beating procrastination

8/11/2019 Beating Procrastination

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TITLE

The Little Guide To Beating Procrastination,

Perfectionism and Blocks: A Manual for Artists,

Activists, Entrepreneurs, Academics and OtherAmbitious Dreamersby Hillary Rettig

VERSION INFORMATION

Version 1.0 released 12/10/07AUTHORSHIP

This e-book is adapted from my bookThe Lifelong Activist: How to Change the WorldWithout Losing Your Way(Lantern Books, 2006). For more information on The LifelongActivistplease visit http://www.hillaryrettig.com.I do life and career coaching that help activists, artists, entrepreneurs, students andother ambitious dreamers break free of procrastination, perfectionism, fear, negativityand other blocks to success so that they can achieve their life goals. I also help peoplesucceed at their job searches (thats what the subject of my next book will be). If youlike the approach in this e-book, and think my coaching would be helpful to you, pleaseemail me at [email protected]. You can also readmore about my coaching andworkshop services at http://www.hillaryrettig.com.If this e-book has helped you, and/or if you have suggestions for the next edition, I wouldwelcome hearing from you. Thanks, Hillary. [email protected]

The information in this e-book is presented without warranty of any kind. It has helpedmany people, and it is my sincere wish that it help you, but I cant accept responsibilityfor any negative result you feel you may have obtained from using it. If you are sufferingfrom an intractable procrastination problem, or panic attacks, anxiety, depression,addiction or any other psychological or physical condition, please seek professional helpbefore following the advice herein. - HillaryLICENSE

This e-book is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike3.0license,which means you are allowed to copy, alter and distribute it non-
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TEXT NOTES

*Throughout The Little Guide, I use the term artist to refer to creative people of alltypes, including fine artists, musicians, writers, and performers, as well as craftspeople,designers, and other commercial or applied artists.*I often use the word student to refer both to students I have taught in classes andworkshops, and individuals I have coached.

*Please note that although the techniques described in The Little Guide work on their

own, youll probably achieve better results using them in conjunction with the MissionManagement and Time Management techniques described in Parts I and II of TheLifelong Activist. I didnt include those topics here because I wanted to write a littleguide that focused just on the topic that most people seem most urgently interestedin, overcoming procrastination. I do, however, occasionally refer to the importance ofmanaging your mission and time in this e-book, and urge you to pick up The LifelongActivistto read up on those topics.
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PART I. THE PROBLEM DEFINED

Chapter 1.An Early Morning in May (or September, or January)

So heres what happens:You have a plan lets say, to wake up at 7; be washed and dressed and

breakfasted by 8; at your desk, easel or other workspace by 9; work three hours; exerciseduring your lunch break; eat a healthy salad at your desk; work four more hours; comehome; eat dinner with your partner; work a couple more hours in the evening; and thencurl up in bed with a good book.

But you dont follow the plan.Maybe you wake up late - at 8, or 9, ornoon! The plan is trashed before you

even get started.Or, maybe, it takes you not one, but three hours to make it to your desk. And

then, once youre there, you spend an hour or three reading the newspaper, Web surfing,and making personal calls.

Or, maybe when lunchtime rolls around you dont exercise and instead of a saladeat a gigantic submarine sandwich - and then spend the rest of the afternoon feelingsluggish and dont get much done.

Etc.Procrastination is when you get bumped off the path you set for yourself for the

day. Meaning, you start the day with a plan, but somehow, by the time bedtime rollsaround, you havent accomplished some, or all, of what you had intended.

There are other definitions of procrastination, but I like mine because it reflectsthe notion that, at every moment, youre making a choice to either stay on your path (orschedule) or leave it. The challenge of beating procrastination is the challenge ofresisting the urge to leave your path. This is also the challenge of beating blocks, since ablock is really an ongoing procrastination problem that lasts weeks, months, years ordecades.

This e-book will help you figure out what is causing you to leave your daily path,and what you can do to stay on it. It offers not one, but three proven solutions toprocrastination: Ive used these solutions myself with great success, and so have many ofmy students and coaching clients. Moreover, these solutions work fast. Students whoemploy them often shoot ahead like arrows on their goals, even if theyve been blocked

for years. Ill explain why that is so later in the book. For now, just relax and read on,and rest assured that, by the time you finish, you will be much more empowered tofinally defeat your procrastination problem and live the productive and happy life youvealways yearned for.


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Chapter 2.

Things That Bump Us Off Our Path

Lets say you planned to be at your computer, working on a project, at 10 a.m. on

a Monday morning, but youre not. Why not? The answer could be one or more of the

following:

*Got up late.*Quarreled with your lover last night, and keep reliving the quarrel in your mind.*Are too tired the coffee hasnt kicked in yet.*Are too hyper drank too much coffee and cant sit still.*Are distracted by the weather its beautiful out and youd love to take a walk or bikeride.*Are distracted by the weather its awful and depressing.*Got a call (or email or instant message) from a friend, who is depressed (though not incrisis) and needed to talk.

*Got a call from a friend (or email or instant message) who is happy and wanted to sharegood news.*Are reading the newspaper every last word of it.*Are Web surfing or Web shopping.*Are playing Solitaire.*Just realized that it is highly important to work on some other project.Or, if you work in a home office:*Turned on the TV for a minute and saw that one of your favorite actors was beinginterviewed, so you decide to watch the interview.*Just realized that the laundry desperately needs to get done!

These are typical of the kinds of things that can bump you off your path. Its onlya partial list, of course - you can probably add many other entries to it. There areprobably hundreds of potential bumps that can knock you off your path.

One important thing to notice is that, while some of these bumps seem goodor worthwhile (like commiserating with your unhappy friend or doing the laundry), andsome seem bad or frivolous (like playing Solitaire), they are all equally unacceptablefrom the standpoint of beating your procrastination habit. You will need to learn to resistthe urge to get sucked into activities not on your schedule, no matter how important orvirtuous they seem at the moment. The one exception, of course, is emergencies, bywhich I mean activities that cant be postponed without significant hurt to yourself orothers. But even with an emergency, after youve dealt with it, ask yourself whether it

could have been prevented by better planning, or whether someone else could havehandled it. If youve got an ambitious goal, it is very important to learn to minimize thenumber of preventable emergencies in your life, and to learn to delegate as much aspossible.

If it sounds like Im taking a hard line, I am. I need to, because procrastinators areoften adept at rationalizing their diversions. Obviously, if someone is sick or otherwise


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incapacitated, we should help them, but to what extent? Its not always clear, and manyprocrastinators misjudge, sacrificing too much of their own time to help others, evenwhen those others arent particularly needy or when someone else is available to help.This problem can be hard to identify, much less solve, because the (deservedly) virtuousfeeling one gets from helping often offsets the guilt that the procrastination normally

engenders.

Look at Your Commitments With a Fresh Eye

When you start looking at your commitments from the standpoint of someonewho is determined to succeed at their ambitious dream meaning, someone who mustuse their time optimally - fresh solutions to formerly unsolvable dilemmas oftenpresent themselves. So, for instance:

*Your elderly parents could probably find someone else to mow their lawn andpick up the groceries - like another family member, or the high school kid down theblock who needs a few extra bucks. Or,

*Your spouse and kids could probably survive on take-out (or cook their ownfood!) a few nights a week. Or,*Your friend who needs a lot of support could find others - friends or even

professionals, such as a therapist - to help provide it.If you didnt have an ambitious dream that you were pursuing on top of lifes

ordinary demands, then maybe you could get away with mowing the lawn, cooking allthe meals, and talking for hours each day with your friend. But once you own up to yourambitious dream, you are essentially declaring that you will be very particular and self-directed in how you spend your time, because you need to reserve as much time aspossible for your dream. This is in direct contrast to most people, who let others -including loved ones, friends, neighbors, coworkers and corporations - control their timefor them.

