How to Stop Procrastinating

How to stop procrastinating starts with knowing that procrastination isn’t a character flaw. It’s a signal pointing toward misalignment, fear, or lack of support. It’s hard to find or sustain solutions when you’re beating yourself up. In this episode you’ll learn practical, compassionate ways to get curious about what and why you’re avoiding doing something, recalibrate to what actually matters, and create small, supported steps forward. If you’re tired of motivating through shame and ready to take action in a way that works, this episode is for you.

Some of what I explore in this episode includes:

• How procrastination, avoidance, “shoulds,” shame, and time management pressures fit together
• How to tell if you’re procrastinating from fear, perfectionism, overwhelm, or true misalignment
• Practical tools for overcoming procrastination: breaking tasks down, using deadlines, accountability, and body doubling
• How to work with your real energy and neurodivergent brain using curiosity, values, and self-compassion

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Transcript

Valerie Friedlander: 0:08

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another

episode of Mindset Unlimited: 0:10

Mindset Tips, Tools, and Inspiration for Women in a Time of Change. I'm your host, Valerie Friedlander, certified leadership coach, sociologist, intersectional feminist artist, mom, and nerd. And today we are talking about how to stop procrastinating. I've talked about procrastination in several episodes in various ways, so I'm going to kind of tie those together, but I'm also going to point you to those episodes if you want more details, more thoughts on it. This topic came up because recently I was working with a client, and she mentioned, kind of as a side note, procrastinating - like it wasn't the focus of what we were working on, but she just kind of threw it out there as, like, oh, this is where I'm procrastinating, and it flagged to me in that instance as a label, it's a way that we describe a behavior of not doing a thing, and it, it can vary on what that thing is that we're not doing, when is it that we label it procrastination, and when do we just go? We're not doing the thing. It really has a lot to do with whether we're beating ourselves up over not doing the thing versus going, this is a thing I'm not doing. How important is it? What do I want to do with it? It's a energy really underlying it. We often put it in the category of like we're being lazy, we're not being disciplined, we're not managing our time well, and a lot of that comes from the past. It comes from times when we weren't doing things the way in the timeframe other people thought that we should do them, and it comes up a lot for my neurodivergent folks that I work with, because again the relationship to time and to doing things is a little bit different than a lot of people think they should be, and so when I put a reach out about, like, what are people thinking about procrastination, and there was a lot of tie between procrastination and shoulds, and as I said before, shoulds and shame go together. So, here's the high level: procrastination isn't proof of laziness or moral failing, or that you're not good enough, or that you're a failure, or whatever it is, it's information about what's misaligned, what's scary, what's not supported. Maybe it's externally supported, like there are structures that aren't in place that need to be in place to help you do the thing, because we aren't really designed to just I'm gonna do the thing, and then I go do the thing. Why do we pick the thing in the first place, right? We go, why did I say that? That was the thing to do. Who decided that was the thing to do? Was it my decision? Was it a social construct? Was it a have to because of the structures of our society? Was it something that I picked up from a long time ago, and I'm not saying you have to go through all of these things to figure out how to avoid procrastination. Oh my gosh, I just said the thing I'm going to talk a little bit about avoidance and procrastination, because they are the same thing. Ultimately, if you're procrastinating, you're avoiding something, so when we say avoid procrastination, we're basically saying avoid avoiding, which is it? Can you see how that doesn't work very well? Like, how to stop procrastinating? Well, just don't do it. It's just, it's not, it's not constructive. So, what's misaligned, what's scary, what's not supported, and those are the things to look at when you're exploring procrastination, and so the invitation is to get really intentional with it, and again, I'm going to walk you through, there are like some four core things to do when you notice you're procrastinating, but it's not the end of the story. So, if that's all you want, I'm going to give it to you right now. If you want more details, hang around. So, basically, get curious about what the procrastination is signaling. Procrastination is a label we've learned to place on some experience that we're having related to things that we have identified to do. I'm trying to be like as broad as I can be with it, because it's really hard to step out of the language that we're used to about that I. That I would do, that I should do, that I all the all the layers of baggage that kind of go on that create that signaling, but what is it saying when you use that label on something? What's what's the information here? What's happening, and then check in with what's really important, what your values are, usually because that label pops up when