Perfectionism and Procrastination
Welcome to another programme on Stress Free Living.
Today we are going to be talking about a very common problem that causes so much stress and frustration. We are going to talk about Procrastination.
Almost everyone suffers from it in some form or another. Is it just a bad habit? Are procrastinators lazy? No, it actually goes much deeper than that. So why is it that some people can decide on a goal and then go for it, enjoying every moment until it is complete, while others start with enthusiasm which slowly peters out and dies, and others never even get started? and others leave everything till the last minute and then have to rush? Procrastination is very difficult to overcome if you don’t know the reasons behind it. Today I want to look at where procrastination originates and why we have it.
Procrastination is all about programming.
Procrastination is a way of avoiding fear, the most common fears are
- Fear of Failing
- Fear of being Criticised
- Fear of success
- Fear of being controlled by someone
- Fear of the Future
Procrastinators are not lazy, bad or stupid. So what is it that causes this crippling fear? Procrastinating has to do with the brain, the Prefrontal Cortex which is behind the eyes – that part of the brain that makes decisions the Limbic system is just behind this and something fascinating about the Limbic System is that it only understands emotion, it doesn’t understand words, just emotion. The Limbic system has no idea about time, so the past and the present exist simultaneously. And, sometimes the past completely hijacks the present and we can become as helpless as a little child in our reasoning without being aware of it. This is all out of our control, but when we understand what is happening we can do something about it.
In the Limbic System is something called the Amygdala, a little almond shaped gland, we have 2, one on each side of the head. The Amygdala is like our internal smoke alarm. It never sleeps, it is always on the lookout for dangerous situations.
I’ll tell you a little story that explains this. At one time we had a little art gallery and picture framing shop in South Africa. The shop next door was owned by an ex-soldier – every time there was a loud bang or noise he would dash under the counter. He didn’t even know that he was doing this – and it bothered him, but it was a reaction that was out of his control. His Amygdala was taking over, it associated the loud bangs with war and made him duck for cover. Some of us are still jittery whenever we hear a rumble, it’s usually a big truck going past, but our Amygdala still associates it with the danger of Earthquakes. Every one of us has the same sort of reaction when our Amygdala thinks that we are being threatened. When our Amygdala thinks that we are being threatened, we react in the way that we have developed to avoid danger. The problem comes when the danger is not as dangerous as the Amygdala thinks. The Amygdala could be translating the things that we really want to do as dangerous. Things like being successful, completing an assignment, looking for another job, getting rid of clutter. It’s not our fault, it is just the Amygdala overreacting to keep us safe.
So how did it get so confused?
Well, we programmed it. If you are unable to make the association between what is happening and your reaction, for instance the rumbling of a heavy truck and an earthquake, if you can’t see the association, then something Probably happened to you at a very young age, and that is why you can’t see the connection. Something happened to us – not always as serious as war or earthquakes. It could have been the angry look on a parents face. We reacted and went into the flight, fight or freeze response. After the danger is over the thinking brain makes a decision about the incident, it could be something like ‘I’m stupid, or I could have died, or no one loves me or 101 other things. There is something that I want us all to be very aware of, and that is that in most of these cases our parents or caregivers or teachers had no intention of causing us harm. We as young frightened children made that conclusion, it doesn’t mean that it is true. The 3 things that have a huge impact on us during our childhood are
- Facial expression
- Body Language
- Tone of voice.
These can be very threatening to a baby or small child, and remember – it wasn’t intended. Most parents love their children and wouldn’t dream of causing these outcomes. We need to look at the decisions that we made as a result of these behaviours. There is another part of the Lymbic system called the Hippo Campus, and it has to do with memories – things that happened when we were growing up, there will be good and bad memories. Another part of the Hippo Campus carries the Body memories, we can’t remember the incident, but our body remembers and we get a feeling about something. So we might have a goal to complete an assignment or renew our passport or write a letter, nothing dangerous about that, but we find ourselves not doing these things, or leaving it till the last minute, we’re procrastinating, a part of our brain is reacting to one of these fears, and we are totally unaware of it. We are not lazy or stupid as some might think – it is how our brain is reacting to a past fear.