Almost all ambitious dreamers, for instance, need to reduce the time they spendon tedious household chores to as close as possible to zero, so that they can use thereclaimed time and energy to work on their dream. Okay, if you enjoy gardening and itfeeds your soul, then dont give that up. But laundry? Yard work? Mopping floors?Standing in line at the grocery store? To the extent youre able to, find someone else todo it. Send your laundry out to be done, hire someone to maintain the lawn (or get yourspouse or kids to do it), buy a floor-mopping robot, and have your groceries delivered. Ifyou feel funny doing any of that, get over it: reducing your housework burden is aninvestment in yourself. Besides, its unrealistic to think that you can spend your time thesame way non-ambitious dreamers do and still accomplish your ambitious dream.

None of this should be taken to mean that you abandon your family or friends. Itjust means you invest your time judiciously. Even though youre not mowing yourparents lawn, for instance, you could still be taking them to medical appointments: thatsa much higher value activity that is probably a far better use of your time. And eventhough youre not cooking home-cooked dinners every night, you could still do it acouple of times a week. And even though youre not going to be able to talk to your


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friend for hours every day, you could still be available to her in times of real need.It can be scary to change the terms of our interaction with someone, especially if

weve been interacting with them a certain way for years. (Double-especially if wevebeen taught to subordinate our needs to others, as many women in particular are.) Peopleoften react badly when we tell them we cant do as much for them, or spend as much

time with them, as we have been. Often, however, if we take the time to share oursituation, dreams and needs, they are surprisingly understanding and eager to help. Sodont just tell people you will be less available - tell them why, and ask for their supportand help.

If, after you share your story, some people still arent understanding, or areactively hostile, thats a sad problem to have, but a common one. Thats why successfulpeople learn to say no, and also to distance themselves from unsupportive or toxicpeople, even if they happen to be related to them.

Whatever time you decide to spend helping others you should build into yourweekly or monthly schedule. You should also build in time both for your own relaxationand for unplanned events and emergencies. Many people think time management is about

trying to stuff as much as possible into ones schedule, but its not; its about clearing asmuch as possible offyour schedule so you can work, at a comfortable, non-stressful pace,on your important goals.

To sum up: whatever bumps you off your path that is not an unpreventableemergency is procrastination, no matter how important it may seem at the time.


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Chapter 3.

Despairand Hope

Most procrastinators tell themselves things like: Im lazy. Im undisciplined. Im

a failure. Im hopeless. Ive got no willpower. Ill never succeed at anything.

Many artists, activists, and other ambitious dreamers take the self-abuse a stepfurther, framing their procrastination as a moral flaw: Im a sell-out, uncommitted,shallow.

Many procrastinators lead a double life, pretending to be happy and productivewhile really feeling besieged. Their boasts about their huge workloads, ability to workunder pressure, and constant need to pull all-nighters are often just a cover for shame anddesperation; and often, when things get really hot - when they are about to miss a seriousdeadline, thereby revealing their true, shameful nature - they cut and run, abandoning aproject, course, job, relationship or other commitment.

Often, procrastinators become depressed almost as soon as they wake up becausethey know they are destined to procrastinate that day. Procrastination can also feel very

confusing. At bedtime, you look back on the day and cant figure out where your timewent. You remember reading the headlines, drinking a cup of coffee with yourofficemates, watching some television, and surfing the Web, but those random activitiescouldnt possibly have filled the entire day, could they? But, of course, they did. Thatswhat Charles Dickens meant, inDavid Copperfield, when he had Mr. Macawber callprocrastination, the thief of time. To a procrastinator, it really does feel as if his or hertime were somehow stolen.

If a procrastination problem is serious enough, and lasts long enough, it is oftencalled a block, as in writers block. Anyone can be blocked, and many people,perhaps most, are. Sometimes, blocks last for weeks or months, but often, tragically, theylast for years, decades or even entire lifetimes. Being blocked is one of the worst feelings

in the world; it drives some people to absolute despair.Wait - Theres Good News!

But wait - theres no need to feel ashamed or despairing! When one of mystudents confesses to a procrastination problem, I congratulate her. Yes, congratulate.Heres why:

*Procrastination is an affliction of ambitious people. If you dont believe me, do aWeb search on procrastination: youll get links to hundreds of pages advising you onhow not to procrastinate when writing your novel or thesis, pursuing a fitness program,or looking for a new job. These are all ambitious endeavors, and people who pursue them

should be admired even if they do procrastinate.*All procrastinators, no matter how thwarted, can boast at least one achievement:

they havent given up on their dream. If they had, they wouldnt be worried aboutprocrastinating on it.

To hold onto an ambitious dream despite ones fears, and also (frequently) despitediscouragement and disapproval from those around us and society itself, takes vision,


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dedication and courage. So, instead of seeing your procrastination problem as a shamefulflaw, try seeing it instead as a symbol of something great within you. Yeah, youve gotsome work to do to realize your full potential - like who hasnt? But at least you keepshowing up and fighting the good fight.

Another reason not to feel bad about your procrastination problem is that pretty

much everyone procrastinates.Ever since I became interested in procrastination, a few years back, Ive made apoint of asking many of the people I talk with whether they procrastinate. Ive asked verysuccessful people and people who were less successful; people with long-establishedcareers and those just starting out.

And guess what? Ive only met one or two people who said they neverprocrastinated. So, pretty much everyone has days when they get bumped off their path.Everyone has goals - often, the goals nearest and dearest to their hearts - that they are notmaking progress on as fast as they would like. Its true that successful people tend toprocrastinate less than the unsuccessful ones - that is, I believe, the very thing that makesthem successful-but sometimes they do it, too.

This book is written specifically for artists, activists, entrepreneurs, academicsand other ambitious dreamers. Are these groups particularly prone to procrastination?Maybe. As the late, great novelist and teacher John Gardner said in his book OnBecoming a Novelist:

Theoretically theres no reason one should get [writers block], if one understands thatwriting, after all, is only writing, neither something one ought to feel deeply guilty aboutnor something one ought to be inordinately proud of. If children can build sand castleswithout getting sand castle block, and ministers can pray over the sick without gettingholiness block, the writer who enjoys his work and takes measured pride in it shouldnever be troubled by writers block. But alas, nothings simple. The very qualities thatmake one a writer in the first place contribute to block: hypersensitivity, stubbornness,insatiability, and so on.

Gardner considers those characteristics virtues, and so do I. (What hecalls hypersensitivity, however, I call sensitivity. I define hypersensitivity differentlyand see it as a problem, as discussed in Chapter 18.)

Lets also not forget that ambitious dreamers choose to pursue exceptionallydifficult goals - otherwise, theyd be UNambitious dreamers, right? Ordinary life ispretty complex stuff, says writer Harvey Pekar, but in addition to the complexities ofordinary life, ambitious dreamers can expect to face financial risk - if not probableimpoverishment; emotional risk and rejection; lack of support from family and/orsociety; and stressful working conditions. And that doesnt even count the inherentdifficulties of the goal itself - i.e., the need of the artist to perfect her craft and sell herwork, or of the academic to finish his thesis.

