I am a life-long procrastinator when it comes to personal projects. (Work for anyone else- I’m a mule!) It’s something I am really trying to tackle in 2019. I had an epiphany about it this morning and realized I have been going about it all wrong.
I have been trying to overcome procrastination by becoming more efficient. I have been studying how to establish good habits. I have been watching endless videos on effective morning, evening and writing routines. I have been trying to establish these good habits and efficient routines, only to get derailed by life events and end up feeling like a failure.
Oddly enough, it was my new favorite hobby that led to this epiphany that changed everything. I started learning how to crochet last April and I LOVE it! It’s one of my favorite things to do. Although, I realized that when I crocheted for a long time, as much I enjoy it, there was still something amiss. There was a little nagging voice in the back of my head saying, “you know, you haven’t written anything in a really long time!”
It was then that it occurred to me that there are things you need to do like eat, sleep and maintain good hygiene, things you love to do like crochet and then there are things you are meant to do- and for me- this is writing. The things we are meant to do, often, seem to be what we resist the most to our own detriment.
The truth is when I don’t write anything at all, I don’t feel quite well. Life is literally draining out of me. I realize that sounds dramatic but there is probably something in your life that produces the same effect. I enjoy crocheting and it adds a lot to my existence but nothing makes me feel quite as alive and purposeful as having written.
So, why do I avoid it? Why do I procrastinate? Steven Pressfield writes about resistance in the War of Art as if it is a real life bogeyman who quite literally wants to kill us. Whether this is actually the case or not, it’s really the only compelling explanation I have found to demystify the phenomenon of procrastination.
What are you meant to do? What have you been resisting?
