Dear First name / friend
I think if I wasn't lucky enough to be in a position to afford weekly counselling sessions, I would probably attribute my procrastination to undiagnosed ADHD.
Before I started this weekly blog I had a different blog, called
The Fodmap Medic and back in 2017, I wrote a piece called
‘Procrastination: maybe it’s okay'. (You can read it
here if you're interested.) That was six years ago and my inability to take things to the Post Office in a timely fashion hasn't changed. (Perhaps the past isn't so much a foreign country yet…)
In the article, I explored different reasons why we might procrastinate and settled on the reason that maybe there isn't a very good reason (which also doesn't seem like a very good reason now…): “Perhaps by accepting that sometimes we get shit done and other times we don’t, we’ll stop putting that pressure on ourselves and find that, actually, we do get shit done- be that immediately, gradually or eventually.”
Do I agree with my 23 year-old self? I agree that, for myself at least, when we take the pressure off, generally things start to fall into place a little more. We can do this by accepting things as they are, accepting ourselves as we are, and letting things be okay in this moment.
I disagree, however, that “there isn't a good reason why”. Unfortunately, I suspect there's always a reason- we're just not aware of what it is. Let me elaborate.
I grew up in a household of seven people. As the youngest of five children, I was rarely “alone” and it was rarely quiet. I can happily fall asleep with noise going on around me - in fact, I prefer it. My inner child finds it deeply comforting to fall asleep to the background noise of others' distant chatter - I'm reminded of falling asleep on summer nights hearing my parents talking at the table in the garden outside and the dulcit notes of Classic FM coming up through from the kitchen below me… I used to strongly dislike the silence of being the first one home from school. I remember feeling somewhat lost: what shall I do? Where should I start? Which room should I choose to plonk myself down in?
It makes sense for me, therefore, that living alone is challenging. I enjoy it on many, many (many) levels, but I definitely struggle to get things done. As a child, I thrived on the reassurance, validation and praise of being witnessed in achieving the tasks I needed to get done. If someone didn't hear me doing my cello practice, then it generally wasn't worth doing. Who is going to say ‘well done’ when I practise now?
My counsellor thinks this is why I procrastinate: because it's difficult to get things done if no-one's there to say well done. Suddenly, the effort required is more than the anticipated reward. At least, this is how I have made sense of it.
Mindful moment: I think procrastination is an extremely common and normal phenomenon of daily human life. Have you got things on your to-do list that have been sitting there for a while? Do you know why you haven't done them? Do you find it easier to get things done if you've got someone else around you? Start to notice how it feels when you do get one of those tasks completed. Are you able to provide yourself with the positive recognition you might previously have got from a parent? Getting frustrated about procrastination is ultimately counter-productive, and we can practise accepting everything as it is, in this moment. Gradually, we can learn to start where we are at, and be gentle and encouraging towards ourselves - and our inner child.
