Self loathing procrastinators and perpetual under achievers sign in here

[Bumperlicious]

Just been on the 3 things I don't know about you thread and there seems to be quite a few people who are procrastinators but hate it.

I am full of good ideas and potential but rarely motivated enough to do anything about it. I have always been intelligent but have to some extent squandered it on trashy novels and trashy tv. I feel like I just haven't found my niche in life. I try lots of things but don't often stick to them. I have a good degree and MSc and am in a respectable but not well paid job which I don't really enjoy.

I have a 3 year old and a 3 month old and feel permanently top tired to do anything but feel crap at not achieving anything.

Anyone else care to join me?

Self-loathing - check
Procrastinating - check
Underachieving - check
Slummy mummy - bingo!

I read the webchat with Oliver Burkeman which was really interesting & two points seemed relevant to this thread:

' I precisely -don't- think that a change in attitude is always crucial to kickstart you into action; I think waiting for that attitude change can be a big obstacle. I quite like the approach of setting your initial goals ABSURDLY low ? eg. go for a 30-second brisk walk every day for a week. I know that sounds like a joke but that's sort of the point ? it's so small it passes under the radar of the part of your mind that's always ready to rebel. Far better, anyway, to go on a brisk walk in reality twice a week than run five miles a day in your imagination...'

This is similar (well exactly really) what Bonsoir was saying, & I am going to try & bare this in mind, I thing he also said

'The best advice I ever found came from an author called Julie Fast who was writing specifically for depressed people, but I think the answer applies to everyone: don't wait until you feel like doing something. Sounds so obvious, but I think it's actually quite profound. In other words, next time you're feeling actively hostile towards the idea of doing some task, stop trying to feel enthusiastic about it. The overriding message from the "motivational" industry ? that you have to get psyched up before you do something ? just isn't really true, it seems to me. Often it just creates an extra hurdle.'

And I though this one was good for this thread. Not sure if we are much help to each other on this thread but at least we are all recognising the traits we have.
'"Acceptance" is a fascinating topic ? really easily misunderstood as "just put up with whatever situation you're in". I like the Carl Rogers quote: "The curious paradox is that once I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." I'm not sure it's a paradox really ? more just that denying reality is an impractical starting-point for modifying it.'

That was 3 points not two but I'm on my iPhone & couldn't be bothered to scroll up & correct it!

Bumper, I agree with those 2 points you described.

You just have to force yourself to take that first tiny step. That is the biggest hurdle. Don't even pretend you will enjoy it. Just do it.

I find that say if I have only 15 minutes and the project will take me hours, rather than waste that 15 minutes on mn, if I just make myself start gathering my things together, reading materials, googling info, putting pen to paper, whatever, the next time I come back to the task, I find it psychologically less intimidating because I have already got into it.

Very good point. I put so much off because it will take longer than 5mins, but so many of the things take longer because i put them off in the first place

DH and i have done really well doing the house today, and i actually think we have connected better because we were working together at something iyswim?

Had to delete my last post as it displayed DH's name - must figure out how to link to Amazon anonymously!

Anyway, there's a book by Carol Dweck called 'Mindset: The New Psychology of Success,' which addresses the issue said mentioned: praising your kids for their 'cleverness' rather than their application.

Available at www.amazon.co.uk!

Am so glad to have found this thread, can i join please? I'm always lurking on mumsnet but hardly ever get around to posting - which just sums up the extent of my procrastination and under-achieving. I don't really have the self loathing - just a sort of mild disappointment in myself!

I've got an MA and am reasonably intelligent but have been a SAHM since DS1 (5 yrs) was born. Was reasonably good at my job but had moved around too much and started a bit late so hadn't really made much progression. I've now got DS2 (3) and DD(6months) and feel as though it's chaos most of the time! Will post more when I've mulled things over a bit more. Off to bed now.

bumper - i read the webchat too, and although i thought he was going to be a typical goal-setter, he seemed quite sensible.

and after having a huge row with dh on friday night about procrastination (me failing to (so far) complete my msc), and him blaming my procrastination on (my) perfectionist tendencies, i'm just going to and agree that whilst not 'fear of failure' exactly, perhaps 'fear of not being as successful as i know i could be if i had a bit more time' might be closer to the mark.

but hopefully 2011 will be the year of doing. something.

actually, that said, dh's other point was that i do too much. as in, take on too much. volunteering etc, rather than actually getting on with the stuff i ought to be doing. so i guess prioritisation is apparently an issue too.