we're beating ourselves up. There's a shame component embedded in the idea of procrastination. What are the values at play that are happening that are pulling you from the thing or that are saying this is the thing to do, and then create some clear compassionate experiments, and I will go into a little bit more detail about that as we go along, but what I basically mean by that is when you get clear on this is what's important, and it's something that you're putting off, let's try this and see what happens. Can you put on a more curious mindset into well, what's working, what's not working, what might I try to support myself stepping outside of the good bad kind of way of thinking about what's happening, and often I'm procrastinating, that's bad, and if that's bad, then I am bad. That's the tie that tends to happen in our subconscious circuits. Maybe they're they're very forefront in your brain, but maybe they're not. Usually, there's some layer of beating yourself up. So, if we can step back from that and go, what's going on here? What, what, what's happening? What do I need here? Looking at what is misaligned with what's important to me, and maybe part of it is and part of it isn't. So, what part isn't, and what's scary? What am I afraid of? What might happen, and then what support do I need, because sometimes we really just, we need another person. We need a structure that we don't have. People often think about, oh, I get things done when I have a deadline, or when I have accountability. There's a purpose, there's a support that those things create for us. Sometimes it's a chemical thing that's happening inside of us that we need that dopamine and adrenaline of having a deadline to push us through, but there are other reasons that shows up too that can have to do with relevancy and what feels important. If you're someone who has a lot of things on their plate, what feels like it's on fire often is the thing that gets prioritized. It doesn't really help us to go beat ourselves up for the things that aren't getting prioritized, unless we need to recalibrate, and even if we need to recalibrate, that's actually the thing that's more helpful than beating ourselves up. It's pausing and going, okay, I keep prioritizing these things. Maybe that's not what I want to do. What could I do to support myself intentionally bringing in this other thing that's also important to me, but that keeps getting sidelined? What about it is making it get sidelined? What could I do differently that would bring it in or make it more supported, more accessible. That's the word I'm trying to get to. So that is the kind of curiosity when we step back and go, what's going on here, that sometimes it's hard to do on your own. I know, for me, if I'm on my own and I've got all this stuff and this labeling and these stories going on, I can get stuck in my head and it makes it really hard to take that step back. So that's part of the value of having someone like a good friend who isn't going to jump in with you, and that's tricky. A lot of us have a lot of programming around fix it, and I see this a lot of times with my clients. They want to help, they want to fix, and that kind of energy can actually obstruct curiosity, because we jump to how first instead of holding space for the unknown, for an emergent process, for that uncomfortable place where we don't actually have the answer yet, and that's okay, because that's where we find answers, is when we hold space for something new to come forward instead of jumping in to fix it, which can feel like judgment, which can bypass what we actually need to explore. So, having friends who can do that is really awesome. A lot of us needed training to be able to do that. I know I was one. Of them, that's part of what coach training is about, is being able to hold space and not jump in and try and give solutions and problem solve, and that sort of thing, but to support somebody else's problem solving and solution finding to be more supportive, and when you hold space for that, that's where we get past the do these five steps, and then you'll have the answer, except that doesn't fit all the scenarios. So, if you're looking for professional support, I'm happy to chat with you, but those are the kinds of things, like knowing that it's, it's not a failing again if you can't take that step back. Most of us really have trouble holding a mirror up to ourselves, and we need other people to do that. So, getting curious, and then take a moment. I mean, that's part of getting curious, is taking that pause, but sometimes we're procrastinating because we're tired, because we are overloaded, we are too rushed, too many things are happening, and we need to pause. So, sometimes maybe moving our body, doing something physical that moves the energy. I know sometimes that can be part of procrastination. So, like, when that might be another thing that we want to explore, is like when is the pause another way to procrastinate, and when is it actually supportive, and I might actually argue here that a lot of times we label pausing as procrastination when really we need a lot more rest and room than we typically allow ourselves, and we want to rush through that. Said, there are a lot of structures in our society that make it very hard to not rush, and sometimes we need to do that because that's the world we live in, so differentiating between this is a me issue and this is a social structural issue is something that I really emphasize a lot in my coaching, and of course on this podcast, because when we conflate those two, we end up