Many people flee from these kinds of stresses, and I, for one, cant blame them.The problem, however, is that in doing so they also flee from their dreams. Whenever Iteach, I remind my students - who are often deeply ashamed of their procrastination


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problem - of the many people who have given up on their dreams. We all share amoment of sadness for those people, and then I quietly congratulate my students forpersevering in their own dreams despite all the difficulties and barriers.

I would similarly congratulate you.


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Chapter 4.

The Problem You Think Youre Solving

Look, youre a smart person. A creative person. A dedicated person. Im pretty

sure about all of that, or you wouldnt be an ambitious dreamer, or reading this e-book.

So, how come you cant solve a little procrastination problem?If youre like many of my students, that question has haunted you for years. One

of the most frustrating things about procrastination is that it seems like it would be theeasiest problem in the world to solve - Just work harder, Sally! - when, in reality, it isone of the hardest.

Actually, thats not quite true. Any problem is hard to solve, if youre not reallysolving it.

Huh?I mean it: the only way to solve a problem is to solve it. If you try to solve a

problem using actions designed to solve some other problem, or actions designed to solveno problem at all, but instead to maintain the status quo, then you are bound to fail.

(Why would someone who procrastinates, and is made miserable thereby, want tomaintain the status quo? See Chapter 5.) You can try from here to the moon, harnessingall the brainpower, creativity and passion you can muster, and youll still never solve theproblem.

Makes sense, doesnt it? Heres how it applies to your procrastination problem:You probably think the root problem causing your procrastination is laziness, lack

of discipline, lack of willpower, immaturity, lack of commitment, or some similarcharacter flaw.

But guess what? Its likely none of those.First of all, most procrastinators are not - I repeat, not - lazy, undisciplined, etc. In

fact, most tend to be dynamos in areas other than the one they are procrastinating in. One

of the peculiar tortures of procrastination is that we are often productive in areas of ourlives other than the one closest to our heart.

Secondly - and you will hear me say this repeatedly because its such a vital point- applying negative labels such as lazy or undisciplined to yourself is, from aproblem-solving standpoint, worse than useless. Not only do those labels misidentify theproblem, they actually make the situation worse by undermining your self-confidenceand predisposing you to failure. As I discuss in Chapter 20, parents, teachers, coachesand mentors all know that criticism, shame and blame do not inspire positive behavioralchange. Rather, encouragement and praise for any small step taken are the way to go.And thats not just true for kids; its true for everyone at any age.

Moreover, the field of expectations psychology has shown us that people often

live up or down to the labels others stick on them; so that if someone repeatedly callsyou, or you repeatedly call yourself, lazy or uncommitted, you are likely to live downto that label. Ill have a lot more to say about labels in Chapter 17, but in the meantime-stop negatively labeling yourself!

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The Myth of Laziness

Think of yourself as lazy or uncommitted? In a book entitled The Myth of

Laziness, learning disabilities expert Mel Levine, M.D., discusses how many casesof laziness can be traced to undiagnosed or untreated learning disabilities, teaching

failures, physical problems like bad eyesight or motor control, an inadequate physicalenvironment, or a chaotic family life. Once these causes are diagnosed and addressed, apersons supposed laziness often evaporates. Levines approach highlights how justimportant it is to characterize your procrastination problem properly.

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Chapter 5.

The Problems You Should Be Solving

More often than not, solving, or resolving, a problem is a rather trivial exercise - oncewe know what the problem is.-Gause and Weinberg,Are Your Lights On? How to

Figure Out What the Problem REALLY Is.

Treating procrastination as a symptom of laziness or a lack of discipline doesntwork because those are not the causes of procrastination. Rather, they are symptoms, justlike procrastination itself is a symptom, of a deeper problem. That problem is usuallyeither:

1. You were never taught the habits of productive work. Since nature abhors avacuum, this probably means youve instead learned the default habits of lowproductivity or non-productivity. This results in what I call Behavioral-BasedProcrastination. Or,

2. Fear: of change, success, failure, etc. This results in what I call Fear-Based

Procrastination.Often, people suffer from both.Behavioral-Based Procrastination is a relatively simple problem to define and

solve, and I do so starting in Chapter 23.Fear-Based Procrastination is more complex. Steven Pressfield, in his excellent

book The War of Artdescribes Resistance (his word for procrastination)as: invisibleinternalinsidiousimplacableimpersonalinfallibleuniversal.Hes absolutely right. Unlike Behavioral-Based Procrastination, which is usually causedby a lack of information or training, Fear-Based Procrastination is caused by, as its nameimplies, fear. Fear is unfortunately a major force in many peoples lives: its often arational, if not optimal, response to the difficulties and stresses of life and an ambitious

path.The Purpose of Fear-Based Procrastination

Fear-Based Procrastination (FBP) is not a random bad habit: it has a purpose,which is to keep you stuck at your current level of achievement so that you dont have toface the frightening consequences of making progress on your goal.

*If youre a writer, artist, or student, FBP helps ensure that you either never startyour work, or never finish it. This, in turn, helps you avoid having your work judged andpossibly rejected. Or, judged and accepted, which may feel better than rejection initially,but can bring its own problems and stresses, as I discuss in Chapter 8.

*If youre an activist, FBP helps ensure that you either dont do activism or dontdo it well. For instance, it could lead to your interacting mainly with people who alreadyshare your views - the infamous echo chamber problem. This, in turn, helps you avoidhaving your viewpoints, and possibly yourself, rejected. Or, it helps you avoid havingyour viewpoint accepted, in which case you will have a new set of challenges andresponsibilities.


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*If youre an entrepreneur, FBP helps ensure that you either never start yourbusiness, or that you spend your time doing the wrong work, or no work. This, in turn,helps you avoid the scary task of sales, and consequent risk of rejection. Or, FBP helpsyou avoid the stressful and scary consequences of business success, including a heavierworkload and more employees to manage.

*If you are in a bad relationship, FBP helps ensure that you never leave it. This,in turn, helps you avoid the risks of loneliness, economic decline (if your partner ishelping to support your lifestyle), rejection by potential new lovers, or a future worserelationship. Or, if the relationship is salvageable, FBP helps ensure that you do not go tocouples therapy or take other positive steps, thus helping you avoid the vulnerability andrisks inherent in true intimacy.

*If youre stuck in a bad job, FBP helps ensure that you either never look foranother one, or look ineffectually. This, in turn, helps you avoid having to do a full-borejob search (a highly stressful experience for most people), possible rejection, or thechance that youll wind up in an even worse job. Or, it helps you avoid the consequencesof success, including finding a job that might be better in many ways, but that also

involves more responsibility and stress.Fear-Based Procrastinations Stealthy Nature

Remember all those bumps we discussed in Chapter 2 - personal calls,newspapers, Web surfing, brooding about relationships or the weather, etc.? As you nowknow, those arent the actual cause of your procrastination - the cause is fear - but theyare the activities we turn to when we are afraid, and they serve to distract us from boththe fear, and the guilty knowledge that we are procrastinating. Procrastination has, infact, an amazing ability to disguise itself: that is one of its most powerful weapons. Whatcould be the harm in talking to Jane for ten more minutes, especially as shes having

such a rough day?we tell ourselves. Or: Wow, the living room rug is really filthy! It willonly take a few minutes to vacuum it... Or:Oh, theres my favorite actor on that TV show it cant hurt to watch for just a few minutes. Or:No point in even getting started beforeIve had my coffee. It all sounds so plausible - which is why procrastination, especiallyafter weve practiced it for years or decades, gains such a tough hold on us.

