Some reflections on procrastination

Some reflections on procrastination

By Craig L. Loving, D.Min., LMFT

Have you noticed that people tend to procrastinate only on important things? Bills don't get paid, letters don't get written, phone calls don't get made (Only a few people procrastinate having fun. But these are the workaholics, the Type A personalities, the hard drivers).

Procrastinators can be divided into one of two types. The first are relaxed procrastinators. A couple of decades ago, researchers found that relaxed procrastinators often feel negatively about the task they need to do. They might agree that the task is important, but argue that life is too short to be tied down to doing boring things. So many of these procrastinators will put things off until the important has become urgent. A two word example: April 15th.

The second type of procrastinator is the person who becomes tense or afraid when he contemplates a task. There are actually five different types of the tense-afraid type of procrastinator.

The first type of tense-afraid procrastinator are people who are afraid of failing. Tense-afraid procrastinators delay starting, working on, or completing the task because they believe it is more challenging than they can master. In many cases, the tense-afraid procrastinator may be a perfectionist whose motto is, "If you're going to do a job, do it perfectly, or don't even try. Perfect the first time. Perfect without anyone else's help."

The second type of tense-afraid procrastinator is on the other side of the spectrum: this person fears success. In this person's mind, if they succeed in this task, they will have raised the performance bar to a new level. People will expect them to perform at this new level. They're afraid they won't be able to sustain the higher level performance, so they procrastinate starting.

The third type of tense-afraid procrastinator focuses on control. They either need to feel in control, or they need to resist feeling controlled by others. Their motto is: "I'll do it when I get around to it. Don't tell me what to do with my time." Passive-aggressive behavior is another way to understand this type of tense-afraid procrastination.

The fourth type of tense-afraid procrastinator uses procrastination as an attempt to keep people close to them, to keep other people taking care of them, or rescuing them from difficult situations. As strange as it might sound, with this person keeps other people involved in his or her life by not taking responsibility for the things that they should be able to do on their own. A toddler with a younger sibling might procrastinate learning how to tie his or her own shoe in an attempt to regain the mother's primary attention.

The fifth type of tense-afraid procrastinator attempts to keep people at a distance by his or her behavior. When a promised telephone call is not made, the procrastinator hopes of the other person "gets the message."

Everyone procrastinates at one time or another. From this brief explanation, have you been able to identify your own procrastination-style?

Diagnosing a problem is easy. The work begins when you decide to do something about it.

There is no "one-size-fits-all" proposition for overcoming procrastination. If people procrastinate for different reasons, different solutions are required.

Relaxed-type procrastinators miraculously find motivation they need to begin working when they are confronted with a crisis. A college freshman was told by his coach that he was in danger of losing his full-ride scholarship because he was failing most of his classes. Within a matter of weeks, all of his homework was up to date, and he was getting at least "C's" on his exams. Unfortunately, it took a crisis.

The fear-of-failure procrastinator may be driven by the mistaken belief that his or her worth as determined by his or her success. Such people are helped to overcome their fear of failure by reading the biographies of famous failures. Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, or Winston Churchill. Each of these experienced significant failure in their lives. The question is not whether they failed, but what they did after they failed. These three, and countless others, learn from their failure and moved on.

The fear-of-success procrastinator is also driven by a mistaken belief. However, rather than fearing failure, they fear that if they succeed once, they will be required to succeed every time thereafter. They might also be expected to succeed in every arena of life. This is simply unrealistic. Life does indeed require that we succeeded at certain things, and that we succeed more times than we fail. But the fear-of-success procrastinator needs to remember that "doing your best" doesn't mean "doing it perfectly."

The fear-of-being-controlled procrastinator can be helped by realizing that his procrastination actually works against him. People who use procrastination as means of establishing personal boundaries or keeping over-controlling people at a distance may actually invite other people to intrude on their lives! The more self-control a person exercises, the less likely another person is going to see the need to interfere.

The person who uses procrastination as an attempt to keep people close to them needs to understand that this behavior keeps him or her in a dependent relationship. Even though it may feel good to be taken care of, most healthy people eventually get tired of taking care of people who are able to take care of themselves. The healthiest relationships are those in which both people care for one another, but take care of themselves.

The final keep-people-at-a-distance procrastinator can shorten his or her pain by learning to be assertive. Began saying "Yes" when you mean yes; and "No" when you mean no. In many cases it is appropriate to say, "I want," or "I don't want."

All of these types of procrastinators would be helped to remember the adage, "If I always do what I've always done, I'm always going to get what I've always gotten." Think about it: our procrastination works against us most of the time. Things aren't going to change, until I change.

Best to you!

Resources used for this article: Tucker-Ladd, C. (1996 – 2000). Psychological Self-Help, http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/

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