Do find yourself oscillating between a cycle of creativity and periods of unclarity, fears or doubts which prevent you to move forward in attaining your goals and projects. Are you familiar with that sagging feeling when you need or want to do something, but keep procrastinating only to be left with the sense of guilt, failure. Or even worse, it can leave you feeling resistance to do even stuff you know you want to do. You feel stuck, you try to keep pushing yourself to do what you need to do to get where you want to be and don’t have enough clarity as to how to move forward with more ease! You resent yourself for behaving the way you do and keep promising yourself you’ll do better the next time, only to repeat it over and over again!
Your procrastination is not a problem, it is a doorway to how deeper patterns in your life are playing out. Your Procrastinator is your friend who is trying to tell you something. But we are all so used to viewing our challenges as problems and often don’t know how to view our challenges as a doorway for healing, transformation and growth.
You may be painfully aware of the direction you want to go to, your goals, desires and dreams, but when your Procrastinator kicks in, he/she is trying to tell you there’s something deeper you need to look at. Your Procrastinator holds many valuable lessons for you. It may want you to slow down, do things differently, to see where you are right now and not necessarily where you are headed. Your Procrastinator holds many emotions and thoughts that you are otherwise not listening, your fears, your doubts. It may be trying to communicate to you that he does not have enough energy, that there is no fun, passion or excitement in your life, that what needs to be done is uncomfortable or not easy, that you’re in overwhelm or just don’t know what next step to take.
There is a way to befriend your Procrastinator and find ways to engage with him so that the two of you can work for your highest benefit. You need to listen to his whispers and pay close attention to his messages. He has valuable lessons to teach you.
So why wouldn’t you listen to it? Well, there might be another voice that is overriding it and that is your Pusher. That side of you that is telling you what you should be doing, when you should be doing it and how much work you should be doing. That voice too has your best intention at heart, but his ways may not be very subtle. This voice may be criticizing you, making you hate yourself for procrastinating leaving you with a sense of failure or guilt.
In other words, your Pusher may represent your male (raw) active side while your Procrastinator may represent your female passive side.
So, how do you find your way out? There is a way to untangle the knot. The first step is recognising that pushing yourself even harder is not a solution to releasing procrastination. Just as plants, we can all grow and thrive in appropriate conditions. Instead of judging your procrastination, the first step is simply to recognise your resistance. Acknowledge it, be with it and allow it to be there.
If you’re curious to go a step further and find out more, check my 4-week coaching program on BEFRIENDING YOUR PROCRASTINATOR AND TAKING INSPIRED ACTION starting on 25 April 2016.