I'm always being asked for advice by would be writers and I always sayt he same thing...you just have to get on with it.

Don't wait for the muse to strike or your creativity to flow. Just log onto your PC and get started.

You can't even begin to think about agents and publishers etc if you haven't actually finished a book!

It's the mental unfufillment that I really struggle with. Why can't I turn off the TV and pick up one of the hundreds of books I want to read?! Why does my youngest only 'do' 10 hours at night so doesn't even go down until 8.30pm? GRRR. After not wanting kids for years and then having them -that totally 'filled the gap' more than I thought it could but now oldest is 3, am feeling that nagging coming back with a vengance. That nagging of 'wasting my life'. Doesn't help that OH is the most chilled/lazy/unambitious man ever, but I can hardly blame anyone else...though I wish he'd support my 'idea' to 'get rid' of the TV for a period of time.

Those of you that enjoy your work/jobs - how did you even work out what it was you wanted to do?! That's what I'm struggling with. I have always felt like I've 'wanted' a career - but maybe I don't. Since all I've ever wanted to be is a writer - maybe I just should 'try' and do that, and realise that my absolutely useless job where I do nothing but surf the net all day - no kidding (I'm in uni admin - an absolute joke of a job).

Spent the last 3 months getting the physical dissatisfaction sorted (took up running, weight loss etc...) but so down on not being able to do the mental side which actually is much more important to me.

Well being a writer is the easiest thing to get started in.

You don't need any qualifications or training. You need very little equipment.

You just start.

Has anyone mentioned directed procrastination?

You pick something you REALLY don't want to do. Your tax return, or cleaning the toilet.

You make that your day's goal.

Then in an effort to avoid doing the return or cleaning the toilet, you do the washing up, tidy the DCs room, do your expenses, walk the dog - etc.

Voila, a productive day.

The only problem is, when you really have to get that tax return done, you have to find something even bigger to avoid doing.

I'm not sure what it does to one's psyche but it does work.

Has anyone mentioned directed procrastination?

You pick something you REALLY don't want to do. Your tax return, or cleaning the toilet.

You make that your day's goal.

Then in an effort to avoid doing the return or cleaning the toilet, you do the washing up, tidy the DCs room, do your expenses, walk the dog - etc.

Voila, a productive day.

The only problem is, when you really have to get that tax return done, you have to find something even bigger to avoid doing.

I'm not sure what it does to one's psyche but it does work.

I'm good at direct procrastination. That's how the dishes and laundry get done every day. It's now 11.18 and I have done number of useful things in order to avoid getting back into a paper I am sick of the sight of. If I now do the laundry I will have made it all the way to lunch without taking The File out.

Well, I stayed off MN all weekend and managed to achieve a thing or two.

I experimented with location - I took all the Christmas bedclothes (no, I don't have special ones but we did have quite a lot of guests) to the launderette, along with some cards I had been going to send as Christmas cards, and wrote something like 10 of them (with proper notes in them, not just 'Dear xx, HNY from the LW family') in between washing.

Now all but the three whose addresses I knew by heart are sitting on the dining room table waiting for me to dredge up the relevant printout.

I'm another of these 'clever' ones. Always got top marks for attainment and crap marks for effort. My educational achievement curve has been pointing inexorably downwards since O-levels. (University was a challenge, as they had cleverer people there! )

I'm not trying to cause a schism here but I think we have two main kinds of people on this thread - the procrastinator/underachievers, who may not have got round to working out what they want to do with their lives yet, and the procrastinator/self-loathers, who might be in jobs they quite like and are good at, but where they are convinced everyone else thinks they are a waste of space.

Going back to the self-sabotage that someone mentioned, I've always done it - leave work to the last minute so it has to be a rush job; stay up late and get drunk the night before a job interview rather than be refreshed and clear-headed. In my more arrogant (and tongue-in-cheek) moments I've told myself that I do it so as to spare the world the full dazzling force of my brilliance, though fear of failure ('It doesn't matter if it was crap as I wasn't really trying anyway') is an interesting theory I've not previously considered.

Halfcaff if you do drink it I'll know you hate me

Good advice Litchick. Can I ask a quick question? If you want to write but think perhaps you might not be very good at it is there any hope? How can you go about improving?

Intreresting point about the schism. I'm probably in the former group.