At its most insidious, procrastination disguises itself as a slew of productive-seeming, but not actually productive, behaviors that suck up a lot of time and give youthe illusion of progress, but bring you no closer to achieving your goal. So, you spend alot of time doing relatively unimportant busywork for your business, but dont actuallygo out and do the most important activity of all, sales. Or, you spend a lot of time readingart magazines and visiting galleries, but dont actually paint. Or, you keep researchingyour novel or thesis topic, but dont actually get around to writing it or you keeprewriting the same chapter over and over again.

This kind of fake productivity is often exacerbated by perfectionism, one of thefour main habits of procrastination and, hence, one of the four main obstacles thatprocrastinators must overcome to be able to do their work. (The other three arenegativity, hypersensitivity and panic.) I discuss these obstacles in depth in this e-book,


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starting in Chapter 15.And lets not forget procrastinations other valuable tool: its ability to thieve

time. So, you spend the day Web surfing, text messaging, listening to music, playingvideo games, and hanging out with friends - or, alternatively, doing housework, runningerrands, napping, and watching television - and then, all of a sudden, its ten p.m. and

you havent done any of your important work.All of this adds up to the phenomenon Pressfield aptly describesas invisibleinternalinsidiousimplacable... It keeps us stuck - unhappily, for sure,but at least safely protected from the possibility of even more unhappiness.

It is clear that, to defeat procrastination, we need to understand more about ourfears and our responses to those fears. Thats why the next few chapters are devoted tothe topic of fear and its typical causes and manifestations.


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people. This is especially true of activists, whose vocation is all about creating change.Quoting Gandhi, we must become the change we want to see. Confucius agrees: Toput the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, wemust put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personallife; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.

To achieve your goals, you must overcome your fear of change.


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Chapter 7.

Fear II. Fear of Failure

You have to have the courage to fail. - Russian political activist, and former worldchess champion, Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov is one of my heroes: a former world chess champion who, after

retiring, was not content to rest on his laurels, but has devoted himself to fightingcourageously to restore democracy in an increasingly authoritarian Russia. He does notoften come to the United States, so it was a treat for me to hear him speak, recently, at achurch in Cambridge, MA. The place was packed with more than a thousand people half, it seemed, from eastern Europe, and the other half nerdy guys clutching chess booksthey wanted him to autograph. He spoke on the dynamics of success, and the main pointhe kept coming back to was: You have to have the courage to fail. He alsomentioned, I have won hundreds of chess games...and lost thousands.

I went home thinking about how one doesnt become world chess champion

without being super-competitive and absolutely hating to lose, and yet here wasKasparov talking about his thousands of losses - e.g., failures - and how they wereessential to his success.

If such a failure-averse man can have the courage to fail, so can I - and so canyou. Especially if you understand what failure really is.

If an action we take brings us the result we desired, or an even better one, we callit a success. If not, we call it a failure. The trouble comes when we over-identifywith our projects, conflating their success or failure with our own as human beings.Unfortunately, many people, and especially many procrastinators, do this all the time.So, when our projects succeed, we dont just tell ourselves, Wow, I did that so well!We say, Im fabulous, brilliant, queen of the world! And we frequently do feel like

queen of the world, at least for a little while.Now, I dont have a problem with that. Most people spend way too much time

criticizing themselves, not to mention being criticized by others, and could use someextra self-praise. The more, the merrier, as far as Im concerned: just keep it to yourselfso that you dont alienate others.

No, the problem isnt when our projects succeed; its when they fail. Then thereverse happens, and we dont just tell ourselves, Bummer. I guess Ill have to do betternext time, but, Im such a loser. How could I possibly think I could own a business?My folks were right - Im just lazy and stupid. Such negative thoughts are crippling, andin many cases we are so terrified of the possibility that they are correct - that we reallyare stupid losers that we dont even dare to attempt our dream.

As Steven Pressfield puts it in The War of Art, Resistance knows that theamateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in itssuccess and over-terrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzeshim.

Many procrastinators, in fact, have it even worse: they are comfortable takingcredit for their failures, but not their successes. So, failure is due to the persons own


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limitations or ineptness, while success is due to luck or the supposedly trivial nature ofthe challenge. (If the procrastinator succeeded at it, after all, it must be trivial.) Can youimagine a more disabling attitude?

Most young children dont have this problem. A child whose tower of buildingblocks falls down will cry, It fell down! not I failed! If anything, she is likely to

blame the blocks themselves, or some other kid who happened to walk too close to hertower, which is why her disappointment is likely to be only temporary and she is able toreturn happily and confidently to block-building the next day.

At some point, we all must learn to take responsibility for our failures and lookobjectively at our personal limitations. Children raised with kindness and insight becomeresilient adults who can do this without judging themselves harshly. Many of us,however, were not treated so kindly by parents or others and, as a result, are unable torefrain from harsh self-criticism. This makes us terrified of even the possibility of failureand, thus, unable to take appropriate risks. And so we remain frozen:

*We dont leave a bad job in hopes of finding a better one.

*We dont leave a bad relationship in hopes of finding a better one.*We dont take on ambitious projects, or dont finish the projects we take on.*We dont move to a new, more interesting place.

In short, we remain stuck in our ruts.Given procrastinations stealthy nature, of course, we usually dont tell ourselves

were in a rut. On the contrary, we usually tell ourselves that we are trying really, reallyhard to leave the job, relationship, etc. We just dont do a very good job of it.


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Chapter 8.

Fear III. Fear of Success

Fear of failure is an intuitive concept - no one likes to fail. But what about fear of

success? How could anyone be afraid of success?

Consider this: failure, at least, usually has the virtue of leaving us in the sameplace where we started out. Success, in contrast, takes us to someplace new andunknown. And that is scary.

Moreover, the new place is likely to be busier, trickier, more difficult, moreconfusing and less comfortable than the place we left behind:

*Finish your thesis and you will have to experience the judgment of yourcommittee, not to mention the vagaries of the academic job market.

*Run a successful activist campaign and youll wind up with more work to do. AsSaul Alinsky writes inRules for Radicals, In the world as it is, the solution of eachproblem inevitably creates a new one.

*Get a new job and youll have to master a whole new set of relationships,

information and skills.*Get a new relationship and you put your heart on the line.Success also always comes coupled with a new possibility of failure. Theres no

guarantee, after all, that youll prevail at your new challenges; and you could fall flat onyour face.

Success also puts you in the line of fire. Artists and academics both have toendure their work being judged by experts and, sometimes, the wider community. And anactivist who succeeds at a campaign is likely to become a target for the opposition.

Finally, and perhaps hardest to take, is that your success may spark resentmentand even hostility from family and friends who dont support your goals, or who remainstuck in their own ruts. Dont underestimate this: rejection by, and alienation from, loved

ones is a common, and often very hurtful, consequence of success.Success, in other words, is stressful, and sometimes greatly so. Children raised

with kindness and insight become resilient adults who can manage this stress, but manyof us were not treated so kindly by parents or others, and cannot. And so, we dont evenattempt to succeed.

