SOME CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS FOR PROCRASTINATION:
If you’re familiar with my work, you’ll know that I call procrastination, ‘protection.’
Rather than judging procrastination, trying to coerce yourself through it, or getting mired in it, I love discovering WHY we’re not willing to take the action that we’re apparently wanting to take.
When we discover the REAL causes, we can create solutions at the real causal level, and find our true WILLINGNESS to take action.
∞∞∞∞∞
Here are some causes and solutions:
Cause#1:
You don’t actually want to do that thing – either you used to, or someone told you to do it, or you think it’s the thing to do. But you don’t actually WANT to do that thing. It isn’t your desire or your calling.
Solution#1:
You could ask yourself, “What DO really want to do? What brings me alive? What am I feeling called to do?
∞∞∞∞∞
Cause#2
You think that you ‘should’ do that thing, and your desire for autonomy means you’re not willing to do something that you’re coercing yourself to do.
Solution#2
You could ask yourself if you actually want to do that thing; does it fit with your values or purpose or calling or needs?
∞∞∞∞∞
Cause#3
You are telling yourself harsh things about your ability to do it, eg. “I’m too xyzz or I can’t do this or I’m not enough xyz to do this.” These are harsh voices and doubts that you’ve internalised from others.
Solution#3
Find some Inner Loving Crew or Outer Loving Crew to give you encouragement, reassurance and celebration of your capacity to do this.
∞∞∞∞∞
Cause#4
Practical outer things are getting in the way of you doing it, eg. not enough time, information, practical skills etc.
Solution#4
Do The Willingness Practice to discover if you really are willing to do the thing, and claim your willingness to have enough time, information, practical skills or whatever it is.
∞∞∞∞∞
Cause #5
You feel scared. Fear around taking action almost always is fear from the past. This is reminding you of a time in the past when you took action and were judged or shamed or ignored or hurt in other ways. The fear is from little parts of you.
Solution#5
Listen with loving compassion to the younger parts of you. I use the Inner Loving Presence Process to do this. When we listen compassionately to the experiences of the younger parts of us, and give them reparative experiences, we are free to love them but not act from them. We can find our willingness to take action from our Soul rather than from the little parts of us.
∞∞∞∞∞
Cause#6
External things keep getting in the way whenever you go to take action eg technical glitches; physical symptoms. This is generally a reflection of our willingness. If we’re not really willing to have, do or be something but we coerce ourselves into taking action without coming to true willingness, Life will bring us external events to prevent us moving forward, until we do find willingness.
It can on some occasions be Life giving us information, but this is way less likely – so often, people will say, “The Universe is telling me not to do this” when it’s actually little parts that feel scared or we haven’t found willingness for other reasons.
Solution#6
The Willingness Practice helps us see what is REALLY getting in the way of our willingness and helps us find true willingness, rather than coercing ourselves or acting without listening to what the fear is trying to tell us.
∞∞∞∞∞
Cause#7
Deeper down, we’re concerned that if we do take that action and have the outcome that we want, that something we don’t want will happen. That might be that we don’t honour our values, such as connection with our family or care for our bodies, or that experiences in the past have led us to believe that doing, being or having that thing will mean that we need to experience things we don’t want, like working really hard, ignoring others, not caring for our needs, etc.
Solution#7
For this one, I LOVE The Quantum Quick Version of The Willingness Practice. This helps us see what we’re believing will happen if we do the thing we want to do, (putting the cards on the table) and then turning those cards over, to claim ALL the things that we want. For example, we might believe that setting up a website means ignoring our children, so we won’t set up the website. Doing the QQWP, we can see that what we really WANT is to set up a website AND have plenty of time being connected with our children. When we get clear about ALL our needs, desires, callings and values, we can easily find willingness and then take fluid flowful action.
∞∞∞∞∞
I wonder if you recognise any of these?
When we understand WHY we’re not taking action, and create change at that causal level, we can generally find true WILLINGNESS.
Willingness is where we connect with our life force, our connection with the life force of Life, and with a state of flow and wu-wei.
When we find true willingness, the experience is COMPLETELY different from self-coercion and other harsh methods.
Even more wonderfully, Life responds to our willingness, rather than what we want. Willingness creates flow, synchronicity and a sense of all the pieces falling into place.
Our Willingness is the conduit between Calling and Manifestation, between Spirit and Matter.
When we connect with our calling, and find true willingness to take action in service of our calling, the physical manifestations of that are free to come into form.
∞∞∞∞∞
THE CALLING COMES FIRST, THEN DOUBTS, SECOND-GUESSING, FEAR AND PROCRASTINATION. Here’s why, and the antidotes!
∞∞∞∞∞∞
PART ONE ~ DOUBTS AND SECOND-GUESSING
Do you ever have a clear divine download to do something (a creative idea, a vision, a calling), and you feel excited, alive, energised?
