S3 E63: Overcoming Procrastination With Self Compassion
Procrastination can hold us back from doing the creative work we’re most passionate about, but it’s not just laziness or a time management problem. In this episode I talk about my history with procrastination, how I learned to be more self-compassionate when it happens, and share helpful tips to help you use self-compassion to overcome procrastination.
MORE FROM REBECCA
Creative Wellness Letters (my every-other-week notes of encouragement for your creative life)
Compassionate Creativity Coworking Club (try your first session for free!)
I have openings for Creative Coaching in 2022: learn more here!
Sign up for the free Feel Good Creativity Unchallenge (5 days of super easy creativity + wellness prompts)
My PDF workbook: Fuel Your Creative Work With Compassionate Productivity
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TRANSCRIPT
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 63 of Being a Whole Person.
Today we're going to talk about procrastination. This is a topic that comes up often and that I've touched on before on the podcast, but I've never devoted a whole episode to it. So that's day is today. But before we get into it, of course, I have a couple of announcements for you.
You might have heard me talk in the last episode about Compassionate Creativity Club and the fact that there was a show and tell call coming up on May 19, but I've actually rescheduled it to May 26. So if you're listening when this episode comes out, you did not miss it, and you're still able to join us. This is free to join. It's at 4pm Pacific. We'll get together for about 90 minutes.
You can come and share what you're working on, big or small - especially if it's small, especially if it's not finished yet, especially if you're feeling like it's not worth sharing yet. That's exactly what I want you to come and share, because sharing the small stuff is how we build the courage to share the big stuff when it's done, and just get in the habit of doing that.
We often like to share things when they're finished, of course, because they're finished. And you know, we're more proud of what we've done when it's done. We might feel like it's not ready for the world yet, but this will be a safe spot to share how things are going, get some feedback from me and your peers, and, most importantly, get some encouragement so that you can keep going forward with the process of whatever it is that you're working on. I don't know if you liked show and tell in elementary school, but I loved it. It was always one of the most fun days of school.
So that is happening on Thursday, and if you want to join in to get feedback and encouragement at Show and Tell every month, you can join us in the Creator Lab, which is part of Compassionate Creativity Club. It's like the spirit of a garden and growing things, meets a playground where you can play and do whatever you want, meets a laboratory where you can experiment and just feel free in doing all that stuff. As I mentioned last week, Compassionate Creativity Coworking Club is not going anywhere, the coworking arm of that is going to stay under this umbrella of Compassionate Creativity Club. So if you're worried about that, don't worry, and you can always join us to try out a free coworking session on any Tuesday. Those happen Tuesdays from 1:30 to 3 Pacific.
Let me tell you more about Creator Lab, it's $22 a month to join us in this level of the membership, and you get that monthly Show and Tell call to share your work, get feedback, and if you can't make it to that call live, you can always submit something and I will present it on the recording, and then you can watch the recording later. So if you can't come live, you can still participate.
You get access to my resource library with my best tools for your supporting your creative practice, like worksheets to help you know how your creativity works, to help you replenish your energy with self care, all these kinds of things, lots of journal prompts too, because I love those. You get discounts on future group offerings that I have, including my self care workshops. And you get a sneak peek into what I'm working on.
I've talked on the show about reconnecting with myself as a composer through this spring season. I'm doing a creative dispatch every week showing you what I'm working on. I play through stuff at the piano and then I talk about it. So you get that sneak peek at my works in progress that are very much not finished. I'm walking the talk here and showing you stuff as it goes.
Then you will also get to join us in the Discord server where you are encouraged to share your process at any time, and you can get feedback there too. You get some weekly self care check in prompts via email if you want those too. So that's all in the Creator Lab.
If you don't want to do all that, but you still want to get those sneak peeks of my creative process and to join us in the Discord server. You can join us at the Curiosity and Care level and that's only $7 a month. Both of those things are on the site Buy Me A Coffee, which is just like Patreon. The link will be in the show notes to check all that out.
