Lazy or Not?
Last week’s post, Procrastination and Optical Illusions: Part 1, talked about the fact that overcoming procrastination isn’t necessarily as easy as taking the first step. Sometimes, there are other factors that need to be be dealt with first.
When it comes to procrastination, it’s not as simple as saying some are lazier than others. By analyzing the root of procrastination, we can better overcome it. When we identify the reason, then we can select the appropriate action to push through our resistance.
Through experience and observation both professionally as an educator, as well as personally, I’ve identified at least 5 big reasons why some of us struggle so much with task avoidance.
Negative self-talk isn’t helpful and is as likely to send us to the refrigerator as it is to the task we’re avoiding. Or we try to overcome our resistance with sheer determination but make little progress which just reinforces our avoidance pattern.
Relating procrastination to optical illusions is a way of organizing and making sense of the reasons behind why we delay task initiation and/or task completion. It’s a set of metaphors along with suggested strategies that you can apply when you find yourself procrastinating.
Procrastination and the Up/Down Staircase.
Is the cat going up the stairs or down the stairs? Click on the link to have a look. This illusion circulated the web three or four years ago.
The picture of the cat, tail up, on the staircase had viewers arguing the case for either direction.
This illusion depends on your perception. The cat may be going up, but it could also be going down.
So how does this staircase illusion relate to procrastination?
This kind of procrastination is a skewed perception of personal agency. It’s driven by fear, resulting in indecision, doubt, lack of confidence, and perceived lack of control. All of which are immobilizing.
George Lakoff, in Metaphors We Live By, writes that our perception determines our actions.
The concept of going down is equated with fear of failure or fear of the unknown. It’s Alice in Wonderland going down the rabbit hole. What’s at the end? You can’t envision your success or you question your ability to pull it off. There’s a feeling of having no control. Your confidence is down.
Desire says yes, fear says no and so you’re stuck in the middle of the stairs, teetering up and down because of fear.
Fear of failure. Fear of looking foolish. Fear of being judged. Imposter syndrome. Questioning your motives or your goals or your ability to pull it off.
If you’re dwelling on your fears, giving language to them in your internal dialogue, you’re subverting your progress, which results in procrastination.
“Never look backwards or you’ll fall down the stairs”. Rudyard Kipling
Keep looking up.
Last summer, my husband and I camped at Muncho Lake which is in Northern B.C. Besides kayaking, we wanted to do as many of the hikes in the area as possible.
One of the first hikes started close to our campsite. We could almost see to the top of the hike. It didn’t look bad.
What I didn’t account for was how quickly the trail got steep. The problem wasn’t one of endurance or stamina or needing technical experience. It was fear. Fear of falling.
I couldn’t quit looking back. This resulted in vertigo, feeling loss of control, images of somersaulting down the mountainside. Fear of what would happen when I reached the top.
Concepts govern our perceptions of the world and our relationships
Lakoff argues that metaphors are the structures of our conceptual system.
Metaphors vary from culture to culture, but they become the system on which our thoughts, perceptions, and actions are based.
Our discussion of procrastination in terms of optical illusions and staircases is an orientational metaphor. Metaphors of orientation are spatial.
There’s a lot of complexity in Lakoff’s discussion of spatial metaphors. For the purposes of this post, I want to highlight how language and metaphors can work for us or against us.
The Up-Down Metaphor
Lakoff provides the following examples of the up/down metaphor:
- I’m feeling up today
- She’s feeling down today.
- My spirits rose.
- You’re in high spirits
- That gives me a lift
- He’s low today
- I feel down
- They fell into depression
- My spirits sank
- Drooping posture is associated with sadness and depression
- Erect posture with a positive emotional state
- We sleep lying down and stand when awake
- He’s the peak of health
- She’s in top shape
- He’s sinking fast
- We came down with the flu
- His health is declining
- We get up, wake up, are already up.
Metaphors help us assign values and prioritize
Thus if you envision challenges as opportunities, you’ll continue to make progress towards your goals.
Conversely, if you envision challenges as setbacks, you’ll tend to be discouraged and stall.
What are the markers that indicate you are on this stairway in regards to your project or goal?
There’s an inherent sabotaging of self-agency when your thoughts are negative. If you’re indecisive and/or questioning or denigrating yourself or your goals, it’s likely fear driven. Here’s some examples of what it may sound like:
- Self putdowns
- Questioning your ability
- Wondering if it’s worth the time and effort
- I’m a failure
- It’s dragging me down
- Feeling snowed under
- Thinking you’ll never make it
- I can’t do it
- This is a crazy idea
When you use this kind of language you are making life so difficult for yourself. We work hard to avoid that which makes us fearful. Fear ignites the reptilian brain and our response is fight/flight/freeze.
So what do you do if you find yourself on the up/down staircase?
- Re-orient yourself.
- Don’t give credence to your fears.
- Determine that you are going to have language and metaphors work for you.
- Don’t compare your progress with someone who’s further up the stairs than you because of time and/or perhaps effort. Often we judge our progress against other people’s success and get discouraged.
- Identify your fear, then envision a worse case scenario. Usually the results are far less dire than we imagine. What’s the worst thing that could happen if we: Fail? Appear foolish? Are judged?
Marcus Aurelius said, “People’s remarks don’t have an impact until we form thoughts about it”.
Dostoyevsky explained that when he wrote “The Idiot”, he “wanted to create a completely beautiful human being”.
The attribute of Prince Myshkin that is pertinent to this discussion is that he was totally straightforward and candid with people. And he refused to be offended by anything said to him. Even though as a reader, you know that their intent sometimes is to insult, Prince Myshkin does not entertain the thought and therefore it does not impact him.
Choose your direction
In overcoming procrastination, it’s important to identify the root cause. Once you do that you’re able to take that first step.
Whether you think you can or think you can’t either way you’ll be right. ~Henry Ford
If fear is the reason you’re procrastinating, don’t let it hold you back from achieving your goal/s.
~Priscilla
P.S. Procrastination and Optical Illusions: Part 3 will be out next week. I hope you’ll check back.
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