Oh man, I’m totally tattling on myself. I got caught in a big spiral of procrastination. I just spent roughly 4 hours yesterday and today reconciling all my accounting books in order to prepare to hand everything over to my accountant.
Yuck. Gross.
And as I sat there getting ready for today’s Divine Download, almost 2 hours later than when I’d normally show up, I thought a bit about why I procrastinated. Why I procrastinated and whether or not me doing it was a bad thing.
Well, it’s a bad thing if I never actually finished what I needed since I have to do my taxes. But since I planned on doing them, is it really a bad thing that I procrastinated doing something I *really* don’t enjoy doing? No, no it’s not.
You see this past year I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on doing things that bring me joy and love. I’ve said no to doing things I don’t want to do because it brings me anxiety or crosses a boundary. So it isn’t really horrible that I procrastinated…but it did cause me undue stress so I’ll be talking to someone this week and hopefully have a bookkeeper by the end of March so I don’t go through this again.
So all though the procrastination wasn’t ‘horrific’, it wasn’t very helpful either.
So when I face procrastination in the future, I have to remind myself of this moment. And when you face procrastination in the future, I would encourage you to ask yourself two questions…
- Can I ask someone else to do what I’m procrastinating on doing? And if the answer is yes, ask someone to help! If the answer is no, then…
- Is there any fear, shame or guilt around what I’m procrastinating?
If what you’re procrastinating invokes any fear, shame or guilt then I’d suggest that you really sit with that and spend some time meditating deeper on that procrastination. Spend some time thinking about what it is you stand to gain once you move through that procrastination. Return to WHY you are doing what you are putting off doing. And if that why doesn’t sit well with you anymore…then let it go!
I’m curious my dear friend – is there anything you are procrastinating right now? Drop a comment down and let me know.