You will makes mistakes, errors, slips of judgement and the most mature posture you can take afterwords is to gleefully admit your mistake and move on. I tell my clients, "anything worth doing is worth doing..." they guess, "well" and the answer is "Badly!" In other words, get it done even if it feels uncomfortable because it could be better.
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| The message is kind of heavy but it works |
susansmagicfeather copyright 2013 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved
