The Procrastinator’s Guide to Getting Things Done

Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 127

Listen Here

This one's for the procrastinators.

If you consider yourself to be someone who really waits until the last minute to get things done and then runs it and gets it all done right before the deadline. Or if you are the kind of person who waited until the night before your essay was due at uni and then did everything the night before and still find yourself living your adult life a bit like that. This one's for you.

And if you find yourself being someone who has to have all of the other things in place before you can get something started, this might also be useful.

I think I know one of the main reasons why many procrastinate. And that is because we're telling ourselves that it has to be perfect, otherwise it's not worth doing. And when we tell ourselves that it has to be perfect, it can be a really shiny-looking excuse laid on top of a whole load of self-judgment.

Quite often, it's worth poking at some of these ideas and just seeing how much they align with our values and how we want to treat ourselves, and how we want to be living our lives. And when I stop and pause and think about why I would want something to be perfect before I put it out there, what I'm really saying is "I'm worried about what other people will think about me" and probably what they will say about me. And I don't want to put myself in that kind of level of vulnerability. And also, and in truth, I'm worried about what I will say about me if I think that I've got something wrong or it isn't good enough, or someone points out a mistake in something that I've done.

And, of course, they're both related because when someone says something about me or I'm superimposing my ideas of what they're thinking about me, on top of that, what I'm actually also worried about is what I'm going to think about me, and what I'm going to say to myself. Because if someone says something bad about me or that I perceive to be bad and I hold their opinion as higher than my own, then I'm going to dig deep into all of the criticism that they've given me.

If it is someone that I don't care about very much, he doesn't have politics that align with mine, or I don't really value the judgment of saying something bad about me, I don't really care very much, I don't hold much weight in it. But we never really focus on those people; we only focus on the people that we suddenly think we hold in high regard, and they are the truth-sayers. They actually know our deep-down secrets as to what we're like. So when we're worried about what other people will say about us, we're actually concerned about what we will say to ourselves if they say those things. And when we're worried about not getting things right, we're concerned about what we're going to say to ourselves about how we judge ourselves, our standards, and the work that we've done.

And the thing is that we can't get on our sides if we are bullying ourselves into thinking that there has to be a particular thing that we do or a particular way that we do things in order for us to be safe, worthy, and feel like our, our work has value.

And I wonder where this idea of you need to do a certain number of things to have intrinsic value aligns with your worldview. Do you believe that people inherently have human value or do you think that they have to earn it? Because if you feel that they have to earn it, it's okay. There's a choice. I don't have the right and wrong cards to hold up to you as to how the world works. But if you believe that human beings have inherent value and are worthy of love, care, respect, and safety wherever they go, that can't be changed by how much they do or don't do, or how much they produce or don't produce, or how much they rest or get things right, or argue with their siblings or keep their room tidy or get their email box down.

Any of those things don't change your inherent worth. And we'd be wise sometimes to apply the politics to ourselves like you're either in or out. Humans have value, or they don't have value. The way that you speak to yourself about it tests the metal of the values that you hold about humanity.

The thing is that if we can embed ourselves in some of these ideas that we hold true for others, it makes it easier for us to have our backs. When we, and I, use inverted commas when we don't feel like we're meeting our standards and holding ourselves to unrealistic expectations, it's easier to step back and go, like, ease up, kid. You're like a human out here on a spinning ball of water and ice and atoms, doing your best in a system that's designed to overwork and exhaust you.

If you can get to a stage where you can remind yourself more often that you're allowed to be a human in a human body, having a human existence, it becomes easier to cut yourself some slack when you don't get things 100% correct 100% of the time, and when you're not worried about making mistakes, you get more creative about being willing to try things. When you're not concerned about making mistakes so much, you hold less weight and less restrictions on what other people might think of you. If you've got your own back, it doesn't really matter what other people think of you. You're not so worried about what you'd say to yourself if others are judgmental or unkind.

We don't have to try and exhaust ourselves into acceptance. We don't try. We don't have to try and bully ourselves into becoming a version of ourselves that is worthy of love. We could just believe that just because we're human, we deserve to exist and take up space. I implore you to apply some of your politics to how you speak to yourself this week.

Just see if it feels nice. If it does, you can carry on. If not, you can go back to being an ass to yourself the rest of the week if you want to. Just give it a go and see how it works out for you. I'd love to hear how you get on.