End Procrastination Now! (11 page)

The horse and rider metaphor is an important emotive image to help you keep a perspective on the competition between
discomfort-dodging urges and the motivation to produce and thrive. Procrastination may be viewed as a battleground between false threat signals that spur the horse, and the visions of a rational rider to create, progress, and avoid longer-term threats that are beyond the horse's vision.

Part of an enlightened rider's challenge is to recognize and find ways to get past fictional threats and engage in productive activities. Thus, when you catch yourself moving along an avoidance path favored by horse instincts, and this doesn't fit with productive opportunities to prosper, an insightful rider may view the struggle as an opportunity to gain a twofer result: building emotional muscle through producing positive results.

Since the primitive brain is ordinarily a slow learner, patience and persistence will ordinarily get you farther down a path than routinely capitulating to the horse's urges. Thus, when you face a decision between lounging and crafting, this is an opportunity for the rider to grab the reins. The more practice you have in grabbing the reins, the easier it becomes to harness the horse's considerable energies and move in the direction of your goal.

The Y Decision
. Not all horse and rider combinations are alike. Some are more sensitive to tension: a twinkle of tension can cause the horse to bolt and follow a path of procrastination, with the rider going along with the galloping horse. Another rider may accept discomfort as unavoidable and not a reason to retreat. There are many variations in between these extremes. Nevertheless, the horse and rider analogy suggests a never-ending struggle between primitive emotional impulses and enlightened cognitive controls, which points to a Y decision.

When you come to a branch in the road where your horse wants to follow the path of least resistance, you face a
Y decision
. You know that following through on your goals can be tough. But you want the result. The
Y choice
is to follow through and be productive, or to go a procrastination way.

Whatever the task or goal, the horse normally chooses what it perceives to be the easier or less threatening path. It will gallop to a field, linger by a brook, or head to the barn. The rider may want to go that way. However, sometimes the horse's impulses are best reined in. You have a competitive analysis to do, and your job depends on getting it done before a deadline. But the horse couldn't care less. It's here that an enlightened rider seizes the opportunity to take charge. Guiding the horse takes a special effort.

The difference between the horse running the show and the rider guiding the action is great. So what happens when the goal of the rider and the direction of the horse are different?

What is the rider's decision?

Y-decision solutions normally represent simple choices. To get and stay healthy, you eat healthy food, engage in physical exercise, and deal with stressful situations quickly. You already have a simple solution to stop procrastinating, right? You
just do it.
However, the simple solution isn't that simple to do. When the horse has its say, the plan can go astray.

A goal doesn't trigger delay as much as what you make of it and feel about it. Define a goal as too complicated, and you've intellectually self-handicapped yourself. Tell yourself it is too tough, and you've emotionally self-handicapped yourself.

Chipping away at procrastination involves applying what you know in order to stay productively engaged in timely priorities without handicapping yourself in the process. This can be a simple thing to do. However, it bears repeating that simple is not necessarily the same as easy.

The seventeenth-century Prussian General Carl von Clause-witz observed that ivory-tower theorists can intellectually complicate a simple strategy and bog themselves down with ineffectual fears because of the uncertainties they create that convert into difficulties involving unforeseen possibilities. In von Clausewitz's view, it is wiser to forge ahead. See with your own eyes. Discover the real complexities.

Without using the term
procrastination
, von Clausewitz described how you can make a simple process seem complicated and unimaginably difficult. This procrastination process cannot be addressed theoretically. You can develop a habit of advancing as a way to habituate to uncertainties, discomfort, and the unexpected.

Atlanta, Georgia, artist and psychotherapist Edward Garcia uses an intellectual and emotional view of complexity that partially explains why change can prove surprisingly challenging. When two views clash, the resolution may lean in the direction of avoidance. Figure 3.1 describes a simple-easy conflict.

Let's say that your goal is to register for a strategic planning course on how to plan major projects. When you have a mental and emotional consistency in favor of executing the plan, you are likely to pursue it. Procrastination is not likely to be an issue. But what if there is an inconsistency? You want to register, but you routinely find reasons to put it off. Does that mean that you don't want to sharpen your strategic planning skills?

Although you'd like to gain the benefits, you believe that learning these skills will feel uncomfortable, you worry that others will know more than you do, and you feel apprehensive when you think that you could make a mistake and look foolish. So, you promise yourself that you'll register later, after you've read a book or two on the topic. Taking the easy route, in this instance, is the emotional goal. It's not that you are secretly against your intellectual goal. Avoiding discomfort as a possible result of your mental projects means more.

FIGURE 3.1
The Simple-Easy Conflict

The double-agenda dilemma is a conflict between stated and implied goals. The first agenda is your stated goals, and this is the rider's interest. You want to register for the strategic planning course. The second agenda is a reflection of the horse's view. You don't want to feel uncomfortable and intellectually inferior. So, essentially, you want the benefits but dislike the process.

