Does this sound like you?
There’s a task or project you really need to work on. Maybe it’s important for getting paid, or maybe it’s an important part of doing what you need to do to feel fulfilled.
And yet, on some level you also really don’t want to do it.
You might even feel like you should want to do it, like you have no excuse. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re stuck.
Procrastination Patterns
This can show up in different ways:
- You might try to make yourself do it over and over again, but keep bouncing off of it. Suddenly, you care a lot more than usual about how clean your room is. You find yourself on social media without even realizing you were opening the app. You keep finding things you just “have” to do before you get down to work.
- You might be in a love/hate relationship with this project, where sometimes no one can pull you away from it, and other times you can’t bring yourself to look at it.
- You sit down. You get ready to work. And the ideas just…don’t come out. The muses have abandoned you. You can’t think straight. You wonder if you’re even qualified to do this (although your friends would laugh at you for even questioning that).
- Well, you were passionate about it. But today it just seems very boring. So last week. There’s something else much more interesting to work on now! And that’s fine right? You’re still being productive…but this always happens, and you’re tired of adding to your pile of 80% finished projects.
- You love it, it’s your baby…but that’s the problem. You never feel like it’s ready to send out into the harsh world to be judged. Can’t you just keep tweaking it forever?
If one of these is you, then you might have an emotional blocker to your productivity. That’s what I mean by procrastination, and what I can help you with.
Is it task-driven?
There are other blockers to productivity besides emotional ones:
- physiological: nutrient deficiency, insomnia, and illness can slow you down across the board.
- psychological: conditions like clinical depression and clinical anxiety can make it hard to do even your favorite things.
- neurological: if your neurotype, such as ADHD or PDA, isn’t well supported with medication and/or accommodations, it can be hard to do things even when you want to.
- sociological: if you’re expected to do too much work with too little support, it just won’t all be possible.
So if you’re having trouble doing all kinds of things, including things you love to do, then it’s best to consult a doctor, therapist, or, in the case of an overly demanding boss, a labor union. (I do work with neurodivergent people as it’s common to have an emotional blocker on top of the neurotype; I just recommend having a handle on your neurotype first.)
But if you can do some tasks just fine, and then others seem to push you away with an invisible forcefield, then addressing your emotional blockers might be just what you need.
Get some immediate relief with my free guide, 10 Ways to Beat Procrastination.
Then check out how I help people get to the root of their procrastination.