Episode 26: Common Hiding Techniques: Procrastination
Today I want to get stuck into part 2 of our series on 'What's Your Method of Hiding' and have a little look at procrastination.
Do you consider yourself a procrastinator? Do you always find something else to do instead of the thing you know you supposed to be doing? Do you find yourself faffing with peripheral stuff more than tackling the real needle-moving tasks? Are you currently procrastinating by listening to this podcast? If you are – I want you to stay here. Procrastinate a bit longer, because I want to offer an alternative way of thinking about how we see procrastination and why we do it.
It occurs to me that when it comes to berating ourselves for what we might be calling ‘procrastinating’ there are actually a few more intricate things to consider and be self-aware about:
1) Are you actually procrastinating? Or are you overworking?
2) Are you actually procrastinating? Or are you overwhelmed?
3) Are you actually procrastinating? Or are you feeling vulnerable about doing the work that might actually be true to you because it feels exposing and requires you to be visible?
Let’s look at each of these more closely in this episode.
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Welcome back. My friends to courage is calling today. I wanna guest stuck into part two of our series on what's your method of hiding and have a little look at procrastination. Hmm. So do you consider yourself a procrastinator? Uh, do you always find something else to do instead of the thing that you know you're supposed to be doing? Do you find yourself faffing with all the peripheral stuff more than tackling the real needle? Moving tasks? Are you currently procrastinating by listening to this podcast? if you are, I want you to stay here, stay here and procrastinate a little bit longer, because I want to offer an alternative way of thinking about how we view procrastination and why we do it. So I did a survey early on in 2022 with, I think it was almost a hundred female business owners that responded to this about some of the ways that they're feeling stuck in their work. Um, things that they wish they had a magic wand to fix. And let me tell you over and over. Over and over again, I read answers from these female business owners about time management and failing. Like they were procrastinating and you know what? I totally get it. I get why that would be, um, A real area of feeling out of control or not measuring up because we live in a really high functioning society at the minute where productivity is applauded and also rewarded. And we are conditioned to feel like we should be human doings instead of human beings. And that narrative just like runs deep to the core. And then of course, with us as women. Way more acutely aware of how scrutinized we still are in the workplace, in the marketplace. Um, it's no wonder that we feel compelled to always be on, to be task orientated and action orientated less. We let down the female side. Um, and there's also a level of shame. I think that surrounds this idea of, of procrastination and that shame locks us into a cycle that can be really, really hard to get out of. So we shame ourselves for not tackling something or doing the thing that we know we're supposed to do. And. Then that sham, sham as an emotion isn't motivating or activating. And then we build the tasks up to be something huge in our head because the sham is lingering around and then we continue to avoid it and rinse and repeat. And actually, um, there's this doctor called Dr. Cirrhosis, sorry, Dr. CS. Um, is her name and she's a professor of psychology at the university of Sheffield. And she said the thoughts we have about procrastination, typically exacerbate or distress and stress, which contribute to further procrastination. But the momentary relief we fail when procrastinating is actually what makes the cycle, especially VASc vicious in the immediate present. Putting off a task provides relief. You've been rewarded for procrastinating, and we know we don't need to be a psychologist to know basic psychology that when we're rewarded for something, we tend to wanna do it again. And so that's why procrastination tends to be a cycle and one that easily can keep us locked and shame. But it also occurs to me that when it comes to Shing or berating ourselves for what we might be considering calling procrastination, uh, there might actually be a few more intricate things that we might need to be more self-aware about and ask ourselves about one. Are you actually procrastinating or are you over working? Two. Are you actually procrastinating or are you overwhelmed and three, are you actually procrastinating or are you feeling vulnerable about doing the work that might actually be true to you? Because it feels exposing and requires you to be visible. So three questions let's look at each of these one. Are you actually procrastinating or are you overworking? It is fully possible that you are stalling or avoiding certain tasks because you are overworked. Might it be that you actually are tired and find the thought of a particular task. Really exhausting. Might it be that you have packed your schedule really full. So other things that might help to support you or that might move the needle are just not possible for you to get stuck into. It really, it really is possible that what you are viewing as procrastination might actually be a stress response to your workload. And I want you to consider how much space you leave around tasks. How much margin do you give yourself to complete