One of the reasons we procrastinate is because we are afraid of failure. On the surface, it seems like boredom. The idea of creating something that does not live up to an imaginary view of perfection stops us from starting the task. And if you dig deeper, this stems from a feeling of inferiority and the need for recognition. We, therefore, come up with excuses to stop ourselves from creating things and putting it out there for the fear of being judged.
Procrastination is often attributed to feeling a lack of motivation among other things. But deep down are we just afraid to go out of our comfort zone, take a risk and do something? The risk of failure, the risk of being judged and the risk of the end product not being good enough.
Alfred Adler, who coined the term Inferiority Complex, talks of the relationship between the feeling of inferiority and the pursuit of superiority. Read more about Adlerian Psychology in my book highlights on The Courage To Be Disliked.
If we create, whether that is writing, art or any form of expression, without thinking about other people’s judgement, it takes away the excuses. To put your work out there and continue to build on it and learn publicly without fear requires courage. Courage to think and break the false premise that everything we put in public must be perfect.
The goal of publishing your work for all to see is not to get validation but to just give!
Focusing on the process and not the end result of building an audience, a personal brand or any such goal, allows us to progress meaningfully. This detachment from validation and immediate rewards is necessary for real growth. It’s hard to do it because the world around us is programmed to do just that. We are lab rats in a social media network lab being fed dopamine hits, craving for the likes, comments and follows.
What if we created our work in isolation from these? Use social media for one way distribution and let people discover your body of work, not the one single post which you spent days, weeks or months procrastinating about and working on to make it perfect hoping it would go viral. And even if no one discovers your work, the act of consistently working on your craft will at least make you better at your job.
This is one reason why I haven’t been able to write on this blog consistently even though I wanted to. Does every blog post need to be a 10,000-word masterpiece? No. The conundrum is to find the balance between creating something valuable every day and not work with goal of creating something perfect every time.
Yes, making it into a habit and not relying on moments of inspiration or motivation is equally important. Anne-Laure from Ness Labs writes about the idea of creativity and how it doesn’t have to rely on fleeting moments of inspiration.
Seth Godin says the fear never goes away, you simply have to dance with it. Once you get comfortable with this idea, the next challenge is to put this into practice. And to do it consistently, we need to master the act of just showing up. Atomic Habits provides easy and practical approaches to building habits. The two-minute rule is one useful tactic. Break down any new habit you want to inculcate into the easiest possible first step that can be completed in two minutes or less. Practice this and make the two-minute action a daily habit before you scale up.
I remember an incident from high school drama competition in which I took part. Since I was a Prefect for the house, I was involved in planning and recruiting people from our house for the play. We found people for all the major characters but there was one role which required walking into a scene early on in the play, uttering a line, turning back, getting shot and lying down for the entire duration of the play. I volunteered but didn’t really have to rehearse much. But I showed up the drama practice every single day and played my part to the perfection of course on the day of the competition. So well, that I may have gone to sleep on the stage in front of the school and woken up after the curtains closed.
To my surprise, the school drama teacher called out my name after all the awards were given for a special mention. He noticed that I showed up every day for practice even though I had no major role to play and I could have easily skipped it. That memory has stayed with me. Just showing up everyday to something you have committed to improving is a big first step.
I seemed to have forgotten that lesson or have not applied that when it comes to blogging. So today I’m making a public commitment to myself to write every day for the next 100 days and put my work out there publicly, firstly for my own selfish needs but also in the hope it benefits the few who will read it.
Read Next: Two-Minute Rule To Stop Procrastination
