Procrastination - The search for ‘The Eternal Mother’ or a coping mechanism for feelings?
WHAT IS PROCRASTINATION? AND HOW DO I STOP PROCRASTINATING?
It can affect many, if not most, of us. We know we’ve a deadline, important arrangements or laundry to do yet we just don’t seem to be able to muster up the energy or willpower to work towards completing our task. Procrastination has a reputation of being irrational - knowing that we’re putting something off and through that process, potentially making a situation worse for ourself. Dr. Piers Steel, a motivational psychologist, calls procrastination a form of self-harm. We have a chunk of self-awareness surrounding our procrastination… and continue to do it. So what is procrastination and how the heck can we tame the beast?
Procrastination has felt ever more present during the continuing global crisis for me personally and for those around me - with my tasks sometimes feeling like an unsurmountable wall. How is it I seem to be programmed this way and others aren’t? They’re bossing their manifestation journals and learning to speak mandarin. What exactly happened to my programming, did I miss the upgrade? Neuroscience offers some insight in that when we experience stress because we’re “faced with a task that makes us feel anxious or insecure” the amygdala (the threat detector part of the brain) perceives the task up for procrastination as a genuine threat and kicks off. Our body experiences the procrastination task as a threat to our survival. No wonder I might feel overwhelmed.
But what is procrastination? In his paper (1994), Joseph Ferrari breaks down procrastination into two types: Functional and Dysfunctional. Whereby functional procrastination is when there’s a delay to a decision that may increase the chances of success, especially when prioritising tasks or waiting for additional information that will inform the decision making process. And dysfunctional procrastination is defined as ‘purposive delay in making decisions within some specific time frame’ and may be enlisted as a coping mechanism - by delaying the decision making an individual may avoid a perceived stressful situation or conflict. I’m guessing that leaves me firmly in the dysfunctional camp.
Ferrari elaborates, his paper suggests individuals may create situations where their abilities aren’t tested and therefore force another person to make a decision. Through this process, it permits the indecisive individual a reduction in their ‘response-ability’ whilst also permitting an avenue to blame the ‘decider’ should things not got to plan. I can see how this might apply to procrastination against a deadline, by leaving things close to the wire we might say that we simply didn’t have enough time. Yet then again, there’s also something called Parkinson’s Law which states;
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”
- C. Northcote Parkinson
Basically it’s the idea that regardless of the amount of time we have allocated, we will use all of that time to produce something or meet a deadline. So if I’ve two weeks for a paper to be published, but 6 months has passed in which I could’ve done the work, then… I’ll be creating that paper in two weeks. How can I say that so concretely? Well, procrastination often features elements of perfectionism - But I digress and will return to that later.
Within dysfunction procrastination we have a further two layers, the first being decisional procrastination - When a person leaves the decision making to another person, it can initiate a psychology game playing by generating a drama triangle set up. (which I’ll explore in another post). In brief, the procrastinator might take the role of victim, initiates a call for rescue and consequently remains blameless for the consequences of the rescue. In turn this allows the ‘victim’ role to shift to persecute the rescuer or for the rescuer to then persecute the ‘victim’. Either way, it’s not a pleasant experience and at least one person leaves the situation with some degree of frustration. Interestingly, anger suppression was found in female decisional procrastinators raised with authoritarian fathers or mothers. A situation where one might expect that a person isn’t given much choice in situations, but I’d be interested to hear whether my hypothesis resonates with anyone in some way, as interpersonal dependency was shown as a predictor of dysfunctional, decisional procrastination.
A second form is described as behavioural procrastination - whereby people view their self-worth based on task ability, with ability “determined by one’s performance on completed task”. The research shows that procrastinators in this group have low self-confidence, are less likely to challenge themselves or maximise their efforts, will quit tasks more quickly and construct excuses to validate their behaviour. In gestalt therapy, we might play with the concept of a person keeping themselves stuck in the same story and ensuring they find other willing participants or events to keep them stuck too. We can often gravitate or lean towards others and situations where our story is familiar. We might have a friend who seems to have trouble with their boss and leave jobs regularly, and also know that their relationship with parents and loved ones follows a parallel process. It can be quite confronting to consider when we choose these things vs situational chance. Obviously, we don’t always choose towards the less fulfilling parts of a story - we can just as easily be someone who only ever sees the good.
From Ferrari’s (1994) paper, he found individuals from dysfunctional households seemed to lean towards behavioural procrastination, with a need for emotional support and "directional guidance” (Pg.674) from others and it seems self-esteem is also a predictor for behavioural procrastination. In his book, ‘Existential Psychotherapy’ (2004), Irvin Yalom pictures procrastination with emotional support as the “search for the eternal mother”. We might look for someone to encourage or hold us accountable to the task and when we can’t find ‘the mother’, we feel a little lost. Yalom highlights that for many people, it’s not the content of the decision that generates the dilemma but the process of decision-making. Particularly if an individual’s family of origin may not have promoted their sense of autonomy or cultivated executive functioning. Some people simply don’t know how to go about making a decision - or meet ‘analysis paralysis’ when attempting to - therefore rendering a person unable to decide what understanding they might need to move past their procrastination.
Included in this is the proposal that procrastinating adults were raised “by parents who stressed over-achievement, setting unrealistic goals for the child and linking the attainment of these goals to parental love and approval” (Pg.674). The child becomes anxious and feels worthless when they fail to achieve the intended goal and might act out their anger through a disdain for compliance or authority. This is described as “self-defeating behaviour patterns” which is broken down into 8 criteria:
Choosing people and situations that lead to disappointment, failure or mistreatment even when better opportunities exist
Rejecting or neutralising assistance from others
Feeling guilty after personal positive events
Promoting anger or rejection in others
Rejecting pleasure or denying pleasure within oneself
Failing to accomplish tasks necessary to obtain personal objectives, even though one has the ability
Apathetic towards others who treat oneself well; and
Engaging in excessive self-sacrifices.