And THEN come in doubts, second guessing, fear, and a million ‘sensible reasons’ why NOT to do that.
The thoughts might be things like,
“Who am I to do this?”
“There are a million other people doing things like this.”
“People won’t like what I’m doing.”
“I can’t do it.”
“I don’t have enough money/time/skills to do this.”
“My parenting will suffer if I do this.”
“I’m too young/old/insert any judgment to do this.”
“I’m not young/old/etc enough to do this.”
“I’m not as xyz as (insert other person) is so I can’t do it.”
“Maybe that’s not the thing for me to do.”
“I don’t know if this is what I’m meant to do.”
“Perhaps I should xyz instead.”
“Maybe it isn’t the right time for me to do it.”
∞∞∞∞∞∞
Here’s the thing.
The divine download is your Soul’s calling.
That feeling of excitement, aliveness, energy; that’s your connection to Source.
That’s Source and your Soul communicating.
∞∞∞∞∞∞
The doubts, the judgments, the second-guessing, all those thinky things that feel painful, those all are internalised from outside, often from when you were younger.
Moreover, if we grew up in a very different culture, where children’s preferences, interests and callings were heard and honoured, where shaming and judgment and comparison and punishment didn’t occur, where all adults could see the unique soul of a child and support their soul’s journey, we wouldn’t have any of that stuff happen.
We’d simply hear the calling, honour and trust it, and respond to it.
We would respond lovingly to every calling.
We wouldn’t judge it or doubt it or shame it.
That’s kind of like receiving a beautiful gift and then saying it’s not ‘good enough’ to open.
∞∞∞∞∞∞
The doubts, the second-guessing, all that painful stuff, originated from outside of you.
In the psychospiritual entrepreneurship journey, one of the key pieces is to increasingly recognise the difference between the original calling and the internalised voices that come next.
The beauty of this journey means that you not only are freer to take action on those Soul Callings,
you also increasingly develop a personality that is an accurate reflection of your soul.
The doubts and judgments become increasingly replaced by a deep sense of inner trust of your self and Source.
The inner harshness and comparison become increasingly replaced by inner compassion and unconditional love.
The starting and stopping become increasingly replaced by a flow of energy and action – calling and response. You receive the calling, you respond lovingly to it, and there’s flow and an innate sense of inner ‘rightness’.
The journey becomes not only what you share with the world, but also the alchemical transformation that happens within you, as you increasingly become who you really are.
∞∞∞∞∞∞
PART TWO ~ FEAR
What about the fear that can come next?
Some of the fear can be as a result of those harsh inner judgments and doubts.
But there’s one main other cause of the fear.
The fear is very very rarely about the present moment.
The fear is coming from younger parts of us.
Something about the present situation is reminding us of a past experience that we haven’t yet healed from.
Often they are experiences such as:
Speaking our voice or speaking up and not being heard, being shamed, or being judged.
Creating something and it being marked, mocked or belittled.
Dancing, singing, being ourselves and being punished.
Having our talents compared to others.
Being hurt when we were truly ourselves.
Being shamed or ridiculed when we expressed our unique perspective.
Being told that following our preferences, interests or callings wasn’t safe or wasn’t worthy.
Being hurt in any way when we were ourselves or expressed ourselves.
Our psyche is so amazing that whenever a situation in the present reminds us of any of those, the feelings that belong to that time in the past, in the part of us that was whatever age we were, come up in the here and now.
And often we can believe that those feelings are about the now. Because they feel so real and seem to be about NOW.
The fear isn’t about now.
The fear is from the three year old you who sang a song she made up and was laughed at by her brother.
The fear is from the 8 year old you that longed to learn to play the piano but was told it wouldn’t get you anywhere.
The fear is from the 18 year old you that wanted to start up your own florist but was shamed and coerced into going to University.
Here’s the opportunity.
Not to judge the fear or pretend it isn’t there or spiritually bypass the fear.
But to listen lovingly to those little parts of you.
To hear their experience with unconditional love.
And to give them a reparative experience – the honouring, trust and support that they needed back then.
To keep on caring for them in the present so that you’re free to follow your Soul’s Callings.
So, there’s this beautiful opportunity.
Not only to follow your callings.
But to gather up all the little parts of you that got left behind, to love them, listen to them, and give them what they always needed.
To become more whole.
∞∞∞∞∞∞
PART THREE ~ RELUCTANCE AND PROCRASTINATION
What about when you LOVE the download, and you’ve got all the ideas in place, but you just keep on NOT taking action, or outside events apparently keep stopping you from taking action (like tech challenges, health issues, etc etc).
You might want to see my post on procrastination.
One of the reasons is because we believe that if we do take action, another of our needs or values might not be honoured.
