Creating a Safety Net

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. - Thich Nhat Hanh

The first step in the The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play, is to create a safety net. The goal is to learn how to lessen your fear of failure and to bounce back from your mistakes by creating an inner self-worth that does not depend on how well you'll do at the task at hand.

The following thought experiment is from the book. The task in your life is to walk a board. Consider how you would feel about the task in each of the following situations:

Situation A: The task before you is to walk a solid board that is thirty feet long, four inches thick, and one foot wide. You have all the physical, mental, and emotional abilities necessary to perform this task.

Situation B: ...the task is just the same...only now the board is suspended between two buildings 100 feet above the pavement.

Situation C: ...you are still on the board suspended between two buildings, 100 feet above the ground...While thinking about what to do, you suddenly feel heat behind you and can hear the crackling noise of fire. The building supporting your end of the board is on fire!

Situation D: You're back on the board again, 100 feet above the ground...But there is no fire this time, only a strong, supportive net, just three feet beneath the board.

How would you feel about the task in Situation A? What about Situation B?

When we over identify who we are, our worth as a person, with the outcome of our work, we move our task from Situation A to Situation B. When a failure or a mistake makes us feel worthless fear can make it impossible to start our project. Perfectionism raises the board 100 feet from the ground.

In Situation C we can choose between possible death (walking the board between the buildings) or certain death (waiting for the fire). Most of us would take the chance and walk the board. When we procrastinate we are setting that fire, we are moving from Situation B to Situation C. If we think that our performance reflects our inner worth, procrastination gives us a buffer...we do not have time to do our best, thus our work is not revealing our real ability.

If we are in Situation C we need to find a way to turn it into Situation D. We need a way to let ourselves know that failing does not mean the end of the world. We need a sense of inner worth that does not depend on our success, our performance, etc. We need to know and remember that we have a spirit, an inner self, that is perfect, and will always be perfect.

procrastination

In his book, Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-free Play, Neil Fiore advises people to keep a procrastination log. The idea is to record when you procrastinate, what you procrastinate on, your thoughts, your feelings, your justification, and how you deal with it. (Of course how you deal with it, is a little bit affected by the fact that you are monitoring your procrastination). Here is my log from the last couple of days:

Work, morning 26/11. A co-worker asks me to take over her project. I really do not want to, but I also sympathize with her situation, and end up agreeing to it. It involves giving a lecture in front of 200 people within a few days. I still haven't started preparing. Feel a bit like a victim for having taken on this task. Feel overwhelmed, and stressed about not having enough time to prepare, about doing a bad job, about being unable to answer questions etc. I procrastinate even thinking about this and still haven't started the preparation.

Work, morning 27/11. Working on a simple project. As I am working I realize the project is more complicated and time consuming then I originally thought. I feel overwhelmed and frustrated. As some kind of reflex, I open up my email and facebook. I procrastinated for about 10-15 minutes, but then forced myself to get back to the task.

Work, afternoon 27/11. I finally get back to my important project that has been neglected for a while. There is no fixed deadline, but I feel like this project should have been finished months ago. It involves finishing up a research project and sending it out for publication. I am really reluctant to finish this up, as I am afraid that it has mistakes, or that it will not be perceived well. At the same time I am irritated at my self that I haven't gotten this project out of the way sooner. As to justification, I feel like I never have time to work on the project and finish it up, but I am still very much aware of that lack of time is not the main problem here.

Home, evening 27/11. I look at the boxes in my living room. Simplifying the children's room a few weeks ago left me with 4 boxes full of toys that I am not sure what to do with. It feels wasteful to throw them out, I want to give them away but I don't know who would take toys for charity. Then I feel overwhelmed about the task of figuring that out, and about getting the boxes somewhere else. I am also concerned that my kids will actually miss some of the toys, and I will have to explain to them that I gave them away. I should probably involve them in the process....but that too is overwhelming. I am frustrated at myself, my indecisivness and my tendency to drag project like these on forever.

Work, morning 28/11. Need to start on a task that I expect to be both boring and time-consuming. For a moment I get caught in the victim role, I think about what I "have to do" and what I "should be doing." I check email and fb for 10-15 minutes. Then I shake it off, and think to myself "I choose to start on this now, and get it over with as soon as possible," and I make a commitment to myself to work on it for at least 30 minutes. The task ends up being less boring and less time consuming than I expected it to be.