beating ourselves up, as you know, like a personal failing instead of a structural failing. And then, when we recognize the difference, we can push back against the structural failing. We can advocate for the things that are needed, instead of pushing ourselves to be other than we really are than what is what is natural for us as human beings, so having that differentiation is really important. So, rest as you can, and know that if that's part of the reason you're resisting doing the thing, and that the label of procrastination is coming up. Yeah, I mean, that's part of what we've been conditioned with, so knowing that rest, as well as just do a thing, you know, it might not be exactly what we want it to be, it might not be perfect, we aren't going to magically feel motivated to do a thing sometimes, so we might have resistance, and then that goes back to what structures do we need to put into place to support ourselves. So that's the high level overview. Now let's dive into the nitty gritty. If you want to go even further and kind of nerd out on some things, such as the definition of procrastination. I pulled it from the Merriam Webster Dictionary online, and procrastination, according to that dictionary, means to put off intentionally doing of something that should be done, like listen to that. Okay, to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done, should is in the definition, so should and shame, they're they are siblings, and so the other piece is really interesting that intentionally is in there. I often find that when people are procrastinating, or they're thinking of themselves as procrastinating, or they're labeling the procrastination, it's not because they are like intentional about it. Doesn't feel intentional, it feels like almost like I have to, like this is too big. This is overwhelming. I can't do this. There's a layer of story underneath the procrastination that doesn't feel intentional, and I almost think that when intentionality comes into play, it's like I'm not going to do this right now, I'm choosing to do this and. Said there's choice, procrastination is avoidance, and avoidance, I guess you can avoid things as a choice, you can choose to avoid things, but energy is different. I would love to hear what you all think about that, like, does that energy choice and avoidance, I feel like those, there's a different vibration to them in, in some way, not to be super woo or anything, but that's just how it feels, so it goes further in the dictionary, it says the word itself comes from the Latin prefix pro, meaning forward, and crassness, meaning of tomorrow, so to procrastinate is to work or move slowly, so as to fall behind. It implies blameworthy delay, especially through laziness or apathy. So it's really interesting to me that this has become such an internalized word, because the way that's outlined, like blameworthy delay, one of the places that I see this come up a lot is when people that I'm working with have internalized stories that they haven't done things in the timeframe that other people thought that they should do them in, and that's where the should comes in. The should isn't I should do this because I want to do this because this is important to me, it's this. I should do this, because you're supposed to do this, and even if it's transferred into things you actually do want to do, the roots of it are in those old stories that you picked up from probably adult figures in your life saying you should be doing this, you should have done this, the blame, the shame, the guilt of why didn't you do this the way you were supposed to do this, or when you were supposed to do this, why isn't this done yet? And as a parent, this is hard, because I don't know how many of you have kids or teenagers, there's a lot of teaching that goes involved that's involved in raising children, and a lot of patience, and when the world is moving so fast, and we are so busy, and so overloaded, and so unsupported, it's really hard not to put that pressure onto your kids, and to get frustrated when they don't learn it the first time, or the second time, or the third time, you want them to pick it up right away, because they don't have time to do it. This is another thing that comes up with my folks in companies where they are struggling with delegation, because, well, it'll, it's faster if I just do it myself, but then why aren't people helping me? So, just pulling back to the idea of procrastination, it starts, I believe, as an outside label, you're procrastinating, you're lazy, you don't care enough, you don't care as much as I care about it. Therefore, and most of the time that I see people, their procrastination, as it were, isn't rooted in apathy. They do care about it, and they are beating themselves up over it, and that's certainly not lazy, because that takes a lot of energy to beat yourself up. Just saying, beating yourself up is exhausting. As from personal experience, that's not lazy, it is conditioning, and it isn't helpful, so there's some other things in here. It says English has other words with similar meanings, such as defer and postpone. Those feel less judgy, right? Defer, postpone, procrastinate. Procrastinate has this weight of shame in it, and it even says none places the blame so directly on the person responsible for choosing a later time to do something, so the thing with procrastination is that it is a judgment of blaming, and so that idea of intentionally putting it off really feels external to me, and again, I invite your sharing on that, but it's like an internalized story that came