by David Parker
While Procrastination Leads to Depression, Taking Control Leads to Confidence
In short, the longer someone doesn’t “do,” the more difficult it becomes to start “do”-ing. Likewise, if procrastination continues unabated, there’s a greater chance for it to become habitual, which can cause feelings of low self-esteem and depression. The habitual procrastinator feels helpless and hopeless, and is self-convinced that his life cannot possibly change. At times, decisions may be difficult, if not impossible to make, and a procrastinating person can lose confidence in his ability to handle various situations, to the point where forward movement can come to a halt.
Interestingly, there’s a parallel between mental depression and another type of depression: an economic depression. You may wonder how an economic depression could be compared with a personal or psychological depression, but there are striking similarities between them. During an economic depression a business owner may feel overwhelmed by economic uncertainty, rising prices, and late payments by those who owe money. As a result, the owner may put a freeze on hiring, possibly even laying off current employees. Similar to a depressed person, a business owner may lose confidence in his or her ability to cope, and his or her world may feel a bit out of control. It’s interesting to consider that on the evening of June 15, 1979, while addressing the American public, then-President Jimmy Carter said that both the economy and the people were suffering from “a crisis of confidence.”
What often determines when a country has come out from an economic depression is when it regains its own sense of normalcy. Business transactions not only return to prior levels, but they hold steady over time, indicating that the persons initiating those transactions feel confident in their ability to buy and pay for goods and services. That in turn leads to a general growth in business activity and the need for more workers, who, given a better business climate and lacking the fear of not having enough money to get by on, regain their confidence and begin spending.
In the same way, a person who’s been through a mental depression and has recovered may also feel that he’s regained his own sense of normalcy. He feels confident in his ability to cope with the circumstances that make up his everyday world, and as a result, he feels a fresh sense of energy.
Going through a depression is akin to living in fear of forward movement, which is exactly what habitual procrastination is. Let’s switch gears now and begin moving forward.
SECTION TWO
Into Action
Chapter Six
The Burden of Avoidance
SO THEN, JUST WHY DO we procrastinate? After all, does it not cause us an enormous amount of suffering and anguish? As one procrastinator said via e-mail, she felt as though she “were living in the land of bad choices,” while another remarked, “The lot of a procrastinator is a second-class life.”
Why Do We Fight Responsibility?
Given the misery habitual procrastination causes us, why do we continue putting off our tasks? Some procrastinators have come up with these possible causes:
We’re punishing ourselves because we don’t believe that we are worthy of joy, success, or happiness.
We were raised without discipline or the sense of responsibility.
We’re “waiting for mommy to do it for us.”
We’re just plain lazy.
Whatever the cause or causes that left us with this malady, there’s little good that can come from analyzing its source. In fact, when it comes to procrastination, over-analysis often leads to paralysis. In order to put an end to our procrastination, we need to stop asking: “Why haven’t I …?” and instead, we need to start asking: “How do I change?” That is now our focus. While we will continue to analyze our behavior, we will now do so with the goal of defeating our internal opposition to productivity.
Are We Truly Aware of Our Procrastination?
To a procrastinator, there’s probably nothing scarier than an unopened envelope that arrives in the mail. What’s in it? Is it bad news? Is it a bill? If it is a bill, did they charge me for the correct amount? What if they made an error? If so, what will I do? The list of reasons for not opening that envelope is only limited by one’s imagination. Of course, after opening it, you might discover that it was just a piece of promotional mail and then berate yourself for once again succumbing to your fears and, in the process, procrastinating. As procrastinators, while we often feel victimized by the world and all of its demands, we’re actually victims of the ill-conceived coping measures that we’ve learned to rely on, which have turned into bad habits.
There are times when a habitual procrastinator will do almost anything in order to evade a particularly unpleasant task. Surprisingly, though, if we could stop a group of procrastinators lost in the frantic act of evading their tasks, some might deny that they had been procrastinating, and instead, would insist that they had been dealing with an unexpected and urgent priority. Of course, once that diversion is dealt with, another high-priority diversion takes its place, egged on by the nagging and nearly silent voice in our heads that tells us to continue avoiding.
So, are procrastinators ever truly aware of their procrastination? Do they ever say to themselves: “I know that I’m procrastinating right now.” While most of us will occasionally admit that truth to ourselves, do we ever listen to ourselves? So complex is this behavior that many of us have perfected “the art of not doing—while pretending not to notice.”
For example, I’ve never heard myself mentally plan out my avoidance by saying, “Tomorrow evening I’m going to procrastinate by watching television in spite of all the things I’ve already put off.” Nevertheless, there were numerous times when I planned out the watching of five television shows back-to-back, at the expense of the personal obligations I had laying in wait; however, I never labeled that as procrastination. To me, it was just business as usual.