Taken from Ferrari (1994)
It’s quite the list, isn’t it? An yet it matters. It matters in understanding some of our behaviours and why they might be present for us, and how they might feed into procrastination behaviours that are outside of our awareness. You might be thinking, “Great, so I’ve been raised as a procrastinator. Thanks parents!” Awareness isn’t about blaming our upbringing or familial situations. It’s about increasing our understanding so we can own our response-ability, without judging ourselves or others. Cultivating curiosity, and through that, learning to acknowledge those procrastination parts of our self in order for self-defeating elements to lose some of their potency and for our coping mechanisms evolve.
Understanding our past can only lead us so far. Knowing we exist with ‘present bias’ where we have a tendency to prioritise short-term needs ahead of long-term ones or ‘temporal discounting’ where we apply less importance to future tasks. In the article, “Why you procrastinate (It has nothing to do with self control)”, Dr Hershfield points out our ability to view “our future selves more like strangers than as parts of ourselves” - by putting off our tasks or delaying deadlines, we quite literally believe the matter to be someone else’s problem. Forgetting that someone else is us. So how can we address the present, improve our relationship with procrastination and ensure we don’t make more work for our ‘future self’?
Consider this, what if procrastination is an issue of emotional regulation - that is, a way of coping with emotions such as boredom, anxiety, frustration and low self-confidence. The way we feel about a particular task then informs how we dialogue with ourselves about that task, and consequently influences our ongoing emotions related to that task. Momentary relief at having procrastinated, likely through distraction like watching Youtube, scrolling social media or bingeing a box set, fuels our innate desire to be rewarded because we’ve just rewarded ourselves with relief… and so we procrastinate again. Can you see that there’s a cycle to procrastination? When we view it in this manner, as a coping mechanism with traits of being habitual, it shifts the matter into a new paradigm for me. It permits me to ask the question:
What is my procrastination preventing me from experiencing?
I know, I sound like a therapist… Yet if we cultivate a curiosity around what we’re noticing in that moment when we become aware that procrastination is about to make itself comfortable for the afternoon, we might be able to understand and address our needs. We might be able to meet the needs that our caregivers couldn’t when we were younger. I might notice a sensation in a part of my body that then reminds me of a different situation I’ve lived through. Am I fearing failing? Or even succeeding? Procrastinators can often present with a strong perfection streak may delay completing a task until it is ‘just so’. Or may even have a barrier to beginning a task as they’re unsure whether or not they’re doing it right. We might question whether we or the thing we produce is good enough or whether we perceive/imagine ourselves as being judged by doing this ‘thing’? And if I am to be judged or be ‘less than’ why even bother trying? Any of that sound familiar? When we look at procrastination in this way we’re able to perceive it in the present and begin the process of emotionally regulating ourselves.
“Procrastination is about emotions, not productivity”
As any behavioural procrastinator knows, creating a to-do list as a way to navigate ourselves out of our funk can ultimately lead to us feeling like a failure when the list becomes overwhelming or we ‘fail’ to complete the tasks. Which is why, I’m not going to give you a solution of any kind to your procrastination. I know it’s disappointing, yet in the long run it is for your own good. There’s a lot to be said for cultivating curiosity about your self and your processes.
A 2010 study showed that when students practiced self-forgiveness for procrastination, after an initial exam, they then procrastinated less in all following exams. The applied a method of acknowledging it had happened, understanding why and then they lived through their procrastination as it lost some of it’s potency, some of it’s hold on them. It’s suggested that procrastinators tend to have “high-stress, low self-compassion” which would suggest that the practice of self-compassion can help aid against the negative dialogue that happens because of procrastination. Which is easier said than done when you might trip into negative self-talk during a period of procrastination. The key word is practice. Which doesn’t include berating yourself, just a side note.
How might you start to practice self-forgiveness and self-compassion? It’s different strokes for different folks. I personally try to find an aspect of the task that I did well or that was positive. I don’t virtually high-five myself for completing the laundry (I feel The Never-Ending Story was training for being an adult. Does laundry ever end??) yet what I might do is acknowledge that had I procrastinated and not done the laundry, it would’ve meant I didn’t sit down and write this blog. Admittedly, this process happens once my task is complete and I’ve understood what might have been out of my awareness yet tripping me up in the moment. It’s a chance for learning from my experience that is key in developing my self-awareness.
And when I’m really stuck in my funk, I play with the idea of having a magic wand or “next step” - If I were to do this task, what would my next step be? Motivation follows action, once I’ve taken one step and feel on firm ground, I can then take another step.. and another. So whilst procrastination isn’t solely about productivity, it does require some action on our part to move through it. We can’t avoid or ignore it, only move through it and take it as an opportunity to understand a little more of ourselves than we did before. Procrastination has an emotional underpinning, potentially created in our family systems, and then as we become older… it has a decision-making component to it too. We can understand both aspects of this. Knowing and acknowledging our emotional needs as a way to move out of a sense of being stuck. Through this process we begin to shift our awareness and behaviours, we might name aloud the feelings our procrastination is preventing us from experiencing for example or journal it out (provided that the journalling then doesn’t become the tool of procrastination…). And once a different behaviour is embedded that cultivate emotional curiosity, the process of being an emotional detective becomes a habit.
Let me know about your relationship with procrastination in the comments below.