from outside, because I'm beating myself up for not doing things that I should be doing. So, where did that come from? We weren't born with that. That's not a natural, inherent thing that we have. So, where did it come from? It came from you should be doing this, and if you're not doing it, you're lazy, or you don't care enough, so I'm sharing this because I think it's important to notice this is a way that we've learned to motivate ourselves, probably because adults in our life, when we were young, used blame and shame to motivate us, and I'm not blaming or shaming those adults. Those are often the tools that we've been given, that we've been handed down, and it's hard to learn new ones. So, knowing that this isn't about blaming or shaming anybody else, but recognizing that this is a way that we've learned to motivate us that doesn't really work, and if you look at, you know, learning, teaching models, educational tools, developmental stuff that has been proven to not be helpful for children either, so that also means it's not helpful for us as adults. Learning actually is supported by play, not by beating anybody up or blaming or shaming play, and those don't go together very well. So I don't share this as a another way for you to beat yourself up again. It makes sense that this is the tool that we have learned and that we have access to most readily, and it's really helpful when you start to notice, like, if we make it tangible, we make them actual tools, and we say, okay, you have a hammer and a screwdriver and a wrench, and whatever. If you pick up a tool and you start using that tool, and it's not the right tool, it's not going to be effective in doing the thing that you want to do with it any point in time, you can go, huh, that is not the most helpful tool, and maybe it's sort of working, but is there a better tool? Is there another tool that I could use? I can put that tool down at any time. I don't want to keep using that tool for this other thing over here, i.e. getting myself to stop using the tool that I'm using for that. Just, hey, that's not a helpful tool. Why'd I pick that tool up? What is that tool doing for me? Oh, it's the one that's on the top of the tool chest. Of course, I just picked it up because I was on autopilot and I was just doing the things, and I grabbed that tool, and I went out. Oh, hey, that's not the right tool. Let me put that tool down and find another one, and maybe I have to dig a little bit, because I'm only just learning new tools, and that's okay. So, if we can be compassionate with ourselves. Around, I need to pause and dig through this toolkit and find the tool first. I need, maybe I need to evaluate the thing I was doing, because I thought that was the right tool. And then I started using it, and went, "Oh, that is not the right tool. I'm not sure what the right tool is. Wait, why was I doing this project in the first place, is this the project that I want to be doing right now? You know what, I just, I side quested, and actually this other project is the thing that I want to be working on. It can get kind of complicated, and the reason I'm giving this kind of high-level overview, essentially still, and not as tangible is just because all of the stuff around procrastination really depends on what's going on for you and why you picked up that tool and what the project is that you're working on, so just to kind of jump into what might be going on, I have a podcast episode where I do some coaching around it's called It's Simple, so why am I not doing it? And so one of my more popular episodes, and in that episode the person that I'm working with wants to do the thing, so this is that she has identified that this is the project that I want to be working on, so that's first and foremost. Sometimes, again, it's a should, and it's not because I actually want to be doing it, and maybe it's okay to let it go. I'm keep procrastinating on this. I don't actually want to do this. Maybe I can't let it go. Maybe it's something to hire somebody else. Or find another solution that doesn't involve me doing it, that's a, that's an acceptable option, if the resources are available to you to take that option, which is a whole nother thing, again, structural systems, not a you, not a you problem, it's just made to be a you problem, so recognizing, okay, what is what is the thing here? Okay, well, if it is a thing you want to do, what supports do you need in order to do it? So finding what the avoidance pattern is, because again it's about avoidance, so knowing I'm avoiding this procrastination, I'm avoiding doing a thing, not because you're lazy, not because you are failing, not because you're not disciplined, not because you're bad at time management, none of those things, it's because that something is missing, some sort of support is missing, could be emotional, again scary. We need to break it down into smaller pieces. It could be structural. I need a different tool. Again, I work with a lot of people who have various neurodivergencies and need different things to support them doing things that they want to do, so okay, should I do this? Maybe not. What's important. One of the things that came up with a client recently was I'm not inclined to do things that aren't immediately relevant, and that was something we came to as she was working through, like putting her plan together, how she wanted to approach things, and realizing and noticing, well, I don't tend to do things until they're immediately relevant, and as she said that, she's like, and that actually works pretty well for me, like, and