If success is so risky and stressful, why even bother going for it? In On Becominga Novelist, John Gardner says: Nothing is harder than being a true novelist, unless that isall one wants to be, in which case, though becoming a true novelist is hard, everythingelse is harder. Same for all the other types of ambitious dreamers.

On a more prosaic level, success usually brings monetary rewards - even for theactivist, who may finally have a shot at getting a coveted full-time job in his movement.

Then there are the social and spiritual benefits of success: one of the best situationsanyone can find themselves in is as part of a community of successful ambitiousdreamers. So, while your new successful life may be busier and more stressful than yourold one, it will also be richer (in every sense), more interesting and more fulfilling. Yournew friends and colleagues will not only support you through the stressful times, butencourage you along to even greater heights of success and happiness.


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Chapter 9.

No Such Thing as Pure Failure or Success

A few years ago, during the high tech boom of the late 1990s, I started a high tech

business into which, over three years, I sank every penny I had saved. This represented

an enormous financial hit for my family. But the business never took off and, lookingback, I can see that it never took off because of mistakes that I made.

Was the business a failure?At the time it certainly felt that way. When the money ran out and I had to take a

job, I was hugely depressed - and who could blame me? After all, a few months earlier Ihad been visualizing myself as a titan of the new economy. Now, I was scraping by as abusiness coach at a nonprofit agency.

But guess what: I dont see it as a failure any more.First of all, I learned a vast amount from that business failure so much so that I

refer to the experience, jokingly, as my MBA.Second, the coaching job I took out of desperation turned out to be one of the best

experiences of my life, and it changed my life for the better in many ways. I turned out tobe better at coaching than at most of the other ways I had tried to earn a living; I washelping a lot of people; and also my students and fellow coaches turned out to be some ofthe most amazing and inspirational people Ive ever been privileged to know. As a resultof helping people work through their problems and blocks on a daily basis, I foundmyself undergoing a period of rapid personal growth and learning; and I was even able,in a kind of extraordinary coachs alchemy, to transform my business failure, alongwith prior business successes, into useful fodder for my classes and coaching, thusderiving real and ongoing value from an experience that at the time seemed like purefailure.

Ultimately, the chain of events set in place by my business failure led to the

writing and publication of my first book, The Lifelong Activist, and my new, wonderful -and sustainable coaching and speaking business.

So, was my business a failure? Only in the narrowest sense.Stephen Pressfield tells a wonderful story about failure in The War of Art. After

seventeen years of trying to break into the movie business, he finally wrote a screenplaythat got produced, for a movie calledKing Kong Lives. (If you havent heard of it, youcan probably guess the rest of the story . . . .) We were certain it was a blockbuster, hewrites; and he and his colleagues arranged for a fancy party after the premiere. No onecame to the party, however, and the next day the reviews were scathing. Pressfieldwrites: I was crushed. Here I was, forty-two years old, divorced, childless, having givenup all normal human pursuits to chase the dream of being a writer . . . .Im a loser, a

phony; my life is worthless, and so am I. However, he was quickly set right by a wisefriend, who said, Be happy. Youre where you wanted to be, arent you? So youretaking a few blows. Thats the price for being in the arena and not on the sidelines. Stopcomplaining and be grateful.

One moral of Pressfields story, and my own, is that there is no such thing as puresuccess or pure failure. Every experience, including my business andKing Kong Lives,


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is a mixed bag. (Now you know why I frequently put the words failure and successin quotes throughout this e-book.) Of course, success is better than failure, but mostsuccesses contain some element of compromise or failure, and most failures containsome element of success, even if that element may not be immediately apparent. So theline between the two is not nearly as clear as many people think.

No Regrets

In my coaching, I regularly run into people who feel a deep shame for some, ormany, of their past actions. Sometimes, the sin is having dropped out of college, whileother times it is having remained in an abusive relationship, spent ones twenties drunk orstoned, or committed a crime (or crimes). Often, the sin is something most onlookerswould consider relatively minor, or not even a sin at all - like my student who had to stopdoing volunteer work at her church when her child became ill. (Believe it or not, she wasdeeply ashamed of this.) Many people are filled with shame for things they did backwhen they were teenagers or even younger, or for things that other people did to them.

And in many cases that I see, peoples shame and regret are keepingthem frozen and unable to make progress on their goals.Shame, guilt, regret and remorse are toxic, and useless, emotions. The only

proper response to your mistakes is to learn from them, work to ensure that you do

not repeat them, make whatever amends you can to people you have hurt, and move

on. Anything else - any shame, guilt, regret or remorse - wont accomplish anything,

and can, in fact, lead to a pernicious form of procrastination. Sure, I could choose todwell on the many mistakes I made in my business, not to mention all the money I lost.But what exactly would that accomplish? (A non-rhetorical question: think about it.)Once the relevant lessons are learned, and youve made amends as best as can, its timeto move on.

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Exercise: Finding the Success in Failure

Re-examine some of your worst, most shameful failures and see if you canlocate the successes hidden within. Give yourself credit for those successes: you earnedthem the hard way. And stop dwelling over your failures: youve probably done thatenough, already, to last a lifetime.

******


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Chapter 10.

Dont Compound Fear With Shame

In my experience, many people, and especially many men, are ashamed of their

fears. They see them as disgraceful and a sign of weakness.

I disagree. As humans, we are subject to death, disease, disappointment, loss,heartbreak, natural disaster and human-made disaster, among many other afflictions. Fearis, in my view, an entirely reasonable response to this reality.

Then there are the many hardships, risks and rejections of the ambitious life,whether it involves art, academics, activism, entrepreneurship or some other goal. Thesehardships and risks give you even more reason to be afraid.

In other words, to paraphrase the old activist quip about outrage, If youre notafraid, then you havent been paying attention.

So stop blaming yourself for your fears and start asking yourself this questioninstead: How should I respond to my fears?

Steven Pressfield tells how the late actor Henry Fonda suffered from extreme

stage fright throughout his long career. In fact, he got so nervous before every stageperformance and film shoot that he threw up. Thats forty years of throwing up.

And after every episode of throwing up, he proceeded to give his performance.Thats how to respond to fear: not by letting it paralyze you, and not by wasting

time blaming yourself for it, but by doing your work and making progress toward yourgoals.******

Exercise: Experiencing Fear Without Shame

Take two or three tasks you have been procrastinating on and for each write a listof the negative consequences of accomplishing it. If, for example, youve beenprocrastinating on visiting a doctor, your list could include, It will cost $100, Shellgive me a shot, and She might discover something seriously wrong.

After doing this exercise, two things might happen:*You might find yourself becoming more understanding about, and forgiving of,

your procrastination. (No wonder I keep putting this off!) This is a much betterresponse than criticizing or blaming yourself.

*By writing down the negatives, you may defuse them, so that they seem lessscary. You may even feel motivated to go ahead and do the task. If thats the case, go forit! But dont feel bad if you dont experience that motivation, or if it quickly goes away

and youre back to feeling stuck again.Whatever you do, do not put yourself down for having fears and anxieties.

Everyone has them, including highly successful people who often consciously orunconsciously develop skills and strategies for coping with them. Thats what youlllearn to do in future chapters of this book.


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Chapter 11.