My other announcement, of course, is, please rate and review the show, it really does help us get found, and you know, the algorithm games are no fun, but the more that people rate and review, the more that the algorithm gods will smile on us. So thank you in advance if you do that, and thank you, not in advance, if you've done that in the past.
So let's get into today's topic, procrastination. This is something that many of us struggle with in our creative work and otherwise. It is something that I definitely have a deep history with, which I'll tell you about in a minute. But have you ever said to yourself, or to somebody else, “I'm such a bad procrastinator,” and you've got this twinge of self hatred as you say it?
The word procrastination comes from the Latin verb procrastinare, which means to put off until tomorrow. There's nothing really wrong with that, inherently. It's also derived from this ancient Greek word, akrasia: doing something against our better judgment. That's the part that makes us feel terrible. We know we're avoiding something, and it makes us feel bad about ourselves. So if this is a familiar thought, for you, I definitely have lots of tips in this episode.
A familiar thought related to this, for me, is also, “I'm so behind on everything.” Then my brain is like, “Well, if you're so behind, and you're never gonna finish, you should probably just quit,” and you know, of course, that's not helpful. That tends to happen to me more when I'm tired or overwhelmed. But if you have this behind feeling, you can always go back and listen to Episode 25, called You're Not Behind, where I help you reframe your relationship with time, and shift your mindset away from that negative self talk of being behind that might hold you back from doing the creative stuff from whatever art you want to be making.
So I was definitely a big procrastinator in high school and college. Probably even before that, probably in middle school, when we started to have to write papers and those kinds of things. Those long, like, month-long projects, I would always wait until the last minute to start them. Maybe not the total last minute, maybe like the week before, or the day before. I tried not to stay up all night writing papers, but that definitely happened. Hopefully, I would get to go to bed, but I would stay up too late. All of that came from my self doubt, in just not having the confidence to know that I knew how to do this. It felt like too much work. I couldn't envision myself actually finishing it.
With procrastination, there is this delusion that, “Oh, I'll want to do this more tomorrow,” or “This will definitely be easier to do tomorrow.” Yes, that's a delusion, but there is research that's been done by psychologist Dr. Hal Hirschfeld at UCLA, that we actually perceive our future selves more like strangers than as a part of ourselves. So it feels to our brain in the moment that that undone task is someone else's problem, because our future self is like somebody else.
The amygdala, the threat detector part of your brain can get hijacked in these moments. If we perceive something as a threat, that task that you feel apprehensive about, your amygdala is wired to want to remove that threat right now in the present. It doesn't understand that there might be future reasons that you need to do this thing. It doesn't have the ability to look out into the future like that. So your amygdala is saying, “Remove that threat.” That might be just doing something else to not focus on the problem anymore.
Once I learned more about procrastination, and the fact that it's not just being bad at time management, it's really about feelings and kind of emotionally regulating yourself in these moments, that was very empowering for me, and I hope it is for you too.
I also want to say that even though I've kind of repaired my relationship with procrastination for the most part, I still sometimes tell myself that I'll feel better or more rested or more up to the task tomorrow after getting better sleep, because sometimes I have trouble sleeping in enough in the morning, when it's really bright out during this summer season, or almost-summer season. That is actually true. That's not me just putting things off. But there's also no guarantee that tomorrow I will feel more rested. So sometimes you do just have to do the thing.
There's nothing inherently wrong with procrastination. Like I said, the problem is if it makes you feel bad, and it holds you back from creating your art, from doing the stuff that's most important to you.
Procrastination is also not laziness. I talked about this a bit in Episode 49, called Why You Don't Have to Worry About Being Lazy, and that sometimes we worry that too much self care might push you into laziness. If that's the case, it probably is something you need to look at - the balance in your life between rest and doing. So if that's you, I recommend that episode, too.