this is where that idea of, oh, I procrastinate on it. Well, no, it's not actually procrastination, it's that I don't do things unless they feel immediately relevant. That's really helpful information. Now, the question is, where are the places where that isn't working, because she's like, most of the time that actually works pretty well, but there are some places that I can see where it would be helpful to be able to do things that don't naturally immediately, without a lot of thought, become immediately relevant, but in reflection I can see how this activity is immediately relevant, because if I do it later I end up overly stressed, whereas, and she was able to walk through why she can make it immediately relevant in the time frame that would be more supportive than when her automatic sense of immediate relevancy kicks in, so noticing. Okay, what's what structure do I need to support me recognizing this as immediately relevant before it would automatically be experienced as immediately relevant. These are things that we notice when we take a step back and, and look at with curiosity, what, what is this thing that I didn't do in the timeframe that I thought maybe in retrospect I should have done it in, rather than beating myself up over, well, I should have done it, then what stopped me from doing it? We notice things like, oh, it, what didn't feel immediately relevant. So that's where that pause, rather than getting caught up in a story, and the, the, I'm going to motivate myself to do differently by beating myself up and saying just don't procrastinate, just don't avoid avoiding again, avoid avoiding no two negatives don't make a positive in this case, so just taking a look, what's the information here, you may find something like my client did, around relevancy, then support. Sometimes we need external structural support. If you're someone who I will, I get it done when there's a deadline, I just end up being super stressed about it. Well, there are a variety of approaches that you could take to the deadline. Can you create a deadline? Maybe there's not a natural deadline, but you could work with somebody to have external accountability, because if I make a deadline up that I know it's made up and then I won't adhere to it. Is there something else that I could put into place? Things that would support me getting it done, such as, and this has come up with clients before, of well, I want to get this thing done, so I'm going to set up a lunch date with a friend, and if I don't have this done by that lunch date, I'm going to have to cancel the lunch date. You can create a structure for yourself, and that's just one example. There are a lot of different approaches where you kind of combine a deadline and accountability external to you to help motivate. Another approach can be, I know that I do this, so I'm going to make sure that I build in time around that deadline for that push of energy, because I know I'll have the adrenaline and the dopamine and all of those things going on that I will get this thing done, but then I'm going to be exhausted, so I'm going to make sure that after each deadline I build in some rest time, because I'm going to do a full court press, as a word, basketball, I had a boss that used that term, and then we never, he's like, we're in a full court press, but then we never got out of the full court press, and it is not meant to be something that you do constantly, so recognizing when it's time to stop and actually have the rest time built in is a thing that you can do, so you can opt to use that. Sometimes it can be support wise. I need a body double, comes up with a lot of my ADHD clients. Where I want to get this thing done, I don't need somebody to help me do it, but I do need somebody to hang out with me while I do it. So, can I get a buddy to talk with me on the phone while I get things done, or come over and hang out, or maybe we could do a trade off where we do the thing that I need to get done, and then we go do the thing that they're gonna need to get done, whatever it is. So, those are other structural things you can put into place. It's very hard to find these things that support you if your focus is on beating yourself up. I'm going to beat myself up to support myself. No, no, please. No, thank you. Procrastination when you're like, I don't like that I'm doing it, it's not serving me, needs care. I have a whole episode on care versus control, and procrastination fits right in. If there's something you want, beating yourself up is not going to help you get it. It's going to make it harder, because you're going to expend more energy than you need to. Okay, so there are a few ways that procrastination shows up that came up when I put out a little call on Facebook asking folks to share with me what comes up for them around procrastination and some of the themes that I've seen are overwhelm I'm procrastinating because something feels bigger than me. And this came up with a client recently, just it felt overwhelming, felt daunting. Whatever, that sense that it's, it's bigger than I can handle, which makes sense. You would avoid it, because our system isn't designed to think logically about it, just goes, this is dangerous. It is bigger than me. I must avoid it. Yeah, of course, that's we're wired to protect ourselves there. So, yeah, of course, you're not going to do the thing, so our logical brain knows better and can actually break it down now. Maybe it's hard to break it down yourself, and you need support to break it down. I have had clients use different ways of doing that. One will