Photo by Andrew Leu on Unsplash
I know what I have to do. I want to do it (at least I think I do…), but I just can’t get myself to do it.
There tends to be a lot of shame and guilt behind procrastination for me and its intensity seems to vary depending on what it is that I’m avoiding. For example, when it’s other people’s deadlines, I’m almost guaranteed to do things at the last minute. It’s because I struggle to actually care about other people’s deadlines, especially when I don’t have an emotional connection to the reason why they think it’s so important.
Does this leave me with a bit of anxiety? Yes, it does.
Have I missed a few deadlines because I’ve messed up how long I thought it would take? Yes, I have.
But for things like organising my kid or getting his appointments set up, I’ll guilt myself over a little bit more than someone else’s deadline. Eventually, I’ll make a list of all the calls I need to make and do them all at once, often in the morning when my meds kick in, while I’m hanging up laundry or tidying the kitchen. The guilt of being a ‘bad mum’ will ultimately lead me to the point of getting something done because of what I’ve made that mean about me if I don’t do it and how strongly I feel about it.
Sometimes I procrastinate because I think the task will take a long time. This is tough because I don’t really know how long anything will take, which is a key point of information I seem to forget every time I’m in this situation.
The general rule is: boring + tedious = a long time to complete.
I don’t know how long ‘a long time’ is. When I think of a long time, a number doesn’t pop up in my head. But its impact is just as serious though, often leaving me not doing very much. I struggle to resist procrastinating in these situations, mostly due to lack of interest or clarity in where to start. If I know where to start and I care enough, then I’ll get started. If it matters to me or the deadline is looming, I might get started. I might even get myself to look at the task again because each time I look at it, I tend to see something I missed. If I can find that missing piece, the whole puzzle opens up and I know I’ll jump in.
I know what to do for most of the things I can procrastinate on. I know what needs to happen in order to get them done. Better still, I’m a lot clearer on why I’m not doing the task in the first place now. Nothing’s set in stone and sometimes I’ll still guilt or shame myself over procrastinating on things I have to do, but ADHD is consistently inconsistent. I can’t be surprised when some of my go-to strategies don’t work. Still, understanding my ADHD has made a difference when it comes to getting most things done.
Until it comes to my fear of failure or success.
I’ll avoid releasing projects or things I’ve written months ago because of what I’m afraid will result in being ridiculed, dismissed or rejected by others. Without a doubt, it’s the things that I’ve created, where I’ve put my heart and soul into that I’ll procrastinate on the most. I’ve made these pieces equate to the amount of self-worth I have. If I fail then I’m not worthy. If I’m a success, then it’s about worrying how I’ll keep being a success, because any day they might see that I’m not worthy of it. They’ll see that I was never supposed to be successful in the first place.
Then they’ll call me out on their way out the door.
This kind of procrastination is so emotional for me. Its goal is to protect me from one of the things I fear most and it will do whatever it takes to make me reconsider, change my mind or even scare me into just giving up. It will tell me that I’m just confused, I don’t know quite enough yet, I don’t have the time or the right information. It will try to tell me in kindest ways possible that I should hold off at first. They seem so reasonable that I actually believe them…
“Yes, I really don’t have the time to do that thing”
“Yes, I really should do that one thing first (that is only loosely connected to the project but not really), before I start that big thing…”
“Yes, I’m still so confused about what I want and how I want to do that thing, that I should wait and see what happens…”
Or else things just get right nasty too, where I just feel like there is no point to any of it because I’ll never accomplish my goals. This is the most debilitating way I procrastinate because it’s not the waiting that hurts. It’s knowing what I’ve created or could do that I’ve kept hidden. It's telling myself all that I’m not capable of or shouldn’t risk doing because I can’t or shouldn’t do something. I know the ideas, projects and visions that might never see the light of day because I’m afraid of how they will do.
Actually, I’m afraid of what I’ll have to prove once I complete them.
Sometimes I have to put new ideas aside, test the waters with smaller similar projects, dance around the completion of the task by doing other little things that somewhat work toward it.
But occasionally my ADHD impulsivity gets the better of me and I just launch it, messy and all. Never quite done the way that imagined, and often riddled in mistakes. At this point, I’ve decided that it’s not worth caring about what people think. In reality, it’s my sneaky way of getting something done and reframing any mistakes like this project wasn’t a big deal and I just threw it out there.
This action is connected to how I’ve learned to think about myself; not quite capable of putting anything of real value together, so it really doesn’t matter what I do. And the project or idea? Not really important enough because it’s been done better by other people anyway, so I might as well give up before I get started.
Procrastination is complex. There are no doubt skills we’re missing to get things done. There are feelings we’re trying to avoid because our ADHD doesn’t emotionally regulate the way we’ve been told we needed to. But I think what’s worse to navigate are the stories we’ve been taught about ourselves. These stories are the ones that we’ve been conditioned to believe, they are the ones that add the pressure on top of the expectations society has on us to be a specific kind of productivity.
These are the stories that feed our procrastination and keep us stuck, because of what we’ve learned to make them mean about ourselves. About who we are and the worth that we have. When we learn that our worth is contingent on whether or not we can produce the thing, within the specific time frame and make it perfect at the same time, the gamble is much too high. Will I keep what little self-worth I have or should I risk it all to share this new project?
When I confront the fear and do it anyway, in a way that honours more of my authentic self, then at least I’m reminded that my self worth isn’t up for grabs.
Then I can get myself to do pretty much anything else… eventually.
High Stakes Procrastination