The truth behind procrastination
Understanding our feelings, Sunday mindfulness, racial issues, democratizing cosmetics, and Alan Watts
Hi friend,
If you know me, you know that I am a huge procrastinator. Even after reading tons of books, watching countless videos, and working with a myriad of friends and coaches to address this, it’s been a huge struggle of mine throughout my life.
Lately, I’ve been following politics a lot more because (1) what’s happening with Trump and the GOP blows my mind, and (2) it’s an easy escape. After justifying to myself that I’m just “catching up on the news,” I’m lost in the sea of political news, commentaries, predictions, and memes for the rest of the evening.
But after three long decades of procrastination, I recently learned a bit of advice that has transformed my outlook on it.
When it comes to procrastination, it’s never about the work, but the feeling the work produces that we are trying to avoid.
Whenever we're presented with a task that is uninteresting, difficult, or stress-inducing, we're also met with a myriad of other painful emotions. Our brain tries to recover with pleasurable activities instead.
When we address productivity, it is often with the lens of not being to do enough. While changing our tools may give us quick wins to pack more activities into a day, we find ourselves back to the same problem as soon as we're presented with another obstacle. It was never about not doing enough, but about how we felt about the activities we struggle to do in the first place.
The next time the feelings of procrastination arise, capture these bits of info:
Time (when is this occurring?)
Task (what am I supposed to be doing?)
Distraction (what do I want to be doing instead?)
Feelings (what am I feeling at this moment?)
And ask yourself:
Are there any patterns that emerge?
Do these feelings show up at the same time each day?
Around similar tasks?
Or specific feelings?Can you greet it with compassion?
Be open to learning from yourself.
Ask yourself – what feelings are showing up and what are they here to teach you?Can you flip it around?
When it comes to feelings of anger, grief, fear, or sadness, are there ways that you can reassure yourself with love and compassion?
Remind yourself that you are safe, loved, and perfect, just the way you are.
Sometimes, the feelings that we document may just be scratching the surface. For example, anxiety can mask deeper states of anger, fear, and sadness. It helps to journal multiple emotions as they arise.
By navigating the way we approach productivity first by addressing our feelings, we're able to go straight towards the core obstacle in front of us.
With practice, we see that our emotions (the good and the bad) are ultimately wayfinding tools that help guide us to our purpose and most authentic self.
Sunday mindfulness
If you like my newsletter, you will like this other mindfulness newsletter called Sunday Soother I just discovered. You can check out the archives of the longer part of the newsletters on the Sunday Soother blog.
Racial disparity on taxes
Here’s an analysis of racial issues organized on the federal tax form 1040. Really interesting way of presenting information and how it impacts our marginalized communities.
Cosmetic dupes
Most luxury cosmetic products are only expensive due to marketing. With this online search tool (Skincare Compare), you can compare the ingredients of beauty products and find comparable alternatives. They have a pretty large database of 25k products, but still far from being perfectly complete. I absolutely love this type of technology that helps to demystify confusing product ingredients. A huge game changer!
Too real
“We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain”
-Alan Watts
As always, thanks for reading!
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Have a beautiful day!
Metta (loving-kindness),
Steven
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