work on it in session to writing everything down and noticing where are the gaps, where are the places that aren't working, or that I have questions, and that I'm avoiding because they feel like gaping holes that I could fall through, but I didn't realize that it's just sitting in my subconscious. So different ways of breaking it down into bite-sized pieces. Bite-sized pieces are tricky. So one of the other things that came up for someone is about, oh, well, I know if I just think about it, I know I can do it if I, if I just think about it, maybe, and that's awesome. Yes, sometimes taking that pause, taking that step back, and taking your breath, and going, no, I can totally do this. Sometimes that works. Sometimes we have gotten into a habit of a self-fulfilling prophecy where I can't do the thing, and I build a to-do list that is not reasonable for me, and then I prove myself right, that no, I. Can't actually do it. No, I'm not good enough. And then it feeds into the way I talk to myself about not being good enough. So, really recognizing what it is like, is this really reasonable? Maybe it's reasonable if I had consistent energy all the time, and this comes up a lot of times with my clients who have chronic illnesses, where, well, I should be able to do this while I don't have consistent energy, so no, maybe that would have been reasonable for me at one point in time, maybe that would have been reasonable for this other person that I know who can do things really quickly, or these types of things really quickly, but we have to factor in what our strengths are, what our resources are, including our energy levels, like all of those things come into play. How fast I'm capable of doing something just because I can do this type of activity quickly doesn't mean I can do this other type of activity quickly. If I'm in decision fatigue, making decisions, the more decisions that need to be made for something, the more time it's going to take me, because I'm already tired. But could I get a whole bunch of just.. I don't have to think about it, I can just go do it. Done. Yes. So, knowing the different kinds of energy that go into different things, and being realistic about my to-do list, sometimes it can even be thinking about the to-do list differently. That came up recently with a client as well, of that rollover of the to do list, anytime she would look at the to do list first thing in the morning that rolled over from the day before, she would feel defeated and deflated. And we talked about, well, is there a different time that you could set up looking at the to do list? Could you have like three things on a post it note that are the next things you do the next day that are reasonable things to do, knowing what your energy tends to be first thing in the morning, and then at another point in time you go through the to-do list, so instead of it being first thing in the morning, like, are there other points of time that that makes sense to do? So I hope you're kind of getting a sense, like I'm giving so many different possibilities, and you might be like, "The hell, this is too many possibilities. I don't even know how to pick a thing. What I'm hoping to offer you with some of this reflection is that it isn't as straightforward as, like, just do these things, and then it's fine. You will stop procrastinating. The key to stop procrastinating isn't that you're not going to not do things or that you're going to be able to get everything done on time all the time. It's being able to take that step back and go, hmm, what happened? Oh, I noticed that I'm not doing the thing that I said that I was going to do. What's stopping me from doing it? What's important about this thing? What would help me do the thing? What structures do I need? Knowing what has worked for me in the past, sometimes it is cultivating certain habits, like affirming oneself and saying, oh, what did I do? Recognizing yourself for the things that you have accomplished, instead of getting caught up in all the things that you haven't done. Recognizing what you have done can kind of boost you. There's also gratitude. One of the tools that someone mentioned in the Facebook post when we were reflecting on procrastination was the idea of reframing from I have to or I should to I get to. That actually came up a few times, and I hear that a lot of like I get to do this. An example is I get to do this exercise because I have a body that's capable of doing this. The caution that I give with that reframe sometimes reframe is helpful, sometimes it slides into toxic positivity, and not necessarily the toxic level, but positivity that masks other options. Okay, so just I get to as a way to push myself to want to do it. The more we can support ourselves in doing something because we do want to do it, or because there's there's something that feels good about it, the more sustainable it becomes. So, if I'm constantly trying to do something, Valerie, stop saying you have to or you should, start saying you get to, and reframing, and constantly reframing. The more effort I have to put into reframing it to I get to, the harder it's going to be to keep it up, especially. When I'm already tired, so using the exercise as an example, sometimes it can be something like, okay, well, I should exercise. Well, what am I choosing? And this has actually come up a lot with clients, because exercise, movement, wellness, physical well-being are things that will often come up as part of the work that we're doing, and it's well, I should be going to the gym, or I should be doing this. Well, what do you