Procrastinator’s Power-UP!

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• Turn breakdowns into momentum

Experience the value of Professional Group Coaching!
Tuesdays 5:30-6:30 • Ongoing group, limit 8
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heather(at)heatherflanagan.com

360-379-0322

Also, see this posting at PTguide – City Guide to Port Townsend, Washington

What does Being your Word mean? It means doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it. Does it mean doing what you say you will do with your co-workers or employees. And then breaking promises left and right with your family? NO! Does it mean keeping your agreements with your family and colleagues and then failing to do those things you secretly tell yourself you ought to do? NO! It means doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it. All we have is our word.

In the book the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz the first agreement is, “Be impeccable with your word. Say only what you mean. Avoid using your word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”  Ruiz goes on to explain that your word is your power to create.

Indeed, an agreement is a structure for fulfillment. Take the building (I assume) in which you find yourself, for example. Before it could come into being, someone had to draw up the plans. They had to make the plans clear enough for the builder and workers to be able to follow it. What would happen if every other week the plans changed. OK, the foundation has been laid but now we want this room to be half this size. Then next week the plan is changed again and the room has been eliminated from the plans altogether. That would be a very messed up building! Very expensive to complete as well.

The same sort of thing happened for me when I said I wanted more clients. A few years back I would visit my local Chamber of Commerce periodically. I wanted to grow a successful business. But I was changing my niche every month or two. One month it would be entrepreneurs. One month it would be relationships, the next month I was an ADHD coach…. Indeed (laugh).  I never kept one agreement with myself about who I was long enough to let it succeed! And I confused the heck out of my prospects.

Now, I’ve gotten pretty consistent. I have *committed* to focusing on helping people transform procrastination into productivity. It is on all my marketing materials and I now repeat it at my Chamber of Commerce and to whomever will listen as much as I can get away with. And my business is growing! People know how to talk to others about me and what I do. Not only “being my word” but holding a consistent commitment to it, has made all the difference. How might your life be better if you were more impeccable with your word? Share in the comments section below.

Unlike therapy, life coaching is not focused on reprocessing past experiences or discovering why you have the challenges you do. Life coaching looks at the present moment, as Eckhart Tolle would say, “The Now”. And where you want to go. Coaching is about achieving tangible/measurable results. We’re less likely to focus on the why but more on the what, when, and how?

Life coaching is about helping *you* to take greater responsibility for the results you get in your life. One of my mentors was fond of pointing out, “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.” It’s not so much about figuring out the right thing to do, it’s about changing habits, experimenting with your choices, and seeing what gets the best results. It is a powerful thing recognizing that you have an expanded amount of choices in your life. We do and say so many things on autopilot. But by getting a little more conscious and embracing your free will, you can make amazing positive changes.

It all starts by being open to possibilities. By being open to the possibility that  how things have been can be otherwise. Being open to the possibility that you have what it takes to change your world.

One of the greatest sources of anxiety for us procrastinators comes from beating ourselves up about all the stuff we feel we are procrastinating on. The problem is that we can only do one thing at a time. Consequently, when we are paying the bills, for instance, we are *not* making our phone calls, doing the shopping, working on our writing projects, finding a plumber, scheduling an appointment with our daughter’s teacher, taking steps on our true and deepest dreams, etc. And we have a tendency to beat ourselves up about slacking on all these things even as we are actually working on something productive.

Anxiety can become overwhelming and debilitating. Here is the way out. Let’s try putting our emPHAsis on what we *are* doing! I *am* writing in my blog. Sure, it should be pretty easy for me to feel good about doing this. But do you know, even as I write, I am thinking about the business cards in my purse from the Chamber of Commerce mixer last night that I have done anything about? But it does no good to beat myself up that I am not doing that right now. Even if all I can say is, “I am resting,” it still does no good for me to feel bad. The only sane choice is to either go do that other thing or feel OK about the thing I am doing.

If I treat myself like a disciplinarian, I will resist my own discipline. Call it internalized oppositional defiance.

Now, I could say, “I am resting and I choose to feel good about it”.  Or, “I am writing in my blog which is one of my most important goals.” Or even, “I am feeling anxious about all the things I am not doing and I am doing anxiety with the greatest skill.” Why not? We are always doing something. And there will always be a bunch of other really important things we are not doing.

Whatever you are doing right now consider it an accomplishment. Oh, you just read my blog post! Well, that *is* an accomplishment!

Just yesterday at my Chamber of Commerce meeting, I wanted to make a quirky but bold announcement about a discount promotion for Chamber members. While I feel comfortable about telling them about my 3rd Thursday Free Seminars, I felt very uncomfortable speaking up about my special offer. I could tell that I might decide not to say anything about it ”on the fly” as it where.

