How long is your \u2018To Do\u2019 list?\u00a0 More importantly, how long do the items on your \u2018To Do\u2019 list remain incomplete?\u00a0 That\u2019s a pretty tough question to answer honestly.\u00a0 Our lists are only as useful as our ability to use them as an effective tool.\u00a0 When we continue to add items to our list, rewrite them, categorize and recategorize them, but never accomplish our goals, it\u2019s a problem.\u00a0 As our list grows, stress and pressure tend to show up and take over; often unannounced and uninvited.\u00a0 And that\u2019s never a good thing.\u00a0 As the tension mounts, we can become master procrastinators who have a very large chest of creative time wasters to avoid facing the stress.<\/p>\n
If we dissect the actual word procrastinate, \u2018pro\u2019 means forward, and \u2018crastinate\u2019 means tomorrow.\u00a0 It literally means favoring tomorrow as a better time for doing something.\u00a0 When procrastinating getting to important responsibilities and tasks, we often fill our time with doing busy work.\u00a0 An endless array of seemingly \u2018urgent\u2019 things need to \u2018get done\u2019 before we get to the work at hand.\u00a0 Have you ever justified that something must be urgently done before beginning your \u2018real\u2019 work?\u00a0 Things like cleaning a filing cabinet, desk drawers, running an important errand, going through email, or if you work from home, the endless call of housework can all produce the illusion of productivity.\u00a0 We are deluded into thinking we are getting so much done because we are busy.\u00a0 We try to convince ourselves that mindless activities and being busy equate to being industrious.\u00a0 But, who are we kidding?\u00a0 We can be very busy checking social media, but it is by no means productive.\u00a0 So what keeps us \u2018busy\u2019 and procrastinating, instead of being truly productive?\u00a0 There are some very strong underlying issues behind putting things off, and it\u2019s important to identify and understand them in order to move beyond them.\u00a0 In working with women who face procrastination issues, I\u2019ve identified four recurring themes:\u00a0 fear, indecision, boundary issues and feeling overwhelmed.\u00a0 Let\u2019s explore.<\/p>\n
Fear is the most aggressive promoter of procrastination.\u00a0 When a sizeable or high-profile project, presentation or campaign lies ahead, it can be daunting.\u00a0 Fear creeps in our heads in the form of \u2018what if\u2019s\u2019.\u00a0 What if I don\u2019t know how to do a certain part of the project and get stuck?\u00a0 Some women fear that asking for help may be a sign of weakness, and poorly reflect on her leadership skills.\u00a0 Fear also rears its ugly head when we can\u2019t completely envision the finished product.\u00a0 When the end game is out of focus, sometimes we fear we will miss something important, or make a lot of mistakes getting to the finish line.\u00a0 The ultimate \u2018what if\u2019 fear is, \u2018what if the job I do isn\u2019t good enough?\u2019\u00a0 This is a fear of being \u2018found out\u2019 that we are really a fraud, or not quite the talented individual others believed us to be.<\/p>\n
Together, these fears grip our psyche and can crush our spirit.\u00a0 If we allow fear to overtake our thinking, the daunting feeling can paralyze us into oppressive procrastination.\u00a0 The only thing that seems to shake people into action is a looming deadline or a worse fear of being perceived as incompetent.\u00a0 However, these are negative motivators, and while they may force action, they also cause enormous stress.\u00a0 Over time, that type of repetitive cycle can be harmful to our health, careers, and mental well-being.<\/p>\n
Indecision often goes hand in hand with fear as an underlying reason for procrastination.\u00a0 Every facet of our lives requires so many decisions, often on a daily basis, like \u2018what am I going to make for dinner?\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 Financial choices; spouse, family and children issues; health care; how we will spend our free time; and of course work and career decisions continually present themselves.\u00a0 If the decision has potential life-changing implications, it can be a complex process to think through.\u00a0 For example, if deciding between a career change, going back to school, or starting your own business; the decision factors and possible outcomes are almost innumerable. You could almost \u2018what if\u2019 yourself to death under the weight of the decision.