Fear Creates Obstacles to Success

As mentioned earlier, one of Fear-Based Procrastinations favorite tactics is to

disguise itself by mimicking productivity. It does this, usually, by generating one of four

characteristic anti-productive behaviors: perfectionism, negativity, hypersensitivity andpanic. I call these the Big Four Obstacles, as they are very frequently the key roadblocksbetween procrastinators and their goals. Most procrastinators are prone to at least one ofthem, and many are prone to all four, so I discuss them at length starting in Chapter 15.

Panic merits a special mention. Its not really an obstacle in and of itself, but actsas an obstacle amplifier, blowing your fears out of proportion and increasing the oddsthat you will retreat into one of the anti-productive behaviors. The task of defeatingfear-based procrastination is fundamentally the task of overcoming panic, so that

when you experience an instance of fear, doubt or discomfort, you do not get

overwhelmed by it and get bumped off your path.

There are also two other categories of obstacles that are not in themselves fear-

based, but that are often present alongside the Big Four: The first are Logistical Obstacles, which are usually caused by simple ignorance.For example:

*Lack of a clearly defined mission and/or path to success*Lack of time management

*Lack of preparation, skills, resources and/or facilities*Lack of mentors or other support

In other words, you either dont know what youre supposed to be doing, or lackthe skills or resources to do it. A typical person suffering from a logistical obstacle wouldbe a business owner who doesnt realize she should be spending at least half her timemarketing and selling, and thus spends her time on less important tasks. Another would

be someone writing his Ph.D. thesis, who tries to tackle that giant project on top of hisordinary schedule, instead of ruthlessly clearing his schedule to create the time andenergy he needs to get it done.

Common solutions to logistical obstacles include: doing mission management andtime management, organizing your office, buying some new equipment, taking a class,and setting up regular consultations with mentors.

Once you commit to overcoming a logistical obstacle, it is often not difficult to doso. If you do have trouble overcoming yours - if you seem to lack the willpower tomake the solution work, or cant even find the time to think about the problem - then youprobably also suffer from fear-based procrastination. (This will be the case for mostpeople.) Youll probably have to deal with the fear first, using the techniques described

later in this e-book, before you can move on to the more superficial logistical fix.There are also what I call Situational Obstacles, which involve other people or

other circumstances outside your full control. A tough day job, heavy familyresponsibilities, and an unsupportive spouse are situational obstacles. So are a disabilityand serious health problems.

Situational obstacles are often the toughest to overcome. Their solutions often


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involve major life changes such as switching jobs, leaving relationships, alteringlifestyles, compromising on ones cherished goals, or committing to individual orcouples therapy. Like logistical obstacles, situational obstacles usually occur alongsidefear-based procrastination, and so youll first have to deal at least partly with your fearsbefore you can effectively start changing your situation. But even once you work past

the fear, you are still left having to deal with some very tough circumstances.


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Chapter 12.

The Most Important Thing You Need to Know About Your Obstacles

The most important thing you need to know about your obstacles is that all of

them can be overcome.

It doesnt matter who you are, how you were raised, what race, religion,nationality or sex you are, or how much money you have. All of your obstacles can beovercome.

Overcoming an obstacle may not be easy. It may not be fun. It may take months,years or even decades. It may take time and money. But it can be done.

Your habits of perfectionism, negativity, hypersensitivity and panic can beovercome.

Your logistical obstacles - lack of preparation, information, support - can beovercome.

Your situational obstacles - bad job, bad relationships, disability or chronic illness- can be overcome, at least in part.

Ill say it again: ALL of your obstacles can be overcome.By overcome, I mean eliminated, minimized or compensated for. You may

have a disability that you must live with, or have experienced a terrible loss from whichthe hurt will never entirely go away. But you can still work to at least minimize thenegative effect of your misfortune on your future success. One of my heroes in thisregard is Christopher Reeve, the late actor who was paralyzed from the neck down in ahorseback-riding accident. Suicidal immediately after the accident, and afterward unableeven to breathe without the help of a respirator, he rallied to become a celebrated activistand author who provided hope, help and inspiration to millions around the globe.

True, Reeve was a movie star who had certain advantages. So, lets look at VictorFrankl, an ordinary, non-celebrity doctor who was imprisoned in Auschwitz and other

concentration camps during World War II. He later wrote a best-selling book about hisexperiences,Mans Search for Meaning, in which he reported that, even in theconcentration camps, It was possible for spiritual life to deepen . . . .The intensificationof inner life helped the prisoner find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation, andspiritual poverty of his existence. In one incredible scene, Frankl describes how, in themidst of aterrifying nighttime forced march, he called up the memory of his wife, whom he hadntseen in years, and how her memory brought him peace.

I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss,be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of

utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his onlyachievement may consist of enduring his sufferings in the right way-an honorable way-in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of hisbeloved, achieve fulfillment.

(Frankl later learned that his wife had died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945.)


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Chapter 13.

Non-Obstacles

Often, my students raise points such as the below to explain their failure to

pursue, or make progress on, their ambitious dream:

*I dont have enough money.*I dont have time.*I dont have transportation / a spare room in my home / a computer / etc.

Not having something you need to succeed, such as money, time ortransportation, is not an obstacle: its a solvable problem.

So start solving it.When pressed, my student without money can come up with a plan for

lowering her daily living expenses, leaving her more money with which to pursue herdream. With her mentors help, she can also think up ways she can achieve her dreammore cheaply. If she wants to start a business, for example, she can set up a home officeinstead of renting an outside one, and furnish it with used, cheap furniture instead of new.

If she needs equipment or supplies she cant afford, she can arrange a barter, or take out alow-interest business loan.

Lowering your living expenses is always a good idea, as it not only leaves youwith more money but often creates more time. It could, for instance, allow you to supportyourself on a part-time day job - thats the path many ambitious dreamers take when theirdream cant financially sustain them. Even working four days a week, versus five, canmake a big difference! Or, if you must have a full-time job, lowering your expensescould permit you to take a lower-paying, but easier, one (say, one with flextime, a shortcommute, and a lighter workload), instead of a higher-paying but harder one that sapsyour time and energy.

How about my student without time? He can use time management techniques

(see The Lifelong Activist) to see if he can reclaim even a few hours of his weeklyschedule. (Most people can, by the way.) And he can come up with a plan for breakinghis big project down into smaller pieces that his schedule can more easily accommodate.

And my student without transportation? When pressed, she recalls that there ispublic transportation that can cover her route, a friend who can lend her a car, or that shecan take the occasional taxi without breaking the bank.

Two things to note, from these examples:1) The solutions to the problems were actually quite simple and even, in

hindsight, obvious. Solutions usually are, once you stop dithering and actually startlooking for them. (See Chapter 22.) Remember: focus on the solution, not the problem.

2) Many of the solutions are, as my technical friends say, sub-optimal. Few

people like having to cut back on their budgets, get used instead of new furniture, orcommit to a long, daily bus ride. But whats the alternative? You can sit around hopingthat youll win the lottery or that things will otherwise magically change, but hope, asthey say, is not a strategy. The above compromises and sacrifices are, in fact, highlycharacteristic of those that ambitious people make to achieve their goals. All around you,people are making them, and without that much of a fuss, in the hopes of one day living a


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Chapter 14.

Beware of Myths that Promote and Excuse Failure

Another set of barriers that ambitious dreamers face are the many condescending

and undermining myths that promote and excuse their dysfunction and unhappiness.

