I put things off to avoid discomfort. I’m racking my brain to find another reason…but I just can’t.
That discomfort comes in two flavors: The discomfort of doing something I don’t want to do, and the discomfort of deciding what the hell I need to do.
Now, actually solving this takes a reservoir of discipline that I only sometimes have access to, but it’s helpful for me to at least understand the root cause of my inability to move projects forward.
When I find that a particular endeavor is stalled, and I am brave enough to ask myself why, I find that I either don’t want to do the project or, most often, I don’t know what to do next, which frustrates me and makes me want to avoid that discomfort.
The kind of procrastination that is born out of not wanting to do the work is easy to solve: Do the work.
The other kind is trickier though because I’m not procrastinating what I think I’m procrastinating.
I think I’m procrastinating an action like writing an article or installing a vanity cabinet…but I’m really procrastinating making some hard decisions about those activities because I don’t really know what to do next.
And that’s the most frustrating thing for me. When I don’t know what to do next, but feel like I should, I tend to go into avoidance mode.
Hmmm… It feels icky to not know what I should be doing about this project. Asking for help might injure my pride because I should know what to do. I better stop thinking about this because it makes me feel icky.
Except, when I am really brave enough to ask myself questions about why I’m stalled I find that solving one difficult, but small, problem is all that stands between me and actually finishing the whole project. That moment of release where I become unstuck is simultaneously wonderful and horrible. It’s great to have solved a problem and get going again but, oh, the horror of realizing how such a small thing unnecessarily clogged up the works.
The solution to most of my issues with procrastination isn’t doing more stuff, it’s being brave enough to confront the uncomfortable decisions that stand in the way of the doing.
But what about you? Do you most often put off doing or deciding?