Oh my goodness, this is me! I have brief phases of " getting stuff done" and it feels great. Then something inside says " you'll never get it all done, don't even bother." and of course the bigger the job the worse it is. So glad my dh'a school teaches study skills, time management, because until recently I didn't get the idea that you just have to start. Flylady did it for me- cheesy American website with a whole raft if strategies for procrastinators like me. The best for me, that gets at least some stuff done, is "you can do anything for fifteen mins". You just set the timer and start. It's what is just about to get the kitchen tidy!

OMG. I thought I was the only one!

Clever: check. Told throughout childhood that I was clever, I could do anything I wanted to, etc, but the relentless beam of the parental spotlight I think made me go on strike. Still feel I haven't met my potential, and am letting my parents down horribly.

'Imposter syndrome': check. Spent lots of career thinking my bosses were generally no better than me, and that I should be doing it, but lacking the confidence (or, indeed, ability) to go for it. When, finally, I became an editor I spent the whole time thinking everyone would be able to see straight through the facade to the incompetent arse beneath.

Self sabotage: check. Don't quite try my hardest at interviews, or indeed at anything, just so I can say 'well I wasn't really trying'.

Need for external validation: check. Maybe it's part of the 'clever' thing? Like we need our parents approval? Our 'parents' now being replaced by 'society' at large?

Procrastination: check. I've got lots of ideas for things, need to update my CV, etc etc, but spend the time that DS is having his nap playing Jungle Jewels on Facebook. And HATING myself for it.

Bumperlicious I would say that writing is like most other things that people here are avoiding...there is no way to know if you'll be successful.

Really, there isn't.

You can wait forever for the signal, or the validation etc but what you have to do at some point is just go for it in the knowledge that you might fail.

Sure, there are some obvious pointers that you might succeed - you're a natural story teller, you like long projects, you enjoy creating other worlds in your mind.

But you will never ever know until you try.

So go. Do it.

Bumperlicious - Regards writing...I think the more you do it, the more you can improve. As for that 'any good' thing...it's horses for courses, isn't it? I mean, judging by the sales, some people must think Jackie Collins is good, eh? Also, think you have to know why you want to be good - you know, do you want to get published, or show people...if it's just for your own consumption, then does it matter how 'good' it is? You express your ideas on here articulately, so it's probably not a question of 'good', just personal style.
From what you've said before, do you think you don't want to do it UNLESS you can be 'amazing'? IYKWIM?
A good place to start is that idea about just writing for 20-30 mins every day, but I haven't even got around to doing that! Instead, I've just ordered a few books on inspration and writing - same exact thing I did a few years ago. BAH!

Thanks for the advice. I have books on writing. I like to buy books on things! I don't know if that's a part of this whole mentality, it becomes more about the project to do something rather than the actual doing it! Maybe I need a career as some sort of researcher!

At last i have found somewhere I fit in and tick all the boxes, but have just spent 3 days waiting for the motivation to post on this thread!
People used to say I never sat still, now I'm sure they say the opposit and to prove it I am 2 stones heavier!
I am a brilliant list maker and amazing at telling other people what they should do, but when it comes to doing it myself I just..........go on mumsnet

I realise I am late to this party but can I join?

Read Getorfs first post for explanation for I think she is me.

or herbaceous

except they seem to have achieved far more than me. Am sat here now internally slagging myself off as there are a million other things I could be doing.

Career as a researcher - now you're onto something!? But, to research what, eh? For me, not actually knuckling down to write (for example) - I think a lot of it is because I can't measure the results, you know? At least not for a while. I write something, and then what? I write some more? I'd need to amass a lot of writing before I even attempted to get an agent. And an agent would only take me on if I could then prove I was brimming over with ideas and writing all the time, which I'm not!
I found it easier to start running cos I could see the results each week.

Is this a syndrome of the modern age, do you think?! As somone said - aren't we putting massive pressures on ourselves to have it all/be all these things? Where does it come from? Did our parents feel this way?

Where does this perpetual dissatisfaction come from do you think?

Maybe part of it is that I don't feel i even qualify as a 'grown up' yet, really. At 35, not a chance.
And am definately int he first schism.
I don't much care about all the stuff I 'should' be doing with the house and what not - sometimes its done, mostly its not. But to sit here day after day, hour after hour feeling my life is wsted, slipping by...now THAT bugs me.