Artists, for instance, frequently hear messages such as these, both from their enemiesand supporters:

One must suffer to be a great artist: if youre happy, you must be a shallow oruncommitted person.Poverty is a sign of virtue and commitment to ones art: earning money is sellingout. And,Art is okay when youre young, but when are you going to get a realjob?

Activists hear similarly destructive messages:

You cant have a personal life - theres too much work to be done.If youre happy, you must be a shallow, uncommitted person. How you can be happywith so much suffering in the world?Poverty is a sign of virtue and commitment to ones cause: earning money is sellingout. And,Activists are nave dreamers. Activism is something you grow out of.

Entrepreneurs have it somewhat easier, since our society at least pretends tocelebrate entrepreneurship. What it typically celebrates, however, is a shallow, idealized,glamorized vision of it that has little to do with reality. Often, the media play up the easyor spectacular overnight successes or rags to riches stories that are far from the norm.

The media also tends to downplay struggles or failures except when those can be used toprovide glamorous contrast to a spectacular success, and to deemphasize the role of luckin business success. (More on all of this in Chapter 20.)

Academics typically dont suffer from the same sorts of damaging myths asartists, activists and entrepreneurs, in my experience, although they do suffer from ageneral disdain for academic achievement in this country. It can be hard to persevere inthe face of such disdain, particularly when members of your family share it. Beyondthat, many academics suffer from inadequate mentoring, especially during the thesis-writing process.

Finally, a problem that afflicts all categories of ambitious dreamers is oursocietys promotion of the myth of the solitary, usually emotionally-tortured, achiever/

creator. That can reinforce an unhealthy and anti-productive tendency toward isolation, atopic I at discuss at length in Chapter 18.

If you believe in one or more of the above myths, your belief is probably standingin the way of both your professional success and your ability to lead a happy life. Trywriting out your thoughts and feelings around the myth: you will probably discover thatit doesnt survive the light of close scrutiny and objective, dispassionate analysis. Also,


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see Chapter 22 for more on how these kinds of distortions can foster a procrastinationproblem.

Weve now finished our discussion of the general role of fear plays inprocrastination. Now lets delve more deeply into fears most common manifestations,

the Big Four obstacles of Perfectionism, Negativity, Hypersensitivity and Panic.Well tackle them one at a time.


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Chapter 15.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism is the feeling that the things we do or create are never quite goodenough. Perfectionists hold themselves to an unreasonably high standard for success, and

then, when they perceive themselves as failing to meet that standard, judge themselvesharshly. They also often inflict that same behavior on others, holding them to anunreasonably high standard and judging them harshly when they fail.

More specifically, perfectionists:*Refuse to acknowledge the incremental nature of creation: that it happens in

stages and that the early stages are likely to be rough and unsatisfying. In fact, they thinktheir early efforts should be fabulous. They often dont think this consciously - its aviewpoint, after all, that doesnt make sense - but unconsciously or semi-consciously,they are thinking, The first draft of this paper ought to be fantastic.

*Underestimate the difficulty of their projects, e.g., Ill just hang up a few fliers,and that should fill the room for my event.

*Set ridiculously high or impossible goals, e.g., Im going to write fifty pages ofmy thesis this weekend despite the fact that theyve never written more than eight pagesin a day, and also have numerous other obligations.

*Tend to see things in black and white: total success or total failure. They dontunderstand that doing half of a job - or even one-tenth - is way better than doing nothing.After all, if you do just a tiny bit of a job every day, you will eventually finish it. But ifyou do none of a job every day, you never will. Emotionally, if not intellectually,procrastinators dont get the difference.

Perfectionists, above all, see work as a kind of epic struggle. They dont quitetrust success when it comes too easily. Because of that, they often do things that maketheir work harder, such as choosing unreasonably hard projects (meaning, projects they

are too inexperienced to handle, or that they dont have the time, resources or support tocomplete effectively); framing their projects in monumental terms; and addingunnecessary tasks to projects.

Perfectionism is the voice in your head that says that no matter what youve done,its not enough, or not good enough. Its the voice that makes unreasonable demands forproductivity, and dismisses your reasonable explanations for not having produced more.When you tell perfectionism, for instance, that you couldnt do your art today becauseyou worked at your day job all day and came home exhausted, perfectionism remindsyou of some exceptional achiever who was in exactly your situation - or a worse one -and still managed to create award-winning art. Of course, perfectionism convenientlytends to omit key details, such as that that achiever may have held an easier job than you

do, or had fewer personal responsibilities, or shirked whatever responsibilities she didhave.

Perfectionism is shaming, blaming and guilt-inducing. It is, according to writerAnne Lamont, the voice of the oppressor, and it correlates strongly with what I call theMean Mommy/Mean Daddy voice, which I discuss at length in Chapter 20.

Listening to that voice is always a mistake.


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The Solution

Defeating perfectionism is a four-step process: (1) choosing the right project; (2)choosing the right goal; (3) choosing the right process; and (4) choosing the right

thoughts.Choosing the right project means choosing the easiest and shortest project,especially if youre doing something for the first time. You do this, first, to counteractyour procrastinators tendency to make projects harder, and second, so that you have thebest possible chance of actually beating your procrastination problem and finishing. Its alot easier to finish a slender novel or thesis than a giant tome, for instance, and onceyouve completed your small work, you can then go on to tackle larger ones, if you wish.But if you begin with a giant project, you may never finish it, and your career might beover before it begins.

Ditto for business, activism or any other ambitious endeavor: choose small, easyprojects until you feel more in control of your procrastination problem. Easy will vary

depending on your particular circumstances, of course, and you should always consultwith your mentors to make sure youre choosing wisely.If you choose a properly small project, there will likely be a small voice in your

head telling you that its too small and trivial; that you should be more ambitious, lesscowardly, etc. Thats the voice of perfectionism, a.k.a. the oppressor, a.k.a. the MeanMommy/Daddy. What that voice wont tell you is that: (a) you have to walk before yourun (i.e., complete a small project before attempting a larger one); and (b) even a smallnovel, thesis, business, gallery show, performance, activist campaign, etc., is plenty bigenough project.

So ignore the perfectionist voice and stick with the small project.Then, you need to choose the right goal, which should be, simply, to finish.

Not to write a fabulous book, achieve a spectacular result from your campaign, or make amillion dollars from your business. No: your goal should simply be to get done whateverit is that you are trying to do. Dont worry about quality: just do your best and thequality, which is an engrained part of your psyche, will be there. And - very importantly -dont aim for a perfect result: just relax around the inevitability that your work, like allhuman endeavors, will contain both strengths and weaknesses. (For a more in-depthdiscussion of this point specific to writing, download my essay How to Finish Your Bookfrom http://www.hillaryrettig.com.)

Choosing the right processmeans breaking your already-small project down intoeven smaller pieces that you can easily handle. It also means getting loads of supportfrom family, friends, mentors, colleagues and others, including not just support with theproject itself, but emotional support, and also help with childcare and chores you wouldnormally be responsible for, but that use up time and energy you need to complete yourproject. Support also means donations of space, equipment, services or supplies yourproject requires.

Support means, in other words, as much help, of all kinds, as possible. Mostperfectionists dont realize the intense level of support needed to succeed at most
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ambitious endeavors, in part because of those aforementioned myths of easy success, butalso in part because of the perfectionist tendency not to look for solutions but to simplyto blame oneself. But the more support, the better.

