The Problem of Procrastination!

It is currently 10:15pm Sunday night and I am just now sitting down to complete this blog for a self-imposed deadline of Monday morning. Actually the original deadline for this blog was last Monday, which seems appropriate given today’s topic is procrastination. And here we are. . .after 10pm writing this blog when I should be getting ready for bed because I spent the rest of today procrastinating all the other things I wanted to do today and am now in the mad dash to still get them done before bed.

Let’s start with a definition. Basically procrastination is the process in which you are doing “fun” tasks before “necessary” tasks for putting urgent tasks off to address less urgent tasks. There are two categories which most procrastinators fall into. A) You just plain struggle with time management and prioritizing or B) you are a perfectionist. I know a bunch of you just went “Huh?” to reason B, but I promise I’ll explain juts bear with me.

I will be the first to tell you that I have ALWAYS been a procrastinator. I will readily admit that during college it was not uncommon for me to start writing a paper at 10 pm the night before it was due (gee that sounds familiar) and writing till 2 or 3 in the morning. Usually that resulted in not enough sleep but, by some miracle, I was getting decent grades so I continued to operate that way. And we won’t even talk about how little use my textbooks got in college.

 And to further prove my point I just took a break to play a round of candy crush, sigh.

As I got older and realized I could no longer operate on as little sleep as I used to and had more and more on my plate and putting all of it off to the last moment just doable any longer. So I decided it was time to change my ways. Over the last decade or so (let’s not talk about the fact it’s been a DECADE since I graduated college) I have actually become quite good and NOT procrastinating and getting things done a head of time. However here recently those old habits have been creeping up on me again and I feel like I have been doing everything at the last minute. So I thought if shared some of the things I do to stave off procrastination it would also help me get my own self back on track.

Earlier I mentioned there tends to be two general categories that people fall into when it comes to WHY they procrastinate. The first is pretty straight forward, struggles with time management and trouble prioritizing.  Some people no matter how hard they try just can’t seem to get themselves organized. That can be pretty straight forward to get a handle on in the way of easy tips and tricks to facilitate that process (I’ll get to those in a moment)

The other category, and the one I tend to fall into, is that of the perfectionist. Now I’m sure that sounds strange to some of you, it certainly did to me the first time someone said it to me. My response was if I was a perfectionist I would be working on things way in advance and revising and reworking things till they were just so and ready to go. Yes, that is one way in which perfectionism can manifest itself. However, if you think about it, it also makes sense as manifesting itself as procrastination. For me it gives me an outlet other than my own shorting comings as to why I didn’t get a perfect grade on that assignment or that session prep wasn’t as good as it could have been. I didn’t have enough time to do it perfectly (never mind I am the reason I didn’t have enough time, our brains are very good at ignoring logic when it suits us)

 So how do I/we overcome the problem of procrastination? Well if you fall into the perfectionist camp that is going to require some work on accepting the fact that no one is perfect and that is okay. Sometimes that work can be done on your own through the use of thought logs and other cognitive behavioral methods. Since there is going to be some anxiety tied to that, allow me to link you HERE to my favorite resource for starting to address anxiety. If you find yourself struggling to get that in check on your own don’t be afraid to recruit the help of a professional.

 As for general time management and organization allow me to share with you the 2 things that work the best for me:

Lists

I live and die by my lists, if it’s not on a list chances are I will forget that I am supposed to do it. Now don’t just go make a list that is 3 pages long of things you need to get done. That leads to getting overwhelmed and then inevitably Netflix and chill. Instead make several lists.

• Most important every task has to have a deadline, whether it is imposed by you or by someone else deadlines help trust me.
• Next I have 2 bigger lists labelled “This week” and “Later”. I think those are self-explanatory but just in case “this week” is stuff I need/want to get done this week and “later” means it can wait.
• Then each morning at the office I make a “today” list. This list I try to keep to 3 to 4 things. What 3 or 4 things are the most important to do today.  I also keep this list short because I want to feel accomplished every day. If I get more than that done in a day GREAT but if I don’t I still want to be able to be at the end of the day and feel like I accomplished what I needed/wanted to. 

Rewards.

Now this one works well for some and not so well for others. For me this is an amazing motivator. If I am working on a task that is not one I am super excited about but is necessary (session notes and accounting work comes to mind) I set myself up for success by working in some rewards. Sometimes this is based on working for a certain length of time or completing a certain portion of the task once that is complete or that time has passed I get a reward. Now these are not major rewards, usually it’s like 5 minutes to play a game on my phone or 5 minutes on twitter to see what’s happening then it’s back to work. This works for me for 2 reasons, one it breaks things up into smaller chunks, I don’t have to worry about ALL my session notes I just need to work on them for 25 minutes then I get a break, and I can do just about anything for 25 minutes. And two, I just like rewards, who doesn’t like taking a minute to pat themselves on the back and give themselves treat.