We Become Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable
Like many procrastinators, chaos was something I became far too used to. I wasn’t comfortable with being comfortable—instead, I grew comfortable with being uncomfortable, perpetually living in a state of frustration. Here are some of the ways that procrastinators become comfortable with being uncomfortable:
We constantly ask ourselves “Why do I continue procrastinating over what I need to get done?” Yet at the very same time, we continue avoiding.
Goofing off becomes second nature for us.
Struggling with internal conflict becomes a way of life.
Our lack of responsibility to ourselves occasionally crops up in our interactions with others.
We find it difficult to relax when we have legitimate free time, because we feel guilty over all the tasks we still haven’t gotten around to.
We feel fatigued from the near constant states of worry, anxiety, and self-hate that plague our minds.
Escape from responsibility becomes of paramount importance to us.
Some of us further our escapism through the use and abuse of alcohol, recreational drugs, or other addictions.
You begin to distrust your sense of judgment.
We actively seek distractions just when it’s time for dealing with unpleasant tasks.
We find ourselves dumbfounded by the fact that our problems seem self-inflicted.
We make promises to ourselves, but fail to keep them.
We worry that we’ll always procrastinate.
With all that chaos, why would anyone continue procrastinating? Well, for the same reasons that we do almost anything else, because by our very nature, we’re habitual. Put another way, the habitual procrastinator acts in quite similar fashion to the compulsive gambler, who convinces himself that his next trip to the casino “just has to” yield a positive outcome from a scenario that actually offers overwhelmingly negative odds.
We Begin to Feel Helpless and Then We Lose Hope
As the tasks we haven’t yet tackled build into a virtual mountain of obligations, we begin feeling overwhelmed, as though there will n
ever be enough time to deal with everything; nor will we have enough energy with which to accomplish them. If this goes on long enough, we soon convince ourselves that life only seems to offer complicated and boring obligations and we then seek an escape from this mental imprisonment. As a result of this way of thinking, avoidance soon becomes an everyday norm, while productive “do”-ing becomes a distant memory from our past. We then become so accustomed to living this way, that we almost can’t imagine any other way of life.
After a while, we lose nearly all confidence in our abilities. Later on, we begin to view the concept of changing as something else to avoid. So, even if some change were in our best interests, we continue to allow opportunities to slip through our fingers.
We may miss out on job opportunities that offer better working conditions or higher pay because, although we may feel stuck in a rut, we’ve grown oddly comfortable living in it. Eventually though, sadness can envelop us if we begin to view our lives as bleak and joyless, with a future consisting only of lost opportunities and future obligations. That said, it behooves us to find purpose in our lives, and one great way of doing so is by learning new ways of dealing with our tasks, responsibilities, and obligations.
Our Distorted Outlook
When I was a habitual procrastinator, I sometimes worried that if I ever became a productive person, it might blow my cover of being an incapable adult. For example, I might say to myself, “If I were able to balance my checkbook, wouldn’t that mean that I should be able to look for work and get a job?” The truth is that I was not only capable of looking for a job, but of holding one down—what’s more, I was equally capable of balancing my checkbook, which I now routinely get done in only a few minutes. So, if I was that convinced of my past inability, then how is it that I am now capable of getting so much more done?
In the past, my mind filled with gross distortions that usually involved how much time and energy my tasks would take to accomplish. These distortions were comparable to large and seemingly unmovable mental boulders that I’d placed in my path. How could I get past that first boulder? It seemed impossible! And, if by some miracle, I were able to deal with and eliminate that boulder, I was sure that my path would be blocked by another boulder. Who had the time or energy to deal with them? I knew that I didn’t. I was self-convinced that I was an incapable person, and like many people in this situation, I felt as if I bore the weight of the world upon my shoulders.
Willingness Is the Key
Much of my distorted outlook came from unrealistic expectations of what a task entailed, from not having a track record of successfully completed projects, and from the lack of any sort of reward system. However, before we can begin tackling any of our tasks, we need to find a good starting point; but luckily, you already have it, because it is within you.
To overcome habitual procrastination, we need to put the past behind us if we are to move forward. Our poor past experiences serve only to distort our forward-looking outlook. To restore the balance between how we think and act is as simple as developing the willingness to reduce the number of tasks that we have. Remember, you’re not trying to eliminate your tasks, but to develop the willingness to simply reduce the number of tasks that await you.
Luckily, you already possess this willingness. If, right now, you are questioning your resolve, take note of the fact that you are reading this book for a reason, and that reason is that you want a better life. That, in and of itself, is willingness. As long as you are willing to invoke change into your life, you have the ability to stop procrastinating. Rather than bashing and berating yourself with self-directed anger, you can choose to be open to the possibility of learning how to get things done in new and better ways.