like doing? What's important to you about that? What's enjoyable about that? Creating options that work for you can really make a difference, is it? Is it exercising alone? Is it exercising with a group or another person, having a buddy to go for a walk with, having a set time where you chat with somebody while you go for your walk, and you just know you're going to be panting in each other's ears because you're, you're doing a little fast walk to really get movement going, maybe it's swimming, maybe it's walking, or aerobics, or whatever, really exploring what's important to you and what is enjoyable, the more you can lower the resistance, the easier it is to do that, reframe, and then keep it sustainable. So, make sure that you're not just reframing and jumping ahead and missing exploring the other places where there might be information hiding that would be supportive for you in doing the thing that you want to do, because there's a reason you said you wanted to do it, and again, maybe it's because somebody else said that this is something you're supposed to do, and like, I had a client who was like, I can't hire cleaners, because that's something that people who aren't me do, and that maybe, but why are there other things that you can do faster or with more facility, and that would actually work better for you, for your time and your energy, than doing the cleaning of the bathroom again? Not all the resources are available to other people, and I want to recognize that, and there may be places where you're saying I can't do that, that you, why not? What's stopping you? What could you do to address that thing that's stopping you? There's sometimes it's asking, you know, might even be doing a trade with a friend. Hey, I'm really good at going through spreadsheets and like accounting stuff, but in you're really good at organizing closets. Could we do a trade off or support each other? Right, like it's just thinking outside the box instead of this is just what I'm supposed to do, and I'm putting out the fire in front of me, and I'm just going.. it's hard to pause and take a look at what makes sense again and again. I say procrastination has information in it. It's not because you're lazy, it's not because you don't care, and if it is because you don't care, then maybe it's not for you to do, maybe there's a different approach now. If it's coming from a relationship, and this is important to your family or your partner, there might be some conversation to be had about, well, this needs to get done. This is important. I have something come up a lot with folks of, like, how clean certain things are. Do we have paper piles? Like, who's responsible? When do we take care of those? That can be really tricky within a relationship where one person's tolerance for certain things is lower than the other person's tolerance for certain things, and there needs to be a middle ground, and it's hard to get past some of the places of resistance, so sometimes reframing can be helpful. I get to do this because I have a partner who this matters to, and it's a way that I can show love. This is a service it can be. Is there a way that we can ask for help and do a trade off? Is there a different task that might work better for me to do and for you to do this one, or whatever. There are lots of approaches, but being able to show up with curiosity and go, what could we do to find something that works, is really key. It's the more shaming and blaming, the more energy you're spending, the harder it will be to do the other things. So, perfectionism.. I didn't hit on perfectionism. Right sizing it is key when we have perfectionism. Usually there's a fear of getting it wrong, of doing it wrong, of not doing it good enough. This is an invitation to one we can bring it to right size, like if I screw it up, how bad is it? Like, is that won't it not be fixable? Like, what could I do to make it feel safer to do, and then being able to define enough what is good enough, because sometimes it's, it's too big, like there is no good enough, and that's rooted in all of our stuff around, it's never good enough, it's always got to be better, and if we can create a container that can be supportive to overcome the resistance to doing a thing that avoidance, it's like, oh no, it has a container. Doing 15 minutes a day is enough. Getting this pile addressed is enough. Like, what is enough? Can I quantify it? Can I create a container that feels supportive, that feels accessible, that feels like achievable, where I'm not setting myself up to beat myself up again, because I said, oh yeah, this is totally reasonable, and then it wasn't, and then it's not good enough, and I'm not good enough. It's so easy to slide into, I made a mistake, I am a mistake, I didn't do good enough, I'm not good enough. That happens sometimes in our subconscious. We don't even realize that we're doing it, so just noticing it again. I share this not as a don't do that and beat yourself up, but noticing that you're doing it can hold a lot of information about where you need care. If you listen to my episode talking about energy levels, talking about leadership and energy levels, you are not your personality. I've got a few episodes where I touch on the energy leadership stuff, level one, that circle of self that pulled in is where avoidance, where I'm helpless, things are too big, that overwhelm, procrastination, that energy is in that level one, and so that tells me that care is needed, because something feels dangerous. So, right sizing it is, it really is big and dangerous as it feels like. Not