Being aware of this is the first step – it is very liberating when you have some understanding about why you behave in certain situations, because now we know that there isn’t anything wrong with us, and we can do something about it.
I once heard another Practitioner saying that these fears that stop us doing the things that we really want to are just like an allergy. You might not even know what is causing the allergy, but you can’t strop yourself sneezing, you react to that fear in the same way, you can’t help yourself. When your unconscious fear gets triggered you react by avoiding and not doing. Your intellect knows that it is safe to do those things, but you are driven by your reaction to something and so you put things off and don’t even start, or you start and never complete tasks or projects or you don’t give yourself enough time. So somewhere in your past your Amygdala got a danger message, you went into Freeze, and then, when the danger was passed your thinking brain kicked in again and you rationalized, you came to some sort of a conclusion about how and why you would avoid these situations in the future.
Now remember that this probably happened when you were very young and so you were not able to rationalize logically, but your amygdala doesn’t know that, it just keeps on sending those danger signals whenever it perceives a similar danger. Perhaps you were told that you could do better in a test, or that you should know the answer or that you could have won the race. If you have a fear of failure, you are subconsciously saying to yourself that you have to be perfect, not just good, but perfect. If you have a subconscious belief that you have to be perfect, you will be avoiding these tasks, because not doing is safer than not being perfect. Or perhaps you think that you should be able to do something that you fear is difficult, so perhaps you just can’t ask for help – these things can usually all be traced back to an earlier experience in life.
Why would someone fear success?
Some unconscious beliefs about this are if I’m a success I’ll be lonely, I won’t have any friends, I’ll have to work very long hours or people won’t like me, people will envy me – it is all unconscious.If you feel bad, weak or powerless, it’s not a habit, it is a way of staying safe in the world. We have to ask ourselves some questions – what am I avoiding? And why? Perfectionism and Procrastination often go hand in hand. As children we base our self-worth on approval of parents and teachers and other adults.
If a teacher is frowning or disapproving the child could develop a fear of making mistakes. If you keep on avoiding making mistakes because you’re afraid of failure you become emotionally constricted and could have a fear of any experience where the outcome isn’t guaranteed. We tell ourselves that we’re not allowed to fail because failure is dangerous and undesirable because ‘they won’t approve. Perfectionism is very constricting. I hope that you are now better able to understand that procrastination is a strategy for self-protection. Procrastination and perfectionism often go hand in hand, the one leads to the other. These are ways of protecting a vulnerable sense of self-esteem – few people can give up procrastination until they understand the function that it serves in their lives. Understanding the hidden roots can weaken the hold that they have on us.
Words associated with procrastination are should and shouldn’t, these words turn us back into children.
- Ask yourself – What is my should?
- What are you afraid of happening?
- How do we find the answers to these questions?
The beauty of using the Tapping Techniques is that when we tap on these acupressure points we raise the serotonin in our brain, we calm ourselves down and we are treating the Amygdala and all the answers come to us – they are all there – and as we tap the memories pop up. In the original traumatic moment we made a self- fulfilling prophecy, it’s something that you tell yourself that becomes your way of life- you actually make it happen over and over. This could mean that you have a low paying job, even though you are qualified to do better, or perhaps you are lonely. Or perhaps you can’t relax, perhaps you feel that something bad will happen if you do this or that.
So what did you decide was dangerous?
Remind yourself that you are the adult now, and that your opinion matters. Believing that you are not good enough fuels perfectionism. Become aware of your thoughts and know that you have choices. Here are 6 steps that can help you overcome perfectionism and procrastination.
- What is your goal? Check to see if it is a SMART goal. Smart stands for specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable and timely. Examine your goal and make sure that it meets these requirements.
- What excuses are you using to avoid completing or starting this project? Write them all down on a piece of paper – then tear them up, these are not real.
- What is the worst thing that can happen if I complete this goal? You can do a round of tapping at ask yourself this question at each point, and just see what comes up. Do you have a bad feeling?
- What am I telling myself, what belief do I have that is stopping me, why is success dangerous and failure not an option?
- How young was I when I decided that this was true?
- What am I going to do about it now? (Break to follow)
We will take a short break now and then we will do a few rounds of the Tapping to help move some of these old beliefs that are keeping us stuck. To get the full tapping technique listen to the full podcasts above.