There are also different working styles that people have, and there's this concept of plodding versus bursting. I'm not remembering where that came from, but I'll look up the link and put it in the show notes for sure. People have different working styles. The plodders, so to speak, are the people that do little bits of work each day or regularly over a long period of time. They are comfortable just making this slow incremental progress.
Bursters are the people who are more motivated by a deadline and do it all in one big burst. It might not be a deadline thing, either. For us creative folks, our bursts might be just following inspiration when it comes. You get that rush of that idea, and you're like, “I have to capture this right now.” You get obsessed with that thing, and you spend an hour or two working on that idea. So bursting doesn't have to be a procrastination related thing, but sometimes it can be. Of course, it is still helpful to have a regular creative habit. In the absence of deadlines. We all have our own relationship with how we like to work.
Often for creative people like us, we can make art, and doing that gradually and regularly is okay, but maybe we procrastinate on telling people about it, because it can be scary to show people your work. That's another reason why I want to do this Show and Tell - to give people an opportunity and a certain date that's like, “Okay, this is happening today, I'm going to show up that day and show what I have.”
The urge to procrastinate on getting your work out there also could come from just a belief that we don't know how to do it, like “I don't know how to market my work,” or “I don't know how to set up the technology to put this on a website,” those kinds of things. So that kind of overwhelm can lead us into the paralysis. Perfectionism is often very wrapped up in this, that fear that you're not good enough, or that you just simply can't do this. I'll talk about some strategies for dealing with that at the end.
I also want to acknowledge that there is productive procrastination. Have you ever cleaned your house because you didn't want to finish writing this one piece or whatever it is that you are working on? I know people who are like, “My house gets the cleanest when I'm on a deadline because I avoid things by cleaning.” It's like, okay, I don't want you to feel bad about yourself as you are avoiding this deadline, but you probably also did need to clean.
Maybe it's that you actually need a shift of gears for a moment, like you need a break because you need to process what you just wrote and kind of let your brain simmer on it, taking a productive procrastination break. I wouldn't even call it procrastination necessarily. But you might think of it that way. That could be a great thing to do.
There are good reasons to put things off, too, maybe you need to record a video for your YouTube channel, and tomorrow, you actually have a bigger block of time to batch multiple videos together. If you did it today, you would feel rushed and unpleasant about it. That's just prioritizing more than procrastination. But if you are using that as an excuse, and it's making you feel bad, maybe that does fall under the umbrella of procrastination.
Putting off something that isn't urgent or important is useful. You might be familiar with the Eisenhower matrix, which is basically four boxes, and on the top it says urgent and not urgent. And on the side it says important and not important. So the urgent and important things often would be your biggest priority, or should be. Then, you know, the things that are not urgent and not important are probably things you're going to put off for later. That's prioritizing, that's useful. I just want to differentiate between those two things.
So let's talk about the antidotes to procrastination. Number one is making yourself feel as safe as possible and taking the next step. You might want to remember when you accomplish something similar to tell yourself, “Oh yeah, I've done this before, I can definitely do it again.” Just remind yourself why you are actually capable of doing this thing. Tell yourself some reasons, based on your abilities, and your ability to figure things out in the past, even if it wasn't a similar task.
Anything you can do to self soothe and regulate your nervous system is going to fall under this category. Maybe it's just taking some deep breaths, maybe it is making your physical environment more comfortable. I have some other prompts for this in my Feel Good Creativity Unchallenge, which is a free 5-day thing that you can sign up for, that has creative prompts, as well as these wellness and mental sort of prompts. Those are great, especially if you have been having a hard time with fun creativity.
Number two is forgiveness and self compassion. When I find myself coming back to those procrastination behaviors, I like to remind myself that I'm familiar with this, my brain is familiar with procrastination, even if it's something that I have trained myself to do less. If it's familiar, sometimes you're gonna revert back to what's familiar, just because that's what your brain knows, and that's normal.
