Procrastination: It’s Not What You Think

Episode 1 of the Self-Made Mamas Podcast

Are you a procrastinator?

 

How many ideas have you come up with and never executed?

 

How many times have you let something that you were so excited about sit on the backburner in your business because you just couldn’t seem to take the first step?

 

How often do you leave tasks that you know you need to finish undone for way longer than necessary, just because you feel too overwhelmed to complete them?

 

If you’re feeling a little attacked right now, don’t worry! That’s exactly what we’re tackling today on Episode One of the Self-Made Mamas Podcast.

 

 

This is our first episode ever and I’m so excited. Today we are talking about procrastination. This is a really appropriate topic for Episode One because, to be frank with you, I procrastinated on starting this podcast for three years.

 

I think that this is something we need to talk about because if I’m doing it, and I am the business coach in the room right now, I know you guys are doing it. I know my clients are doing it. I know that we have a lot of stigma and misunderstanding around it. That’s what I want to dive into today. 

 

I think procrastination is kind of a dirty word. Even when we make light of it with all the memes, reels, and TikToks about it, it’s kind of self-deprecating. We’re associating it with negativity, and we have developed a bit of a stigma around it as a result. We associate procrastination with laziness and unproductivity, but in my coaching practice, I’ve never found that to be the case.

 

I am a hard procrastinator. In university, I wrote my entire honours thesis four days before it was due, and somehow I scraped a B+. Don’t ask me how, I still have no idea. This is kind of a pattern for me—I tend to procrastinate. As someone who teaches business, productivity, time management and all that, my own tendency to procrastinate has made me feel quite a bit of shame. I’m generally a productive and efficient person, but again, I’m someone who teaches business. In my mind, I feel like I should not be someone who procrastinates.

 

The more women I coach, clients I serve, and personal development work I do, the more I realized that procrastination is actually a symptom. It’s the symptom, not the sickness.

 

“I realized that procrastination is actually a symptom. It’s the symptom, not the sickness.”

 

What do I mean by that?

 

In my experience, procrastination usually comes down to one of two things: either fear or overwhelm. Let’s tackle overwhelm first because it’s easier.

 

Procrastination Due to Overwhelm

 

First, I want us to all please acknowledge that we are all parenting in the middle of a global pandemic. That shit is overwhelming, to begin with. Let alone trying to do your nine-to-five,  build your business, or both, in some cases. This is so much for us to be taking on. As women and mothers, we are generally the default parents. We’re carrying the majority of the mental load and the mental load is tripled right now.

 

Let’s cut ourselves a little bit of slack and just be aware that this may or may not be our new normal. But it’s not normal and it’s not natural. We are undergoing way more stress as a collective than we normally would be.

 

Second, I want to acknowledge that entrepreneurship and parenting can both be wholly overwhelming on their own. Doing them simultaneously is inevitably going to result in overload at some point. We can use all of the hacks. We can use all the systems and tools. Kids are human beings, though. Living, breathing, people that don’t always adhere to our systems or our plans, and that’s okay. Though it does mean that again, we have more of a mental load. We have more things that are potentially going to overwhelm us, and more curveballs that we have to deal with.

 

 

We’ve established that overwhelm is probably a factor here. Something to understand is that when you’re overwhelmed, you get paralyzed. Your brain is moving so fast that it can’t slow down to process information and prioritize it effectively. It’s almost like you’re in a heightened adrenal state and your fight-or-flight kicks in. Your brain is not processing information the same way as if you were in a calm, rested, fearless state. The result is that you end up doing nothing, or you end up doing the wrong things as a buffer or as a means of self-soothing.

 

Have you ever cleaned your entire house instead of completing a task that you were supposed to do? Let’s say you need to file your taxes. Instead, you decide you’re going to declutter all of your closets. This is something many people do. It’s because we’re self-soothing our “overwhelm” with tasks that make us feel like we’re in control, but we end up not accomplishing the task that we’re actually procrastinating on. The anxiety around what we’re procrastinating on grows and compounds the overwhelm. It’s a bit of a vicious cycle.

 

“When you’re overwhelmed, you get paralyzed. Your brain is moving so fast that it can’t slow down to process information and prioritize it effectively.”

 

If you are reading and thinking, “Oh my god, get out of my head,” or you’re feeling like I’m calling you out, then this is what you need to do.

 

The Solution

 

If you are in that state of overwhelm and it’s causing you to procrastinate, then you need to slow down to speed up. Whatever you’re procrastinating on, I want you to decide that you’re not doing it in the next 24 to 48 hours. I know it’s counterintuitive, but you need to decide it’s not happening in a given time window.

 

“You need to slow down to speed up.”

 

If that means you need to email a client and let them know that you’re pushing a deadline or ask for an extension or whatever it is, then do that, because you need to intentionally put the task aside. You’re regaining control of the situation.