things? Are you actually asking a lot of yourself considering the other work that you have going on? The other things that are going on in your life? If this thing that you are procrastinating on is going to require a lot of emotional or physical energy from you, would it not make sense to leave extra, extra space for that instead of holding yourself to really impossible standards of productivity, it's just a thought you might wanna consider before you shame yourself for not being productive, because rest is also productive. Rest is fuel, and then secondly, it's worth consider. Are you actually procrastinating or are you overwhelmed? Uh, usually when we think of procrastinating, we assume that there's a bit of laziness happening. It's definitely the kinda stereotype that comes up in my head. When I think about procrastination is, is it equals a little bit of laziness, but actually it's very, very seldom that our procrastination looks like being idle. Usually. Procrastination means that we're finding something else to occupy our time, whether that is feeling like you've gotta just tidy your office space. And I get that because I love to work in a tidy, spacious environment or, you know, I gotta clear out. My laptop, desktop full of all these documents in the folder, eyes, everything, blah, blah, blah. You know, so it's not that we're not actually doing things when we procrastinate. We're often just choosing to do something else. Another doctor, Dr. Tim cycle, he's a professor of psychology and also a member of, um, the procrastination research group at Carlton university in Ottawa. And he suggests actually that procrastination is an emotional regulation problem. Not a time management problem. It's not some sort of unique character flaw or curse on your ability to manage time. But actually it's a way of coping with emotions and associations with certain tasks. And that could be overwhelm. It could be boredom. It could be frustration. It could be resentment. It could be self doubt, et cetera, which actually then nicely leads me onto to. The third question that I think's important to reflect on. Are you actually procrastinating or are you feeling vulnerable about doing work that might actually be so true to you because it feels exposing and requires you to be visible. See, when you're faced with a task that makes us feel vulnerable, exposed, or insecure, the amygdala, which is this like warning part, this threat detector, part of our brains, perceives that task. As a genuine threat, it feels like a genuine threat to your amygdala, to that part of your brain. And in this case, it's a threat to potentially your self-esteem, maybe your sense of belonging or your ego. And even though we know in our intellect that putting off the task is gonna create more stress for ourselves in the future, our Brien is still wired to just actually be more concerned with removing the threat. Immediately and researchers call this the amygdala hijack. So actually procrastination becomes the thing that we distract ourselves with in order to maintain that inner safety. Procrastination becomes the thing we distract ourselves with in order to maintain that inner safety. And in all of this at its core, procrastination is about emotions, not productivity or lack of ability or prayer time management. The solution to feeling like you're always procrastinating is not in an app that blocks social media or in some sort of time blocking exercise or in punishing ourselves to get things done. It's ultimately about managing our emotions in a new way. And if we want to look at how to manage our cycles of procrastination, we need to go deeper than the surface. Although those things can be helpful. We need to go deeper than the surface and think about what it means to operate from a place of self forgiveness. And self-compassion. Because when we treat ourselves with kindness and understanding, and particularly recognizing that our brains are often having moments of vulnerability or perceiving a threat to our ego, it allows for a much more self-supportive condition in which to move forward. In fact, There's been loads of studies now to show that self-compassion actually supports motivation and personal growth. And it not only does it decrease psychological distress, which we now know is really the primary culprit for procrastination. It also actively boosts motivation and it enhances our feelings of self worth and it fosters positive emotions like wisdom and curiosity and initiative. but best of all I think is that self-compassion actually doesn't require anything external of us. We don't have to do anything. It's just a real commitment to ourselves to meet our challenges. With greater acceptance and greater tenderness and greater kindness rather than shaming and bere ourselves. So I wonder how you can load more self-compassion and, and forgiveness into your wake so that you can truly move forwards to the things that you know are vulnerable. But that might just lead to a fuller sense of personal fulfillment and impact. Maybe this episode is just what you needed to hear in order to understand yourself more tenderly, um, and to understand what's behind the ways that you're hiding through procrastination. As always, I'd love to hear, um, hi, or if this episode lands for you, so you can feel free to reach out to me on my email. Um, and you can reach me on hello@melwiggins.com or you can, um, message me on Instagram. Uh, and my handle is at Mel Wiggins. I will be back with part three of the series on what's your method of hiding Barry very soon. Thanks for listening.