 So there it is, my tips and trick to combating the evil procrastinator monster. Now that it is almost midnight, I am going to rewards myself with some sleep and try again tomorrow to conquer the procrastination tendency living inside my brain.

***All images from google images***

Anxiety Strikes Again

 Anxiety strikes again. I have talked a few times on this blog about anxiety in general and my own struggles with anxiety. And every once in a while my anxiety rears its ugly head in an expected way and we talk about it again. That’s probably the biggest pain about anxiety. You think you have it in check and have made it your bitch and then you find yourself in a situations having intense anxiety thinking what the hell? You know what makes that feeling even better? When it happens in front of someone you have just recently met and has no idea that you struggle with anxiety. Welcome to the story that inspired this blog.

A few weeks ago I went on a date with a new fella and we hit it off right away. Only hitch was he was getting ready to move for work and would be residing in a city about 3 hours from where I live. We decided not to let the distance stop our relationship from moving forward since things were going so well, so last weekend I went to visit him. The city he is living in is quite a bit bigger than the city I live in and more importantly I had been to this city a grand total of one time before this and driving in unfamiliar cities is one of the things that sets of my anxiety pretty quickly.

 So I set off Friday afternoon with my map and directions in hand, directions mind you I had read SEVERAL times prior to leaving. I only got turned around once and successfully made it to the hotel with minimal issue, but I had been so tense driving I felt like I just finished a marathon when I arrived. This is what driving in unfamiliar places does to me. So now that you know that, let’s fast forward to Saturday morning.

Saturday morning we get in the car and are headed to an art museum (which I had looked up directions for from the hotel), as we pull out of the parking lot my fella says I want to show you downtown before we go to the art museum. I said okay but you will need to tell me where we are going and how to get back to the art museum. He agreed an off we go. We get to the middle of downtown the freeway is about to split in about 6 different directions and I ask okay which way are we going? My fella says I don’t know.  Excuse me what? He says just figure it out, this is how you learn a new city. I'm immediately anxious and losing my mind, what do you mean you don’t know, I told you to figure this stuff out, I don’t need to learn to navigate this city I don’t freakin live here. These are all things flying out of my mouth as I’m desperately trying to remember the address of the museum so I can put it in my GPS. (Just for the record I don’t recommend ever typing anything while driving on the highway).

 Fear not we eventually made it to the art museum and I calmed down and we had a wonderful time. However this happened again on Sunday when I was dropping off my fella before I left town. This time he didn’t have an address of where he was going and he was navigating on sight. That time we got into a little bit more of an argument because again my anxiety was spiking pretty high. Ultimately we got to where we were going got him dropped off and I got myself headed home.

As I was making the three hour drive home it finally started to click to me that anxiety was the reason I had gotten worked up (yep sometimes it even take a therapist a while to connect the dots of her own brain). And then I started thinking about how much of this do I explain to a guy I haven’t known all that long and how I do even go about doing that. I have been very blessed in my life that I haven’t had to explain my anxiety to too many people, many of the people in my life have been very understanding without much conversation or explanation.

While thinking all this through on the way home I was also found myself concerned with how he would react. Would he understand? Would he respect my need for a little more planning or would he continue to think the best way to help me is to put me in incredibly uncomfortable situations thinking he was helping. As I contemplated all these different questions I also started to get angry. Angry that my brain works this way and gets all worked up over things that really aren’t a huge deal. Angry that my anxiety had interfered with my weekend and caused us to get in not one but two arguments that just weren’t necessary.

By the time I got home I was exhausted, not just from a fun filled weekend but from having to spend SO MUCH time thinking about how to introduce a new person in my life into the craziness that is having an anxious brain. If I had to guess I would imagine that many of you out there struggling with anxiety can relate to this on many levels. Coping with anxiety can be exhausting in and of itself. Explaining your anxiety to people have been in your life for years and you know care about you can be a challenge. Finding the courage to overcome anxiety and meet NEW people can be a HUGE challenge. And then you get through all those hurdles and you find yourself in a situation where you feel you have to explain yet again, and to a new person, why you are freaking out over something that you know isn’t a big deal.

Some days it can all feel like it’s more work than it’s worth. But I think we can all agree that we know that isn’t true. Yes there are times when we are rejected by people we care about and who we thought cared about us because of our anxiety. But the times you find someone to add to your support army, who gets it or at least tries to get it and can be there for you makes it all worth it.

As for my current situation. I haven’t talked with him about my anxiety in the days that I have been back, and I’m still not sure how I want to go about it or how much I want to share with a person I don’t know very well yet. He did notice my scars over the weekend and didn’t run away screaming so maybe there is hope for this one yet ;). If any of you have suggestions or techniques you use when you are telling someone about your struggles with anxiety, I would love to hear them so leave me a comment below.