 

Have you heard the analogy of juggling? When you’re juggling motherhood, working, and all that entails, you have rubber balls and glass balls. You have to know which ones are glass. Most tasks are rubber balls, and we have to intentionally set them down. There are very few things in our lives that are actually glass balls. Most of the things that we procrastinate on are not glass balls because we’re doing those automatically every day. Most of them are rubber or plastic or whatever analogy you want to use and you can put them down. People use the analogy of letting them fall, but when you’re feeling overwhelmed, it doesn’t serve you to keep letting things fall because that’s going to compound your anxiety.

 

Whatever it is that you’re procrastinating on, I want you to intentionally put it down. Then I want you to sit down, get a piece of paper and a pen and break out the task into small, manageable chunks. I’m talking small, like a first step that is so easy a toddler could do it. I want you to break the task down like that. Then I also want you to write down everything else that you have going on and kind of reprioritize your next few days on paper.

 

I want you to calm yourself down by gaining clarity. Often when everything is swirling around in our heads and we have this cloud of chaos and stress, we don’t know everything. We couldn’t at a glance tell ourselves what it is that we have to do, so get it all down on paper.

 

“Calm yourself down by gaining clarity.”

 

The reason that I like to do this with paper and a pen instead of on my phone is there is an actual process that happens in your brain when you write something down. You have to generate the thought and then your brain has to send it to your hand to write it down on the paper. The process of doing that causes you to process the information differently. 

 

You may be aware of different studying methods, and a lot of people study this way and write things out, myself included. Some people need to hear something to absorb it. However, everyone’s brain is triggered by writing things out. Even if that’s not the way that you typically absorb information the best, it does force you to process it.

 

Writing down everything that you have going on and writing down all of the steps inside this task that you’re procrastinating on will force your brain to slow down and process it properly so you can get it done efficiently. Then, when you sit down to tackle the task, you’ve already broken it down and you can start with the first chunk. You know exactly what you have to do and you can build momentum from there. Even if the first time you sit down to do it, you only get that first tiny step done, you will feel a sense of accomplishment from that. It will create a dopamine feedback loop in your brain and you will feel motivated to continue with the next step and the next step, and so on. That is how we tackle overwhelm when overwhelm is causing our procrastination.

 

Procrastination Due to Fear

 

If overwhelm isn’t your issue, then we need to talk about fear. Fear is the other, even more common, reason that people procrastinate. I can tell you when it came to starting this podcast if I really looked hard and close at the reasons that I procrastinated starting this for so many years, fear is the thing that comes up. Fear is the root cause of it all.

 

I want to talk about the idea that when you take action, you create outcomes. Anytime you take action in your business, you’re going to have one of three outcomes.

 

“When you take action, you create outcomes. Anytime you take action in your business, you’re going to have one of three outcomes.”

 

You are going to fail.

 

You’re going to do it and it’s going to be meh, mediocre, neutral, neither good nor bad will come from it. It will maybe feel like a waste of time.

 

Or you’re going to succeed.

 

 

The thing that we fail to realize when we are procrastinating on something, is that all three of those outcomes are differently scary.

 

Failing is the obvious one because when we think about failing, obviously that feels scary. Nobody wants to fall on their face or screw up. Nobody wants to take a leap and not make it to the other side, that’s not a good feeling. Failing forward is an important part of developing as an entrepreneur and growing your business, but failing is always scary. The risk of totally screwing up and completely flopping is always scary. That’s one kind of fear, that you’re not going to be good enough.

 

The next one is that what you do is going to be mediocre. This is a bit of a unique fear but if you are a high-achieving personality. I’m an Enneagram three, a high-achiever, a type A. I like to win. I’m very competitive, and not even necessarily with other people, but I hold myself to a ridiculous standard that I’m constantly self-coaching around. I’m constantly working on that and making sure that I’m setting realistic expectations for myself. I’m not being so hard on myself and forgiving myself for not being excellent all the time. That is the kind of inherent expectation that I have.

 

For me and many of you with high-achieving personalities, it’s the fear of doing something and having an average outcome or not getting the response that you wanted. Actually getting the task done but it doesn’t land the way you want it to or doesn’t create the result that you want, the peripheral result, that is a fear, right?

 

Some people are really chill and can put something out there and say, “I’ll just see what happens.” If you have a more high-strung or high-achieving personality, this is really hard because you feel personally attached to the result you want that action to create. The fear of not getting that result, even if you execute perfectly, is a big one.

 

The last way fear shows up when we are talking about procrastination is actually fear of success.

 

If you’re someone that consumes a lot of motivational or personal development content, you’ll hear that fear of success is a thing. We don’t often deep dive into it because it’s unique to each person. For that reason, I will share with you the reason that I was afraid to start this podcast.

 

My Own Fear of Success

 

I had a fear of visibility, and it’s something that I came into my business with. In my case, it’s very grounded in an immediate family member that is very toxic and not present in my life at this stage. When I first started my business, this person was more present and creating a lot of emotional harm for me, so I hid in my business. Starting out on my own, self-employed, I used my own name for my business. I did that for about a month, then I chickened out and created a business name.

 

Ultimately, if I could do it over again, I would still choose a business name but for very different reasons. At the time it was entirely fear-based. I didn’t want to be searchable and easy to find because this person was already leaving comments on my social media and things like that. I wanted to put a bit of a boundary between me, the person, and my business so I could grow it quietly and not attract negative attention from this person. I didn’t pay attention to the fact that this fear carried on with me, even as this person’s presence in my life gradually disappeared.