Also, it's normal to want to avoid something uncomfortable. But if that's happening, you can remind yourself, “I can do hard things. I've done hard things before.” You can use curiosity to notice how you're feeling, both mentally and physically. Maybe when you are finding yourself procrastinating, it's with the same sorts of tasks, the same sorts of things make you feel vulnerable like that. That's really valuable knowledge. Figure out what's causing the procrastination, because you might not know - it might be a more unconscious behavior. So looking at it with curiosity is a great way to meet it without judgment.
Procrastinators also tend to have high stress and low self-compassion, and self-compassion is great for your mental health. Reducing stress is great for your mental health. So, doing self-compassion practices, and talking to yourself in a nicer way in these moments has further reaching effects than just making you do the thing and get the task done.
Number three, give your brain a bigger reward than avoidance from actually doing the task. I mentioned before that our amygdala is trying to protect us in these moments, and it is rewarding for your brain to avoid the task because it seems like a threat. So if you can make a bigger reward out of finishing the thing, you can sort of trick your brain into actually doing it, perhaps. Maybe that reward is a fun thing that you get to do, or a fun snack or treat. It could just be really celebrating when you finish the task. Also, even if part of your brain is like, “[Eye-roll], why did it take me so long to do this simple thing?”, really celebrate when you finish, because even if it seems like an easy thing, you had trouble doing it, it was difficult for you mentally and you did it. So that's always worth celebrating.
Every time that you follow through on a task or a goal, or by engaging with creativity, whatever that goal is for you, you are building self trust, and you're reinforcing to yourself that, “Yes, I am a person who follows through on this,” and that always elevates how you think of yourself. Then next time, you have that self-concept of “I'm a person who does this.” As it's rooted more in your identity, it's going to be easier in the future.
Number four, you can add barriers to the distractions that you like to procrastinate with. I'm looking at social media here, or just generally scrolling on the internet in various ways. So you could use a social media blocking app. Self control is my favorite one for Mac, Freedom is good for all platforms. This way, you can just block yourself from being able to even access the websites that typically distract you. You can put your phone in a different room, whatever it is that you need to do, just make it a little bit harder for you to do the thing that makes you procrastinate.
Then you can also remove barriers from doing the task, like, if you keep procrastinating on setting up your art table, and that makes you not want to paint because you just don't want to set up the table, could you leave it set up so that it's always right there and ready? Then you won't use that as an excuse not to do it because you can just go and grab your things really easily.
Then, number 5: breaking things down into steps. This one is especially for when your procrastination is causing a lot of overwhelm, and you're working on a big project that contains many different tasks. Ask yourself, what's one step you can complete right now to break that spell of your paralysis? Perhaps your overthinking, analysis paralysis, whatever type it is.
If that feels like too much, and following through on that one step is still overwhelming, ask yourself in a hypothetical way, what's the next step I could do. Then you're defining it to yourself, even if that is a tiny step, like I need to open a Google Doc so I can start writing. Open the Google Doc, I need to open my laptop. Starting is the hardest part a lot of the time, and even that tiny step can break the spell.
Also, when things seem really hard, remember that you don't actually have to be in the mood in order to do something, I often want to wait to do something until I'm excited to do it. But if it's something that isn't that exciting to you, like, I often procrastinate on marketing tasks, because they feel less comfortable. I try to remind myself, I don't have to be in the mood to do this, I just have to do it. It's a gift to my future self and the success of a project that I'm going to follow through and do it.
So there are some tips to help you if you find yourself in a procrastination mode. I hope that some of this can help you heal yourself from that identity, if it's something that has made you feel bad about yourself in the past. Just know that even if it's something you struggle with, you can always have growth mindset, things can always change and improve, even if it doesn't seem like it right now. Those small increments of changing your behaviors can really go a long way.
As always, I'm rooting for you in all of your creative pursuits, and in all things, and I hope you have a great week. I'll see you next time.
Pianist and composer