\u00a0 The ultimate \u2018what if\u2019 many people fear is \u2018what if I make the wrong choice, and the outcome is less than perfect.\u00a0 Then what?\u2019\u00a0 Some people think the wrong choice is almost worse than not making any change at all.\u00a0 When the pain of our current only slightly uncomfortable, we can become complacent and rather than taking a risk, we remain indecisive.\u00a0 The problem with indecision is that it can be a perpetual or very long term form of procrastination, and typically results in a fairly mediocre existence.\u00a0 When you are inactive or stuck in an indecisive mode, you remain stagnant due to a lack of opportunities to grow.<\/p>\n
Boundary issues can also really compound procrastination.\u00a0 When we allow others to impose tasks upon us, or we feel obligated to help (when it\u2019s not our job, or because we are a people pleaser), or we have trouble saying \u2018no\u2019; our to-do list can grow much bigger than our capacity. \u00a0Taking on others\u2019 work is different from pushing ourselves to accomplish our own goals in that an outside force is now creating additional pressure.\u00a0 Our own pressure, we can control to some degree.\u00a0 However; when we take on the responsibility of others because of our own doormat-like behavior, the stress of it decreases both our capacity and our self-dignity.\u00a0 Instead of holding our own, and owning our outcomes, not maintaining boundaries makes us beholding to others.\u00a0 Being beholding is different than reporting to or answering to your manager, which is a relationship of give and take.\u00a0 No, in a boundary-less situation where we are beholding to another, we give and give, but receive no benefit in return.\u00a0 On the contrary, we receive only negatives; no affirmation, no formalized recognition, a decreased sense of self-worth, and less time for the things we need to accomplish.\u00a0 This cycle lends itself perfectly to procrastinating doing the things on our own to do list or desk.<\/p>\n
Lastly, the problem of feeling overwhelmed triggers one of two responses.\u00a0 People either leap into action when their plate is full or feel paralyzed because they don\u2019t know where to begin.\u00a0 You\u2019ve probably sat on each side of this table at one point or another.\u00a0 People with organization or motivation issues frequently struggle with feelings of being overwhelmed.\u00a0 The messages in their mind say \u201cI don\u2019t know where to begin,\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m so far behind, I\u2019ll never catch up. Why bother?\u201d\u00a0 This type of procrastination is one of the most difficult to overcome because it breeds anxiety.\u00a0 The cycle can then become vicious; feeling overwhelmed \u2013 anxiety \u2013 depression \u2013 inaction and procrastination.<\/p>\n
And to bring it full circle, when we procrastinate, we engage in time wasting activities that make us feel productive or busy, but which ultimately do not help us achieve our goals.\u00a0 Granted many procrastination activities are not bad in and of themselves; it\u2019s just that when they consistently take over as a top priority, it becomes a time waster and a problem.<\/p>\n
In this issue of the newsletter, Kay\u2019s Corner offers some actionable steps to assist in combating procrastination. \u00a0I have worked with many women on this issue.\u00a0 If you feel you need to dig deeper on this issue, I\u2019d be happy to work through it with you as well.\u00a0 Please give me a call at 513-561-4288<\/a>\u00a0 or connect with me via email at Kay@highheeledsuccess.com<\/a> so we can make a plan to move from procrastination to productivity together!<\/p>\n \u00a9Copyright 2016.\u00a0 Kay Fittes.\u00a0 All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How long is your \u2018To Do\u2019 list?\u00a0 More importantly, how long do the items on your \u2018To Do\u2019 list remain incomplete?\u00a0 That\u2019s a pretty tough question to answer honestly.\u00a0 Our lists are only as useful as our ability to use them as an effective tool.\u00a0 When we continue to add items to our list, rewrite<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,26,4,17],"tags":[41,36,50,49,6,38],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Qkhe-66","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":460,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}