                                           *All images were taken from Google Images*

Sometimes the Little Things Aren't So Little Afterall

 Here’s the reality of being a therapist, 98% of the time I absolutely love my job, I love talking with people hearing their stories, trying to put the puzzle pieces together to get the complete picture. No matter what happens I think I will always be a therapist in some capacity, I can’t imagine my life without that being a part of it.  At the same time my job is not without its frustrations. Progress is generally slow because change is difficult and most people, even if they want it, are somewhat reluctant to do it. People rarely say thank you for your services, but are more than happy to blame you when things with them or their children don’t change fast enough. But most days are pretty uneventful and at times you can feel like you are spinning your wheels. BUT in between the boring, frustrating, and upsetting moments there are nuggets of pure gold that remind me why I do what I do. I had one of those this past week and I want to share it with you and what I learned from it.

“Mary” is a woman in her 20’s who has struggled with anxiety for most of her life, but it has worsened in the last few years due to a couple of traumatic events. She currently lives with her parents and wants move out but has a great deal of anxiety about living alone. “Mary” also spends a lot of time worrying about what others in her community think of what she is doing. We have spent a lot of time talking about coping with anxiety and have recently eased into making a plan for her to move out of her parents’ home and put a deadline in place.

A couple of weeks ago “Mary” came into my office and in many ways seemed like a different person, she came in with a stack of apartment listings in her hand talking about what she liked about some and what she thought she could afford. “Mary” also made mention that she had accepted a dinner invitation with a male friend that was significantly older than she was, despite having concerns about what other would think and say. During our next session (this past week) “Mary” continued to talk about moving out and wanted to move up the target move date and that there had been some frustration in other areas of life but stated she was done with bullshit.

Sometimes you've had enough

 Towards the end of our session, I asked her what had changed in her thinking that was spurring all of these changes in decisions and attitudes. “Mary’s” response was very casual and nonchalant “I don’t know, I’m just tired of always having to live by other people’s standards. I mean yes some of these situations have made me anxious, but it’s not going to get better unless I do things in spite of being anxious.”

It’s not going to get better unless I do things in spite of being anxious. A seemingly mundane statement, said in casual tone. But in that moment it was like the heaven’s opened up and the hallelujah chorus started. She got it!! After weeks of talking about coping with anxiety and how anxiety works and effects the body she got it!!! She understands that her anxiety, uncomfortable as it may be, isn’t going to kill her and if she can use her coping skills to face it she CAN do all the things she wants to do.

I know to some this may seems like an eh interaction and what’s the big deal. Well let me tell you getting someone to face something that causes anxiety and fear and to understand that that anxiety and fear isn’t going to harm them is a GIANT win. It opens up the world to someone with anxiety, everything that once seemed impossible is NOW possible. It’s like when you FINALLY got your driver’s license and all of the sudden your world got bigger and you could do more things and go more places because you had learned a new skill.

 While I was soaring no cloud 9 and enjoying the sheer happiness I felt for my client and the progress she had made, it caused me to pause for a moment and think about my own life. It’s no secret that I have had my own struggles with anxiety, and lord knows it has gotten in the way of me being able to do the things I want to do. It has gotten substantially better over the years but it’s still there at a times, and the discomfort of that anxiety shapes my behavior to a degree.

 As I talked with “Mary” about her experiences over the last couple of weeks and the way she felt as she faced some of these anxiety triggers, it was a refresher and an inspiration to me to continue to challenge myself in my own walk with anxiety. To do a check in with myself and make sure that I was still on top of the anxiety battle and using the skills that I spend my days teaching to others to better my own life. Sometimes as a therapist you catch yourself in a “do as I say not as I do moment” we are human too.

These are the golden nuggets of being a therapist, when the pieces come together for a clients and they start walking out all the things we have talked about. When they are able to take on the challenges they have avoided for so long. And yes even the moments when a conversation with a client inadvertently calls you, as the therapist, on the carpet for the areas of your life that you need to continue to work on. These cloud 9 moments keep me going when I feel like I’m beating my head against a wall or getting yelled at for something that isn’t my fault.

 I LOVE being a therapist and this is why. I would also like to pass this challenge on to you. What are the areas in your life that still need some fine tuning or work? I challenge you this week to take cue from “Mary” stand up and face those challenges and know that the as uncomfortable as it may be, feelings can’t hurt you. Maybe you can face your anxieties or fears head on and that’s great. But maybe for some of you standing up to those challenges is reaching out to a friend, family member, or even a professional and saying I want to change this but can’t do it by myself, that’s as much of a win as anything else. No matter what it is, just don’t let it keep your world small anymore. J

If you are struggling with anxiety and don’t know where to start, I would recommend you check out my review of my new favorite book on the subject, F**k Anxiety HERE. If you feel like you need to talk to a professional, but don’t know where to start I would recommend Psychology Today to find someone in your area to get help.