Even if you feel hopeless or have convinced yourself that you are beyond help, keep reading, and know that your poor feelings can be turned around. In a sense, that down-in-the-dumps feeling could be your mind’s way of letting you know that you need to find a new way of dealing with the things that have left you in the place where you now find yourself. As a suggestion, try to be empathetic to your own situation by being kind and patient with yourself.
Chapter Seven
Floating Away From Reality
IF YOU ASK SOMEONE WHO has been procrastinating for a few days what he did during that time, there’s a good chance he’ll reply, “I don’t know. I watched some television and had a couple of telephone conversations, and then, I lost track of time.” What this procrastinator has just described is what I refer to as “floating.”
Most habitual procrastinators while away their time with mindless activities. Some watch television for hours at a time, others get lost in telephone conversations, or in any number of diversions. I like to refer to a habitual procrastinator’s engagement in diversions as the act of “floating.”
By “floating,” I mean that the procrastinator isn’t grounded or tied down to his responsibilities. Instead of deliberately dealing with his tasks at appropriate times, he only deals with them when he’s forced to. If we spend the majority of our free time avoiding or skipping from one diversion to another, then we are “floating through life,” carefree and oblivious to reality.
While floating may have a gravity-defying sound to it, it only has one similarity to weightlessness. It’s like the feeling you get when standing on a high observation deck looking down at the streets below. People and cars seem to scurry about like ants in a colony. How funny it can seem, the people down below marching along and then nestling at street corners, waiting for red lights to change, while you observe, perched hundreds of yards above them. Unfortunately for us procrastinators, no matter where we are, we always seem to be on that observation deck—viewing life from a distance, and never keeping our feet on the ground.
What Are Some Ways That We Float?
There are just about as many ways that a procrastinator can float as there are tasks that need attention. Almost anything will do, just so long as it soaks up time and serves to occupy our minds. Here are just a few of the most common methods of floating:
Channel Surfing:
Aimlessly flipping from one television station to another for long periods of time. Even if you can’t find anything good, you never know what could be on the next channel; and if nothing is found, you can always run through the channels for a second, or third time.
Surfing the Internet:
Similar to channel surfing, you can breeze through several hours by taking an extra long drive on the information superhighway.
Oversleeping:
As mentioned earlier in Chapter Two, “taking a snooze cruise” was a favorite method of mine to procrastinate. After oversleeping on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon, I’d awaken to feelings of dread and self-hatred for having lost yet another opportunity to clean my place. Of course, I could have cleaned it up after awakening, with plenty of reserve energy for the job, except for the fact that I was now bogged down by depression as I mentally wept in anguish over my apparent helplessness.
Daydreaming:
Some call it “talking to yourself,” while others call it “being deep in one’s thoughts.” Whichever you choose, it’s all thought—with no action. I’ve lost more hours than I’d care to admit just to daydreaming alone.
Addictive Behaviors:
These can range from engaging in compulsive gambling, which not only drains your financial resources but also monopolizes your time as well, to compulsive shopping, overeating, becoming overly caught up in another person’s problems, and engaging in endless telephone conversations. The list of addictive behaviors that can take us away from our responsibilities is practically endless.
There are many more ways that we can float. All it takes is something that can sufficiently divert our awareness away from our tasks.
How Does Floating Make a Procrastinator Feel?
In the past, I wasn’t acutely aware of when I was floating; that’s how normal it had become. In fact, floating not only felt normal, it also felt comfor
ting, putting me in a serene, almost trance-like state of “The world can wait, because this is me time.” For example, while channel surfing for a long period of time, my mind wasn’t plagued by thoughts of, “Dave, shouldn’t you be doing something else?” Instead, I felt reassured, safe, and comforted. My attention was absorbed by the flickering image on the television screen and my constant channel flipping. The internal conversation that went on in my mind was, “Gee, what’s on the next channel? No good! Switch. Ah, let’s see. No, I don’t like it. Switch again. Let’s see …”
When we have a good diversion, that is to say, something that helps us to avoid our tasks, they often reinforce themselves while we’re engaged in them, which then makes it even more difficult to stop engaging in them. So, the longer I channel-surfed without finding a program that I liked, the more concerned I became that if I stopped channel surfing, I might wind up missing a good program. That explains why some procrastinators find it difficult to turn their television sets off.
The act of floating covers our anxious minds in warm blankets of peace, serenity, reassurance, and safety; this helps to explain why we’re so apt to divert our attention from our tasks with little regard for the consequences of our inaction—as we float away in an ignorant bliss. Although floating works against us in many ways, we might not wish to totally change from our distractions because they reward our conscious minds with feelings of security, in spite of all the upheavals they cause us.
What Happens to Us as a Result of Floating?
