It’s awesome when we have times when we’re in a state of ‘flow’ – where things feel very easy - and we seem to just breeze through life and work. We can achieve remarkable things.
But, at other times, that flow comes to a grinding halt, and we can get stuck. Our inner chatter can take over and it can be fabulously powerful at keeping us trapped.
I’ve recently struggled with this – and didn’t realise until after the event - how a lack of flow showed up, mainly as procrastination and perfectionism.
Image: Brett Jordan, unsplash
Procrastination isn’t just about putting things off
Putting things off, postponing them, delaying or ‘deprioritising’ something… all ways to describe this phenomenon.
This is how it can show up.
Rather than beginning to write a report, I cleaned my office, cleared my desk, sorted out old photos, did a couple of exercise classes and sold some books. I’d done all the research interviews, sorted the structure and had all the quotes laid out. But I still didn’t get on with pulling it all together.
I set myself five different deadlines – and didn’t meet them. I had an accountability partner and time booked with a designer – still didn’t get it done.
Once I started writing I then kept stalling – looking for more research and repeatedly editing. Perfectionism was also starting to creep in. Frustration with myself escalated as did the anxiety of not making progress.
I decided to draw on my coaching experience to try to understand what was going on. It wasn’t just about putting things off – there was more to it.
Over a three-week period, I spent more time than usual listening to the inner chatter in my head. There were four very obvious things:
I hadn’t confirmed in my head where this piece of work was fitting into my business strategy – once I had that nailed, things felt a bit easier
I’ve never developed and shared research for my own business although I’ve done it loads of times for clients. I was nervous about what people would think of my approach
I might fail - but as I’d never done anything like this before, I’d had no idea what failure might look like
It felt like a big piece of work to do – and so felt really daunting
So, rather than get started, my brain was keeping me safe and comfortable. And stuck.
Procrastination and perfectionism were becoming my undoing.
It started to affect everything – including my wellbeing
That frustration started to seep into all sorts of things. As I wasn’t getting this report finished, it was the thing I thought of every morning when I woke up (and a couple of times I had a rough night’s sleep thinking about it).
As much as I consciously carved out writing time in my diary, I kept ignoring the reminders. So, I had to take action at a different level to shift my mindset – here’s what I did.
I revisited the purpose – the why – of my doing this research and sharing it. It wasn’t about me. It was about sharing ideas to improve things for organisations and the people in them.
I cleared the decks. I’d already cleaned my desk so next, I cleared the desktop on my Mac and only had the research materials open. At one point, I switched off broadband and left my phone switched off and out of my office.
Nothing will ever be perfect. So, I set myself three editing and proof-reading slots. And did them in the time I allocated.
I chunked it down – I’d already done work on breaking up the tasks to make things more manageable. I revisited my plan and reassured myself it wasn’t as daunting as I thought.
I set myself a realistic deadline that I knew I could achieve. And met it.
The result?
In three hours, I finished the report. I proof-read it, shared it with someone else for a sanity check and sent it to the designer. I can’t tell you how relieved I felt when I pressed send.
One hugely important learning from all this. I haven’t beaten myself up about what I have and haven’t done. I’ve recognised self-sabotage in some of its most familiar guises and I’m taking that as a massive win.
Giving myself a hard time would negate that learning and I’ll need to build on it for the next batch of ‘getting out of my comfort zone’ that I’ll need to do.
Bring it on.
If procrastination or self-sabotage are gremlins you struggle with, they affect your wellbeing and you’d like to address them, then get in touch, I’d love to hear more or help.
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