to say that the feelings don't matter, but feelings aren't facts, they're information about what's happening inside of me, not what's real out here. So, caring for the part of me that needs care, and then looking at what structures do I actually need, what is real out here that can help expand, like there's a care that needs to happen, so making sure that you're taking a look at that. Okay, I'm almost, I'm almost through all the things. Y'all, this is my challenge when I'm like doing these, is like there's so much here, and I want to make sure that I'm giving you all the things. So I have an episode called "What to Do When You Falling Behind, and this is another place that procrastination, or that label, shows up as when I'm falling behind on doing things, or when I'm labeling myself as behind. Oh, well, I can explain why I'm falling behind, is because I'm procrastinating. All of that has that same energy of pulling in and resistance and and shutting down and fear and all of that, so one of the things I say in that episode is that falling behind that story is a, an invitation for recalibration, it's not an invitation to beat yourself up, so that's how that part of ourselves that learned to motivate by beating ourselves up is like, yeah, I got this, I got you, no, no, we need to pause and recalibrate if we're behind, so often people get lost in how, how do I do it, and yes, I know the title of this episode is How to Stop Procrastinating. I did that on purpose, because so often we want to jump to how, and as you may have noticed from this whole episode, jumping to how is is not the first place to go. The first place is reflection, which is so hard in times where we're so busy, and we feel overwhelmed, so having support really makes a difference. I will do a little plug right now. You are invited to grab a spot on my calendar for a free exploration call if you're looking for support to navigate all of this, try. Not to get lost in the how, like if you're going, how do I do it? Pause, maybe how isn't the first question. Find the story of falling behind, tied up in procrastination, pause, check in, and again, falling behind can serve as proof that you're failing, but really it's a signal to recalibrate. Recalibration means checking in and going what's important, not how do I get this done. Just like that feels like that's the doing. We get it done, but if you don't have a direction, if you don't know why you're going there, where you're going, what's important to you, you lose a connection to it, and it becomes so much harder to do the things, and all the things, no matter how much you go, I get to do this, they still feel like shoulds because you're not connected to them, they don't have a meaning or a purpose to them for you, and what's important to you, so take a look, what's really important. Let's recalibrate, so recalibration can look like, where am I right now? What's going on for me? What's my status emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually? Where am I right now? What do I need? Where do I feel depleted? What is hard for me here, and what do I want? A lot of times, want is I want to not notice that. Well, okay, I want to not fill in the blank. If you were able to not fill in the blank, what would you be? What would you do so the not part is a place to start, but don't stop there, because again, then we're focused on the avoid avoiding. So, what are reasonable expectations based on where I actually am, based on all of those things? Take a look at that and see what makes sense. So, hopefully that was helpful. That was a lot of information. I do that. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out. I would love to hear from you. What resonated? What stood out? What really hit it helps me so much to hear from you, and to know what you're looking for, where you're struggling, and I'm gonna just recap what I said. The beginning, procrastination isn't proof of laziness or moral failing, or any of that. It's information about what is misaligned, scary, or under supported, so get curious about what procrastination is signaling. Recalibrate, realign to what's important to you. What are your values? What's going on there? Create clear, compassionate experiments. What would I like to try, and again, sometimes we're just caught in here, and we just need to do something. It's a the decision making. I've got so much more information is too much more information, and I just need to do a thing. Sometimes just taking one action is enough to help it feel accessible when it didn't feel accessible before, and sometimes we just need to rest, we just need to take a break, we need to take a breath, need to go outside and stand for a minute, we need to take a nap. I know sometimes that's not accessible, but just sometimes that's the thing. So just know that sometimes you're just not going to magically feel motivated. It's about what support do you need to do the thing. Alright, friends, that is all I have. I know again that was a lot. So I invite you to reach out if you're like, I don't even know where to start. Like, those things sound good, but I'm really stuck in putting things off, it's so personal based on who you are, what you have going on, what you're trying to do in the first place. So that's something I help with. I'm happy to hop on a call with you and help you sort through that. The link is in the show notes, like all the other links, they're all in the show notes, so check it out, and I've got some exciting interviews coming up, so stay tuned for those things, and I will talk to you all next time.