Finally, we come to choosing the right thoughts. Perfectionism, you recall, is aanti-productive response to fear, so it is important that you learn to replace your

perfectionist thoughts with more functional ones. Here are three examples:Replace this perfectionist thought: Im going to get 50 pages of my novel donethis weekend. [Unspoken thought: If I dont accomplish that, Im lazy and a loser.] With this more functional one: Given my writing speed and also my othercommitments, Im going to aim to get ten pages done this weekend.

Replace this perfectionist thought: Ill just send out a few postcards about myupcoming music performance and that should be enough to fill the room. Ill bet I sell 30CDs! [Unspoken thought: If I dont accomplish that, Im a loser, and the people in thistown are stupid and anti-music.]

With this more functional one: Ill send out postcards and email announcementsto my mailing list of 500 people. Also, Ill ask the club Im playing at to send an

announcement to their list as well. They told me theyve got 800 people on their list, soall told thats 1,300 people well be contacting. In the past Ive gotten 2 - 3 people out ofevery 100 emails I send out to come to performances, so for those 1,300 announcements Ishould expect about 26 39 people. And I usually sell 1 CD per 13 people, so I shouldcount on selling three or four CDs. Replace this perfectionist thought: Why is my house such an awful mess? Iknow my family thinks - and I think - that Im lazy and disorganized. And my momlooked at me like she thought I was a bad mom when I told her that we get take-out threenights a week. [Unspoken thought: Im a bad homemaker and parent.] With this more functional one: Well, there are only 24 hours in a day, and Imnot willing to spend more than a couple of them cleaning and cooking. Its crazy toexpect someone with kids, a job and a growing business to have a house thats as clean asthe house of someone who doesnt have a job or business! My house is clean enough,and anyone who thinks otherwise is welcome to come over and clean it themselves!

You change your thoughts simply by consciously interrupting your perfectionistthoughts, and replacing them with their more functional equivalent. At first, this mayseem contrived - and you may frequently forget to do it - but keep trying and eventuallyyoull see that replacing perfectionist with non-perfectionist thoughts feels good anddoesnt hurt anyone.

You can get started doing this right now. Dont set yourself the perfectionist goalcatching every single perfectionist thought (!), and dont berate yourself harshly whenyou miss one or otherwise slip up. Just start out casually by keeping that goal in the backof your mind and whenever you do happen to successfully replace a perfectionist thoughtwith a functional one, congratulate yourself. Soon, the replacements will happen so often,and so automatically, that you wont even notice them. And, eventually, your thoughtswill become less perfectionist, so that you wont have to do much replacing at all.


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Chapter 16.

Negativity

******

Exercise: Name Your Strengths

Before reading this chapter, take a few minutes and do this preliminary exercise:

On a sheet of paper, list the strengths, skills, talents and other positive qualities you bringto your project. These could be anything from the mundane-seeming, but vastlyunderrated, Im punctual, to the pragmatic, Im good with computers, to the moreglobal, Im a social visionary, or anything in between. Dont be shy or modest: comeup with as long a list as you can. You neednt show it to anyone. Keep the list near youwhile reading this chapter; Ill be discussing it soon.******

Remember the musician from the previous chapter who over-optimisticallythought she could fill the room for her performance at a local club simply by sendingout a few postcards? Lets say she followed that plan, with predictable results: only ahandful of people showed up to hear her play.

There are two basic ways one can react to this kind of disappointing situation.Here is one:

What a disaster. Im such a dope, a complete loser. I always screw up. I donteven know why I bother to try. And this town - its full of jerks. Theyre toodumb to appreciate real music, and theyre cheap, too - I only sold two CDs. Andthe club manager must think Im a jerk, too. Im sure hell never let me perform

there again. I feel like crap. I just cant stand it. Im going to get a quart of ice-cream and rent a bad movie and crawl into bed.

And heres the other:

Darn! This is so disappointing. I guess I screwed up by not promoting the gigmore. Oh, well: Im kind of embarrassed in front of my friends who did show up,and also the club manager, but no ones really been hurt. The manager seemedto like my music, so maybe if I promise to do a lot more promotion next time,hell let me perform again. In any case, no matter where my next gig is, I nowknow I need to promote the heck out of it. So it wasnt a total loss... Oh, and I did

sell a couple of CDs, and I also met that really cool guitarist from the next townover...he said he knew some the managers at some other clubs, and could referme. So that was a terrific break! Anyhow, Im still feeling kind of low so Imgoing to take a break and have fun. I know! Ill call my friend Deb and see if shewants to hang out.


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failure. One day, I asked a student who had an MBA what school he had gotten it from,and he replied Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management. Thats a topschool, so I congratulated him. His self-deprecating, negativist response amazedme: Oh, its only the third or fourth best school.

How big a negativist are YOU? Look at the Name Your Strengths list you created

before starting this chapter. (If you didnt create it, stop and create it now, before youread on.)If you listed twenty to thirty strengths, skills, talents, and other positive qualities,

you did pretty well.If you listed ten to twenty strengths, skills and talents, you did OK.If you listed five to ten strengths, skills and talents, you did average. When I do

this exercise in classes, most students respond within this range.If you listed zero to five strengths, skills and talents, you did poorly, but youve

got lots of company. There are always a few people in every class who can think of fewor no good things to say about themselves. Computer geeks, engineers, scientists andother technical types seem to disproportionately fall into this group, by the way. I think

thats due to the fact that technical people are often trained to focus on the flaws in theirprojects so that they can then fix them. That flaw-finding tendency comes in handy whenyoure designing a computer program or a bridge, but is less useful in the personal orinterpersonal realm.

My own Name Your Strengths list, which I keep on my computer and regularlyprint out, review and add to, currently includes more than eighty items. That is notbecause Im some kind of prodigy or egomaniac, but simply because I work hard torecognize all my talents and strengths, and am not embarrassed to admit them to myself. Isometimes share my list with my students, who, by the way, are frequently amused tofind humility listed among the dozens of other paeans to myself. They also see entriessuch as loves animals and not a slave to fashion along with the more standard faresuch as smart and good with computers. We typically define success too narrowly,for reasons I will explain in the next chapter, and that often leads us to ignore some ofour more interesting and useful qualities. But why not include them? Who knows whenthey wont come in handy? The fact that I love animals seemed irrelevant for years, forinstance, until I started doing animal activism.

Make no mistake: Name Your Strengths is an important exercise. If you do notrecognize and own your strengths, skills and talents, how can you use them to build yoursuccess? And if you go around feeling devoid of those qualities, how are you going tohave the confidence to follow through on an ambitious plan?

Go back now and see what you can add to your list. Then, talk to family, friendsand mentors and see what they would add to it. You will probably be amazed at all thegood traits others see in you that you never suspected.

Once youve created the list, keep it handy, review and add to it frequently, and(privately) celebrate your strengths. That small effort will go a long way toward helpingyou succeed.******


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Exercise: Create Your Life Resume

Reinforce your sense of your own talents and accomplishments by creating a LifeResume. It resembles a normal, professional resume, but also includes experiences and

accomplishments from beyond your work life - for example, from your family life, homelife, friendships, art, activism, volunteer or civic activities, mental or physical health, orany other area that is important to you.

Needless to say, do not write down any of your perceived failures, flaws andweaknesses. You wouldnt do that on a normal resume, so why would you do it here?

In a Life Resume, none of your achievements is dev

beating procrastination

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