How can you slay the procrastination demon?
How perfection, and the seeking of perfection, leads to stagnation and procrastination. (And how you can find energy and motivation)
I used to spend an inordinate amount of time going over the same things. Trying to make things “perfect”.
But excessive planning drove me into endless lists rather than action. Getting caught up in the mental details of anything I was trying to produce. In fact, anything I was “trying” to manifest in my life.
Perfection only lead to procrastination. What I didn’t know until much later in my journey was that the need for perfection and control was connected to my fear of unknown outcomes. It was related to how I had spent my childhood, and what I witnessed and saw in the adults around me.
An inability to get on and get the thing done that needs doing.
If you experience this, then you’re not alone. I have had many clients who have been stuck with procrastination & in-action, ultimately, a form of fear.
The perception of perfection is something that we inherently hold as human beings. Unfortunately, social media and comparison with what other people are putting out into the world can bring a total halt to all movement towards our visions and dreams.
You begin to believe it’s impossible, or too much, or it’s already been done! (Have we talked about the power of belief before?)
Procrastination stifles creativity.
When I began my transformational journey over two decades ago, I had to change my personal beliefs around what other people may think about what I do. My mind would take me into stories of “what will they think”. That wasn’t really what they were thinking; it was simply a projection of how I feel onto someone else’s perception.
Projection means allowing your mind to “imagine” what someone else will feel or do.
Projection can drive us into behaving and doing things that don’t really align for us. We can choose un-aligned actions believing that it will make someone else feel a certain way. In relationships, this becomes a really damaging way of being.
Look at the trouble perfection gets us into!
Perfection is an illusion created by the ego. Release it and untap motivation.
Introspective practice below on how to bring action to change your life.
You may have noticed how sometimes you want someone to perceive you or see you in a certain light and so you do something that doesn’t feel right.
Your intuition is saying “no don’t do it, this doesn’t feel right” but your mind persuades you to override your deeper awareness. If you follow the mind on this, then you’re lining yourself up for resentment, potentially anger, and possibly an explosion. I know this pattern well, it used to be a pattern I lived with.
Ignoring intuition leads to resentment.
As I began to give myself nurture, care and love I was able to release the feeling of being “selfish”. I was able to free myself of resentment and fear of being judged.
My harshest critic used to be myself.
The Critical Voice within me would often prevent me from at least manifesting the start of a project or a creation, until I turned away from it and cultivated self-love.
Once I started listening to my intuition and how I truly felt about things, I could turn my back on The Critical Voice that told me I “couldn’t” do something. It was only on reflection and consideration of where I’d been in my life that I started to understand that The Critical Voice within me was mostly not even mine; it was stuff that I’d acquired as a child.
Now, I’m able to release any need to be perfect so that I can be outward in the world and ultimately serve you. My new belief is that:
“Good is good enough”
It was not easy to take this on board and to release The Critical Voice. The little boy within me still feels sometimes that he’s “the lazy boy” or that “he’s not good enough”. I can hold space for that little boy, notice his fear around judgement, and send him my love and presence.
Once the feelings move, you can get on with manifesting you dreams, of stepping into joy and peace of mind. Of creating from an unhindered and inspired place.
Today is the day!
Motivation Practice below 🙂
Motivation Introspective Practice
Releasing the heavy feeling of procrastination is no easy feat. That’s why I’m not going to suggest that you can. It’s not something that you can consciously think your way out of.
Procrastination is a feeling in the body. It can even be a trauma response (I won’t get into the depths of that here though).
By taking specific actions, with your body, you can begin to allow the feeling to lessen.
The word ‘practice’ is connected to the word practical. In this next practice, I’m going to invite you to do some very practical things, get you to act or take action, so that you can release blockages stopping you from manifesting what you want to do and let go of procrastination.
If you’re left to your own devices without having any kind of structure or routine, then rather than being truly in your creative flow, one can end up in a state of procrastination or chaos. Where, rather than doing the thing that you really want to get done, you have resistance in your being which means that you do anything but that thing.
For example: you may need to sit down and get some paperwork, maybe complete a tax form that you’ve been knowing you’ve had to get done for a while. Usually these things can play on the mind, being constantly turned over (often leading to anxious feelings).
Instead of getting that thing done, say it’s an application form or tax return, you decide that the desk needs to be tidy first, or that your room needs tidying up and vacuuming.
You then get on and do those things rather than doing the hardest thing which is writing or filling in the form. It can of course be the other way around, you may avoid tending to the housework by instead doing anything other than that – it’s very individual!
This next practice offers structure and routine and then asks you to push through a barrier and act. Please follow these steps exactly as they are laid out. This helps breakthrough procrastination, and you will feel amazing afterwards.
Step 1. Make a shortlist of no more than five things that you want to achieve on the morning of a day. Let’s say, Saturday.
This shortlist is only for specifically this one day. The list is NOT “premade” or “pre-written”.
Step 2. Ensure that on that list is at least one thing that you have massive resistance against.
Allocate an amount of time that each of those things is going to take you, be generous so as not to be rushed.
Assign five times within the day when you can complete those five items, without assigning each of those items to a time of day yet.
For example: 09:30, 13:00, 13:30, 14:50, 18:30, 20:00
Step 3. Now THIS IS ESSENTIAL, order your five things you want to complete today, not in order of priority but in order of resistance. So, the first thing on the list is the thing that you least want to do, the last thing on the list is the thing that you have least resistance to.
Step 4. You may need to pause and notice the feeling in your body about doing each “thing”.
Make an agreement with yourself that you will carry these tasks out in that order. And stick to the allocated time as best as possible.
For example, using the times above you may have a list as follows:
09:30 – Fill in tax return (most resistance, been put off for months)
13:00 – Clean the car (resistance reason, “well it will only get dirty again”)
13:30 – Get the gardening done (some resistance, but want the garden ready for the nice weather)
14:50 – Read a chapter of my text book (Highly motivated to study, but easily distracted by colouring pencils)
18:30 – Have a chat with friend on phone (Have something need to tell friend about, but have slight resistance)
20:00 – Do some colouring (This is fun and easy, you most often end up doing this instead of anything else)
By deciding to do the thing that is causing you the most procrastination, first you will sense and feel some resistance. But, once you break through the resistance by beginning that first difficult thing everything else becomes easier, even that most difficult thing will begin to become something you can do with more ease.
This process can be applied to resolving anything. Including putting in new boundaries with family members and ex-partners! Start with the hard stuff, then the rest will feel easier.
This practice also offers release from worry and anxiety.
You may feel like doing a short meditation, simply sitting down and focusing on slowing and deepening your breathing for 15 minutes before you carry out this practice. To allow some of your energies to clear, move and be felt in the body.
Here’s a couple of mantras (phrases you say to yourself as you sit) that may support you if you choose to meditate before taking action:
I open myself to be motivated and act
I nourish my positive mindset with each breath
You may be holding some much deeper beliefs around self-criticism. This is possibly the result of receiving certain self-limiting beliefs or statements from other people during your childhood.
It may be that in your childhood you observed someone else self-criticising and took their beliefs and behaviours on board.
Those elements become The Critical Voice. Your journey may be to deepen your connection with what is arising for you, through Holistic Shadow Work.
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