Procrastinating or Expecting Too Much?

It feels as though I am procrastinating. Am I? Or do I just expect too much of myself?

This has been an ongoing issue for much of my adult life. It has been particularly problematic in my desire to establish a stable career and make real monies along the way.

There are a number of different reasons behind this, of course. Some are external, some internal.

Procrastinating I spent my twenties and almost half of my thirties trying to decide what I actually desired to do with my life. Use my college degree and work in theatre? Get a job in radio? Get a teaching certificate and teach? Go back to school for another degree and do something else?

This would keep me bouncing from job to job, in part out of fears of both failure and success, in part because I was unwilling to uproot from my base and go possibly to the middle-of-nowhere for a career. I found myself procrastinating about taking certain actions that might move my life forward.

Then I realized that I am a writer. I had Seeker professionally edited. I finished Finder. Then I started to work on writing even more, tried to find an agent and a publisher.

Eventually journaling gave way to blogging, and in time it was a regular, weekly habit. Then a thrice-weekly habit. Writing is happening, rather frequently!

Yes, the blogs…but how far behind have I gotten on my fiction works? Both writing and editing should be happening daily. Or my new non-fiction work? Haven’t done any editing on that in a few weeks. Oh, and September is nearly over. Where’s my podcast?

Is the apparent lack of progress I see due to procrastinating, or expecting too much of myself? If the latter, why do I feel this way?

Procrastinating can become a habit

A good friend and I were just discussing this the other day. The question of whether we are procrastinating, or if we feel we are because our expectations of ourselves are so high, when we do not accomplish much, we question everything.

While part of my issues may be due to procrastinating, I recognize that it is far more realistic that the problems are from my expectations of myself. To some degree, this is entirely on me. I believe that I can do this, that or the other thing…and if I don’t, I get flustered.

At the same time, there are beliefs I have about what is expected of me. We live in a fear-based society too tightly focused on lack and scarcity. There are numerous expectations for us to contribute, and get shit done. When I feel that I am failing at this, I become concerned that I will be judged. Sometimes the comments from friends and loved-ones offering helpful suggestions helps feed this.

However, a great deal of this is really about just how much I expect of myself. I am very good about the deadlines I have imposed with regards to blogging, and this is now habitual.

My work on changing other habits has not met the same levels of success. For example, still haven’t been meditating or exercising daily. I still allow myself to spend a lot of time watching TV, goofing off online, and finding other distractions when I should be working.

Or am I? When should I be breaking from working? Let’s face it, everyone needs to take breaks along the way. So where is the line between expecting too much of myself and procrastinating?

Building new and better habits for lessening procrastinating

The key is, of course, to build up some new and better habits. This is, of course, easier said than done. Yet I have done it before…hence blogging three times a week for up to six-and-a-half years.

What does it take? Desire. I have to make a choice, and decide to create new habits.

Unsurprisingly, this means I will need to step out of my comfort zones. This means I need to take actions, some of which are a bit uncomfortable, in order to get from here to there, wherever there is.

Procrastinating I am working to do things for me in order to better my life. I desire to have more, to make more of my one-and-only time on this planet. There is so much that I desire to give, and share, and I need to stop beating myself up when I do not live up to my own expectations.

Yeah, I am pretty skilled at procrastinating, but also equally skilled at expecting too much of myself. As Jen Sincero suggests, I need to chunk down my plans. For example, the podcast is being worked on. I have my art for it, I have found music, and I did a test-run of the first topic. Almost everything is in place to make this fly. It is happening.

What I have to do is write out lists. Never been good at that. But, in listing what I need to do, I will have better accountability, I think.

Does my desire to change outweigh my desire to be comfortable where I am? I believe so. Let’s see where this goes.

There is no procrastinating here!

Thank you for joining me. Please take a moment to explore the rest of the website, which I am working to evolve and change for the better…much like I am doing for myself.

This is the fourth entry of my personal blog. Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published writing, which can be found here.

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