|
WITI PERSONAL GROWTH
Procrastination Meets Perfectionism - The Problem with "Starting Fresh"
For many people it is easier to make a new plan than to put it into action. Are you one of these people? You may be motivated to make a change, know what you want to do, and may even have a strategy mapped out. But there you sit – consumed by inaction – needlessly delaying tasks you know you need to do in a way that is counterproductive. A common term for this state of affairs is procrastination – and textbooks are full of explanations for what causes procrastination, to include the following: being unrealistic about time, fear of change, fear of failure, or disorganization. But one of the most interesting “causes” is perfectionism – because when perfectionism mixes with procrastination it can spawn the perfect storm I call “the Problem with Starting Fresh.” What Is The Problem With Starting Fresh? Typically when you want to make a change and have a plan and strategy to do so, what you are really doing is mapping out the future – what you want things to look like and what you have to do, starting now and moving forward, to get them to look that way. You may have a vision, plan, action steps, and even a timeline. If you could start today to execute your plan your might indeed have a good chance of accomplishing what you set out to do in a step-by-step relatively effortless manner. The problem is that if you tend to be a perfectionist you are likely to put a big fat roadblock in your own way – you want to “start fresh.” You say to yourself, “I can’t possibly start moving forward on the new plan without first cleaning up the mess I made in the past.” On the surface it sounds perfectly logical - Step 1: clean up the past, Step 2: implement the new plan going forward - and voila you have a “Fresh Start.” The problem is that most often the time and energy required to “clean up the past” is 1000 time greater than the energy required to start implementing the steps of a new approach going forward, and thus procrastination sets in with a vengeance. Here are three hypothetical examples to illustrate the point: 1. You want to get your office organized You know that your messy desk and disorganized files are hurting your ability to perform your job or run your business. You have researched and identified a new filing and appointment scheduling system that you feel will work well for you. The problem is you feel compelled to “start fresh” – to first go through all of the information on your desk, and in your drawers and bookcase, and scrawled on scraps of paper in your purse or pocket and capture them in your new system. You believe that once you accomplish this THEN you can then continue to implement your new system going forward. It never happens. The prospect of organizing your entire office is overwhelming and you sink into inaction. 2. You want to get control of your emails Your Inbox is a morass of hundreds of uncategorized emails – many you have previously opened, some of which you have not. You know that you want to create a system of folders so that you can sort and organize your incoming emails in a way that you can more easily deal with them, and know which ones are urgent and which are less important. Here again you may feel drawn to “start fresh.” You look at the hundreds of emails already clogging your Inbox and begin to focus on what to do with them – what folders you will need to handle the past. This backward-looking focus consumes and overwhelms you and it never gets done. Meanwhile, new emails keep on coming in – simply adding to the “past” accumulation pile. 3. You want to get control of how you pay your bills You are tired of feeling financially disorganized, of mislaying bills or forgetting to pay them on time, so you decide on a plan you think will work well for you. You decide to simply pay all bills the day they come in – no sorting, no storing, no scheduling, etc. Seems like a good plan for you. Unfortunately, you know that there are still some unpaid, or unaccounted for bills lurking somewhere in your house or office and your focus turns to tracking these down and paying them. You think to yourself, “It’s a good idea to clear the decks, clean the slate, and start fresh.” Meanwhile, as you are searching around for the old bills, new ones come in and get set aside while you look for the old ones. And within a day, your new bills become your old bills – being handled under the old method – being set aside, misplaced, etc. And nothing ever changes. The bottom line problem is that the desire to clean up the past “first” in order to make way for a “Fresh Start” can permanently derail any forward progress with the result being an endless loop of procrastination. Can’t start the new till you clean up the old, but as you as try to clean up the old (which is massive and overwhelming) the New becomes old and slips effortlessly and unnoticed into the structure of your old way of doing things. How To Escape The “Fresh Start” Syndrome As any true procrastinator will tell you, huge overwhelming, unpleasant, and thankless tasks (such as cleaning up past messes) are extremely difficult to tackle. If any positive action is to take place it is much more likely to be in the area of smaller, incremental, and more rewarding tasks. So here is the concept. When you have a plan for a new way of dealing with an area of your life that has not been working well in the past, start NOW – this instant - without first dealing with the past. When a new piece of paper comes into your office – handle it immediately. If you don’t have an appropriate home for this new piece of paper – create one. If your new concept is to implement a particular type of filing system then right then and there create the file folder for this item. If a new email shows up in your Inbox – handle it the first time you look at it or create an appropriate folder for it (in line with how you want your future folder system to work) that will help you know how to retrieve it and deal with it at the right time. If a bill comes in – and your new system is to pay bills as they come in – then pay it that same day. Don’t let new problems endlessly pile on old problems. Give yourself permission to start now to implement your new systems without first having to clean up the past. You can always work to clean up past items in parallel – but the trick is to not perpetuate your old system indefinitely. As a caveat, please know that the examples I chose where merely to illustrate a concept and were not intended to mean I advocate putting yourself in a position of reacting in a knee-jerk fashion to whatever comes at you. The core idea is to allow yourself to implement new approaches, systems, or strategies you come up that feel right for you by starting “now” and going forward, without first having to clean up the past so that you can “start fresh.” The Bottom Line Procrastination leads to more procrastination and creates a cycle of failure and delay. Procrastination is self-reinforcing in that every time you delay doing a task you strengthen your habit of “avoidance” and “not doing” and lower your self esteem. One useful tool for dealing with a habit of procrastination bred of perfectionism is to realize that to implement a new system or strategy you do not have to first perfectly clean up the past so you can make a fresh start. Instead turn your energies to implementing your new plans and ideas starting now and moving forward – a much less daunting and more rewarding approach.
|
|
 |
|