So you know what I did? I told a woman about my announcement while in the lunch line. Now I was truly committed. And, yes. My palms got sweaty as my blood ran cold. I was fully terrified! I have learned to love that feeling. I have learned that it means I am really moving forward.

And this is how you thumb screw yourself. (Well that came out wrong, but you know what I mean.)

My procrastinators tips for you today, then, is to *know* that you will be disappointed frequently and that there may be incredible delays in achieving your goals. Many of them will be through no “fault” of your own.

It’s all part of having goals. It is natural and normal to come to obstacles. Do you know what it means when you hit and obstacle?

No. It doesn’t mean it’s time to stop “going for it”.

It means, and listen carefully here, that you hit an obstacle on the way to your goal. That’s all! Take a closer look. <Extreme zoom to microscopic scale.> You are on the way to your goal! You must have been moving to hit that obstacle, yes? Good!

So when you find obstacles in your way take comfort in knowing, A. they are normal, B. they don’t necessarily mean to stop (you do want to find the information in them), and C. they mean you were moving toward your goals! You just caught yourself *not* procrastinating! Congratulations!

What next? Sulk for a reasonable amount of time. Perhaps set a timer for 20 minutes (the average amount of time it takes for an upset to leave the system). Or better yet, feel bad and *still* do what needs to be done. Then you get the gold star!

Today, I get a gold star!

When we are our word, we build trust. This doesn’t mean that we make more agreements. More likely, to be our word, we will make fewer agreements and clearer ones. In fact, when we say “yes” to everything, the chances that we later betray our word are great. This leads others to conclude that we are not trustworthy. Worse, we stop trusting ourselves.

In my life, I have learned to stop myself for a second any time I make an agreement. I think for a second and ask myself, “Do I really *want* to do this?” If not, I am unlikely to follow through. If so, there is a greater likelihood. Then I check myself, “How likely am I to do this with no further reminders?” I have learned that the excitement of the moment often wears off by the time I get around to doing something. Doing other things first can be much more appealing and that thing I agreed to with great enthusiasm can be put on the back burner indefinitely. Then there are consequences, such as my feeling sheepish when I run into the person with whom I made the agreement. I may even treat them as though they are incredibly disappointed in my lack of follow through. Breaking agreements can be subtly damaging to friendships.

Finally, when agreeing to do something, I plan in that moment how I will ensure I follow through. That usually means writing it down so I don’t forget. It may also mean asking for help. This help can be asking the person with whom I made the agreement to email me if they haven’t heard back within a certain time window. If I don’t have paper, I may leave myself a voice mail. I like to say some encouraging things to myself when I leave a voice mail, too, “Hey, you hot thing! Way to keep your agreements. You are really being your word!”

Procrastination is a behavior which is characterized by deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. [Why do today what we can put off until tomorrow?] Psychologists often cite procrastination as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. [Sometimes it is more of a matter of waiting for there to be enough anxiety to motivate us to action.] Psychology researchers also have three criteria they use to categorize procrastination. For a behavior to be classified as procrastination, it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying. [I think this lets a lot of us off the hook! I procrastinate by doing productive things like sitting around feeling sorry for myself. It *produces* a sense of failure.]

For an individual, procrastination may result in stress, a sense of guilt, the loss of personal productivity, the creation of crisis and disapproval from others for not fulfilling one’s responsibilities or commitments. [Did they put a camera in my house?] These combined feelings can promote further procrastination. While it is normal for people to procrastinate to some degree, it becomes a problem when it impedes normal functioning. [What's that word again? Nnnnor-mmmmaaaal? What is that?!] Chronic procrastination may be a sign of an underlying psychological or physiological disorder. [Mine is not underlying. My disorders are quite obvious!]

Well, anyway… I feel like I have a whole new handle on what procrastination is. However, I am left with the question: How does *defining* it help one *overcome* it? What stands out in this article to me is the role of anxiety. I do experience anxiety before starting a project. There is a sort of overwhelm that sets in. There are too many steps. My sparkly brain is just too good at imagining all those steps at one time and falling into exhaustion. I feel like I have to take some time to gather strength before I start the project.

This pause to gather strength looks like my waiting to be in the “right mood” to do something. This mood sometimes never comes. One way I have discovered to trick myself into starting a project is to set a timer and promise myself that I will only work fifteen minutes on my taxes, say. How can I have an anxiety attack about working for fifteen minutes? Often times, I choose to work longer just to get back at myself for trying to trick me. Whatever works!

Notice, then, what I haven’t done. I haven’t guilted myself into doing my taxes. I haven’t beat myself up or waited for the last minute. The bulk of the anxiety happens just prior to starting. Once the starting wall has been reduced to a threshold, I can usually connect with my flow and actually have fun! I love doing my taxes. I just hate starting them.

Please enjoy using my timer technique for your next project. Just fifteen minutes is all you need to commit to.