For example, we might believe that if we take action, we will need to work really hard, or we will lose our compassion, or we will ignore our children.
We might believe that if we do that thing, people won’t like us, will be jealous of us, or will judge us (these are based on past experience. What we’re afraid of has already happened – as we talked about in part two).
If we believe we’re going to need to give up on our needs, or our values, or we’ll get hurt again in ways we got hurt before, then we’re probably not going to be willing to take this action.
∞∞∞∞∞∞
The wonderful thing is that we can respond to all three of these so that we can follow our calling AND become more who we really are!
ANTIDOTE #1
We can receive new, supportive outer messages about following our calling, and we can internalise them, so that our inner dialogue becomes deeply trusting of our callings.
(I do this with my Inner Loving Crew work).
ANTIDOTE #2
We can find the source of each hurt; listen to that younger-aged part of us, hear her feelings, and give her reparative experiences. This means that when we go to share our offerings, the little parts of us know that they are safe this time.
(I do this with my Inner Loving Presence Process).
ANTIDOTE #3
We can listen to ALL of our needs and values and add those to what we want, alongside our calling. eg. “I really want to have my book published AND to spend lots of time with my children AND for it all to flow with ease.” Then we are likely to be willing to take action.
(I do this with my Willingness Practice).
∞∞∞∞∞∞
The more we understand that what comes first is the calling,
that the doubt and second guessing are internalised voices from the past that we can replace with new, encouraging inner dialogue,
that the fear is from the younger parts, whom we can lovingly listen to and give reparative experiences to,
and the procrastination is other needs and values that need to be included,
The freer we are to follow our calling,
whilst also becoming increasingly self-trusting, self-compassionate, and self-acknowledging.
∞∞∞∞∞∞
This is what my work helps with.
SOUL CALLING, LEARNT RESPONSE AND SOUL RESPONSE.
SOUL CALLING COMES FIRST:
First comes the Soul calling.
You’ll usually know that it’s a soul calling because you’ll tend to feel:
euphoric, lively, excited, energised, enlivened, invigorated, vibrant, absorbed, entranced, animated, enthusiastic, inspired
and you will probably have an inflow of ideas, a rush of interconnections, new ways of seeing things, creative inspiration.
This comes from the connection between your Soul and Source.
What is your particular flavour of Soul calling? What are the feelings and experiences you tend to have?
∞∞∞∞∞
LEARNT RESPONSES COME SECOND:
The second flavour that can come in are LEARNT responses.
These are internalised voices and responses.
They came from outside of you.
They are from times as a child, teen or younger adult when you had a soul calling and others responded with questioning, ignoring, judgment, shame, and generally not trusting you and your callings.
These might be things like,
“Who am I to do this?”
“I am too (insert judgment) or not enough (insert judgment) to do this.”
“Other people are doing this already, and they’re better than me.”
“I’m probably not meant to do this/ it wasn’t really a calling/ it’s not the right time.”
You can notice the learnt responses from the feeling states that match those learnt responses. You might feel flat, lethargic, depressed, worried, frustrated, confused, distracted, numb, uncomfortable, sad, discouraged, despondent, overwhelmed.
I invite you to notice what your habitual learnt responses are, and how you feel when you think those.
Recognising them is an important part of the journey!
∞∞∞∞∞
THIRD, WE CAN CHOOSE TO REPLACE THESE WITH SOUL RESPONSES
The wonderful thing is that because those are NOT FROM OUR SOUL, we can replace them with SOUL RESPONSES.
The more we choose to respond to our Soul’s Callings with Soul Responses, the more those become the habitual response.
The doubt, second-guessing, comparison, judgment, shame; eventually all these decrease and decrease.
Soul responses can include:
“I trust you and your callings.”
“What you want to do is your soul calling”
“Life is calling through you”
“Your callings are of value to this world”
“I know you can do what you feel called to do”
“Your gifts are unique and important”
“What you do makes a difference to the lives of others”
“I deeply value your unique offerings”
“I’m here to support you in sharing your gifts and making a difference”
“You are here for a reason”
“I love what you are passionate about”
“You have gifts that noone else has”
“Even when you don’t feel connected with your calling, I am holding it for you”
“You have what it takes to make the difference you want to make”
“I have faith in you”
“I’m always here, walking alongside you”
“I’m here with you”
“I trust you”
“I value you”
“I’m right here with you.”
They will tend to lead to feeling relieved, excited, jubilant, elated, warm, clear, flowing, calm, trust, relaxed, absorbed, inner confidence, empowered, fulfilled, belonging, relaxed, trusting.
Eventually, the learnt/internalised responses get replaced by the Soul responses, so we return to where we would have been if we’d been seen, honoured, trusted, valued, celebrated the first time around!
∞∞∞∞∞