With the double-agenda problem, hassle avoidance comes into play in different ways. Hassle avoidance is just what the phrase sounds like: you go out of your way to avoid what you believe is an annoyance or difficulty. Let's say you have a competitive analysis to do and a deadline to make. You'd like to get the analysis done ahead of schedule. You don't like to engage in a process that involves intense concentration. You view the assessment as requiring a lot of concentration. Working at making a competitive analysis takes many steps, including trial-and-error steps and recognizing new opportunities to explore. There is no guarantee that you'll get it completely right. You risk error. The time it takes to do the analysis detracts from pleasurable pursuits. You struggle with reactance, and reactance wins. So, it seems easier to take flight. You start late and barely make the deadline.

You will probably intellectually endorse your stated agenda because it's rational to desire goals that you associate with accomplishment, health, and long-term happiness. Nevertheless, the second agenda may have a greater appeal. So, when you put off a purposeful and productive process, it's not that you don't want the benefits. It's that you want something else more, which is to avoid the complexity or discomfort that goes with the activity.

The double-agenda dilemma comes into play in other ways. Do you eliminate fattening food from your diet now or wait until you've gained 20 more pounds? Do you take steps to act more assertive or continue to act like a doormat? Do you start on your home maintenance to-do list now, or do you wait until the roof starts to leak?

Those who want to get ahead while others procrastinate can be assured that some more talented people are likely to spoil their opportunities by putting their short-term horse interests over their longer-term productive issues. This is sadly true for a subgroup of people who put an enormous amount of time into education and preparation for their careers, only to behaviorally procrastinate when the bigger prizes are within reach.

If you want to meet your first-agenda challenges, but also avoid the uncertainty, difficulty, and discomfort that you associate with the activity, you have a dilemma. You probably can't have it both ways, any more than an alcohol abuser can drink without consequences.

If you didn't experience sensitivity to discomfort and react by retreating, you'd be likely to get more done. However, it is part of the human condition that discomfort signals avoidance. It's easy to fall into a procrastination trap when that happens. But you can learn to use your fast-learning mind to train your slow-learning horse to accept discomfort as part of a process of accruing longer-term benefits. Part of the training is learning to bear discomfort without retreating. Building that stamina is a big part of building emotional muscle.

To resolve a double-agenda dilemma, you face at least three challenges: (1) recognizing the conflict to know what you are up against, (2) applying resources, such as organizing, directing, and regulating your behaviors, to achieve the goal of completing and presenting a competitive analysis, and (3) using your ability to reason, tolerate tension, and act productively to stop discomfort-dodging activities. (If you are interested in learning more about
double troubles and its resolution, you can refer to
The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Anxiety
.)

You will often have both intellectual and emotional goals that are related to the same issue. What are your intellectual goals for your most pressing current priority? What are your emotional goals for the same situation? Are you limiting yourself by self-handicapping, counterfactual thinking, rationalizations, and other excuses? Can you find a better way to make your expressed goals the ones you work on to achieve?

When you face uncertainty, associate discomfort with past negative experiences, or just don't like discomfort, your emotional reactions can quickly overpower your reason. For example, you have performance anxiety about giving a marketing presentation before manufacturing. The simple solution is to question your fear thinking and practice speaking in front of groups until you get rid of the anxiety and overcome the fear. If the simple solution was easy, few people would have performance anxiety.

Practically any form of stress can be triggered by something as simple as returning a phone call. Let's assume that the call is to reschedule an appointment. It's not a big deal. You won't seriously inconvenience anyone. You have the time to make the call. But you feel a slight twinge of discomfort. You put off making the call. You tell yourself that you'll get to it later. What went wrong? The horse is running the show.

Let's suppose you recognize the horse's urge to gallop away. Grabbing the reins is a way to change the process. You can grab the reins in many ways, including doing a quick analysis. You may see added benefits from turning things around for yourself.

The following long-term advantage exercise helps strengthen a rider perspective by putting short-term procrastination urges to diverge into a broader context where you can see the frailty in your procrastination reasoning. You are more likely to go for the greater
benefit when you write down what you are attempting to accomplish and what you are attempting to avoid.

To complete the short- and long-term procrastination analysis, identify the most pressing and important activity that you are in the process of putting off. Think about both the short- and long-term advantages of delay and then the short- and long-term advantages of the do-it-now way. In short, what do you gain by a pattern of delay? What do you gain by ending procrastination now?

The results of the exercise may be obvious to the rider, but we are talking about reframing the issue to give the rider a tighter grip on the reins. The results of the exercise may trickle down to the horse.

Below you will see an analysis matrix. When you are faced with a task or a goal, think about the long-term and short-term advantages of procrastinating and of doing it now. By completing this exercise you can help yourself tip the balance in favor of going for long-term benefits over short-term rewards. For example, for some people who spent several thousands of dollars on cigarettes, seeing the costs and potential physical/disease consequences in a written matrix format will help them implement corrective actions.

Procrastination Analysis: Advantages