 

I carried this fear of visibility with me even as my business and confidence as an entrepreneur grew. I realized a few months ago, as I was listening to an episode of a friend’s podcast which launched last year, that I’d been telling myself for a year that I was going to start it. I was going to start recording a podcast and I was going to launch it, and I just didn’t. Instead, I kept putting it off and putting it off. Back then I had the time and I have even less now. I have an extra child now. It’s totally illogical for me to have waited, but I kept putting it off because I was afraid of being more visible. I was afraid of growing my brand publicly.

 

 

I feel very safe marketing myself on my Instagram because I can block anybody that I want. I feel very safe marketing myself in my Facebook group because I control who’s in there. The same can be said for my email list. To create something so public-facing, that anyone can listen to, a little piece of me that I’m putting out into the world that is inevitably going to grow my business… that actually scared me and I never acknowledged that fear.

 

I was really afraid of getting so visible that I would once again attract negative attention from this toxic person. I was afraid of getting so visible that I would attract negative attention from random people as well, which is a very illogical fear. I’m a 30-year-old woman. I’ve been through the wringer. I don’t care if people like me or not. That juvenile inner voice was dictating this decision for me. 

 

It was a fear I hadn’t acknowledged, and so it was hanging out under the surface, causing me to put this off. I never dug into it, I never peeled back the layers and said, “Okay, why am I procrastinating on this? I can typically make shit happen. Why have I put this podcast off for three years?” Had I sat with that, really dug deep to understand what was causing me to delay action and to sit in inaction, I would have realized that it was fear. Then I could have addressed it.

 

The Solution

 

If you find that fear is what’s driving your procrastination—whether that’s fear of failure, fear of success or fear of something totally unremarkable—here’s how we are going to address that. My favourite exercise to walk my clients through when we are dealing with a fear-based block is following the fear to completion. You have to play out the narrative of your fear in your mind.

 

Some people like to write it out, I typically just do it. I sit quietly and do it in my head. If you’re more of a visual, tactical person, you might want to write it out or speak it aloud, but you can just do this inside your head. You’re going to think about the action that you’re afraid to take. We’ll use the podcast example again. I’m putting off creating my podcast.

 

What am I afraid of? The first thing you of is step one. 

 

I’m afraid that my podcast will make me visible. “And then what?”

 

“And then what?” is the key question here, right? We’re going to ask “and then what?” over and over and over again until we get to the root of the fear. 

 

I asked myself “and then what?” over and over and over again. Eventually what I got to is that I might grow my business and brand visibility so much that I not only attract negative attention from this toxic family member, but I also attract negative attention from random people who will be hateful and hurtful and push buttons that I may not necessarily have healed.

 

Now I’ve worked all the way through it and I’ve gotten to the root of the fear I hadn’t fully acknowledged before. Yeah, that may happen. People may leave hateful comments. People may not like my content. I may attract negative attention from my toxic family member. That’s not actually going to do any harm, though. It’s not going to create any sort of tangible negative result for me.

 

It is what it is and I can’t control other people. I can only control myself. Why would I hold back from doing this thing that I want to do so badly and that my audience is repeatedly asking me for just because I’m afraid of what someone else might do? Which they might do anyway, and I can’t control.

 

You will find when you follow your fear to completion, that the outcome isn’t that scary once you get to it. Or it’s not that likely. Or the third alternative is that it’s actually already happened, and you’ve already gone through it. In which case, it’s not that scary. There’s no reason to sit in inaction and there’s every reason to take action and do the thing that you’re procrastinating on. Because the fear is unfounded. That’s what I want to leave you with today.

 

“There’s no reason to sit in inaction and there’s every reason to take action and do the thing that you’re procrastinating on.”

 

Action Items

 

A. Identify what is driving your procrastination: overwhelm or fear?

 

B. Team Overwhelm: 

1. 1. Make a conscious effort to set aside the task you’re procrastinating on for 24-48 hours.
   2. Manually writing with pen and paper, break the task into the smallest, most manageable steps possible required to complete it.
   3. Write out everything else going on in your life and reprioritize your next few days.
   4. Start with the first step. Then the second. Build momentum.

C. Team Fear:

1. 1. Determine whether your fear is driven by fear of failure, fear of mediocrity, or fear of success.
   2. Follow the fear to completion. Either in your head, aloud, or in writing, bring to focus the task you’re procrastinating due to fear. Ask yourself what you’re afraid of. As you bring to focus a fear, ask yourself, “and then what?” As you bring forward a new layer, ask yourself again, “and then what?” Ask this as many times as it takes to uncover the root of the fear.
   3. When the root is exposed, it’s either not as scary as it seemed, not as likely to happen, or has already occurred and you survived. The fear is unfounded.

 

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Self-Made Mamas Podcast. You can find more information about working with us at theselfmademama.com or connect with us on Instagram at @selfmademama_. I can’t wait to chat.