Originally this piece of writing was known as essay #17 on my Patreon. I wrote it a year or so ago and it was essays like these, based on what I was writing in my writing journal, that really shifted things for me as an unconfident creative.
I was basically asking myself questions in my journal and my answers grew into essays where I was figuring myself and my lack of progress in the writing world out.
I started the essays and discovered that it wasn’t just me who felt like this. That was such a massive realisation. I thought it was just me. Other people thought it was just them!
So now I’m sharing the essays, one by one, on my Substack. One day I’d like to self-publish them as a book - but, for the moment, they’re sitting here.
Procrastinating by Helen Redfern
Last week I created an Instagram reel. It opened with a blue post-it and the words:
“Do you give yourself a hard time when you procrastinate and fail to complete creative projects?”
I then went on to say - on another post-it - that procrastination does not make you lazy, untalented, a failure or undeserving of a wonderfully creative life.
Because that’s what we tell ourselves isn’t it? That’s what I tell myself, that’s what my clients tell themselves and that’s what my membership club tell themselves.
This Instagram reel has been seen nearly 11,000 times on Instagram. This is twice, thrice or four times what I usually get for an Instagram reel. It was shared massively (for me!) and I had many comments about it. This tells me one thing.
These unkind words we tell ourselves for procrastinating are not just limited to a few of us.
We all do it.
I’ve procrastinated a lot over this past month. I haven’t journaled as much as I’d like to. I just cannot bring myself to put pen to paper and uncover what is going on in my head. I haven’t made much headway with my ebook writing that I’d like to self-publish over the summer and I’ve left it to the last few hours on a Bank Holiday on the last day of May to write this essay. An essay that’s been sitting on my to-do list for three weeks and I just kept ignoring it.
Incidentally procrastinating on this essay is very much related to procrastinating on journaling. If I’m not recording my thoughts how on earth can I create essays that revolve around my thoughts?
And now I’m paying for my procrastination. Instead of being outside in the garden on this beautiful Bank Holiday, I am sitting inside at my desk writing. But I still haven’t learnt my lesson. Because every time there is a minor distraction: my son coming downstairs, my husband walking into the kitchen (below my office), my dogs just looking at me with their soulful eyes - then I stop typing and go and give them attention. Half an hour later I’m back at my desk no further forward. My best friend will ring me in a minute and that’ll be another half hour gone.
I'm calling myself an idiot. I'm frustrated with myself. Which only further reinforces the idea that I'm not up to this creative life. My self-confidence is taking a battering.
So why do we procrastinate? Especially when we know we’re cutting off our noses to spite our faces. I knew that the longer I procrastinated on this essay the less Bank Holiday I’d get to enjoy. Yet I still procrastinated. I also know that if I don’t self-publish my book of essays over the summer I’ll feel like a failure and be embarrassed because I have been quite open and honest about my goals. Yet, I’m still procrastinating.
I also knew that if I didn’t create another book then my income would be adversely affected. And yet I still procrastinated.
WHY?
For me, all of these projects and the associated procrastination have slightly different surface issues to them. But they all boil down to one thing. Lack of self-belief. For you, it might be the same. Lack of confidence, fear of failure and success, guilt for being away from your family, feeling like social media has to take precedence and being sucked into that world. Overwhelm or being on the wrong creative path can also have a massive impact. But one thing’s for sure. It’s not me failing. It’s not me being untalented or thick. It’s not me being lazy or undeserving of this creative life. It’s not you being all of those things either.
It’s a simple lack of self-belief.
But I tell myself all those unkind things. And this then debilitates my confidence and self-belief even further. It is a vicious cycle.
So what does procrastination look like? I think this differs for everyone. And it can sometimes be incredibly difficult to spot. But the obvious ones for me are aimlessly scrolling through my phone. When I’m aimlessly scrolling, when I’m searching for ’something’ but can never find it so instead read or watch lots of things I’m not terribly interested in - I know I’m procrastinating.
Thinking about it now as I type I think what I’m searching for is ‘creative input’. I’m low on creativity and I’m looking for something to top me up again: inspiration in the form of great articles or blog posts, a video that pushes my buttons, powerful messages and quotes, book recommendations and so on. But instead, I scroll through the news, or aimlessly through Stories - not really paying attention but then being attracted by an advert for a dress or a new rug - which only serves to sap my creativity further.
So in this instance, I might be procrastinating because I am simply out of creative juice. My creative well is dry. I need to have some proper downtime instead of sitting at my desk thinking I’m working when instead I’m just scrolling and reading tweets. But I feel guilty for not working and for taking proper time off. So I do a kind of half-life work. A bit of typing then lots of scrolling. A bit more tapping and lots more scrolling and I’m not at all productive, I’m not inspired and I’m becoming more and more frustrated and miserable.
Wouldn’t it have been better to take a day off and come back refreshed, motivated and happier?
Instead, I continue in this cycle because I don’t believe I deserve time off, or that because writing is 'easy' I shouldn’t take time off or because I enjoy being at my desk what else could I be doing? Self-worth and self-belief all come into play here.
I could also be procrastinating because I’m overwhelmed. The scale of the project that I’d like to do scares me. Again this comes down to self-belief. I don’t believe I have what it takes to scale this mountain in front of me. I don’t feel I’m equipped with the right skills, the talent, the right mental strength, or the grit and determination needed to get this project off the ground. Or I feel like a complete fraud. So instead of confronting those feelings, and often this is impossible as I’m completely unaware of them when in the moment, I procrastinate instead.
This procrastination might be social media related. I might, for example, create a photograph or video for Instagram that I know will be interesting to people. I know I’ll gain a lot of likes or a lot of engagement from it and this kind of validates me at a time when I think I need validating. Yes, I do know things, I might be subconsciously thinking. I do have skills or talent. It’s this dopamine hit that I’m searching for to give me confidence and self-belief. But, as we all know, dopamine quickly drops and we need more and more. And also, seeking validation and searching for confidence on social media can be very harmful. It’s not recommended.
Then there are the times when procrastination looks like work. Again this can be online. I want to grow my reach on Pinterest, for example, but I’m well aware, from my behaviour in the past, that this might well take over my working days and give me an excuse to procrastinate on my writing work. So now I add Pinterest Create Sessions to my planning journal so I have permission to spend time on my marketing. It needs to be done but it’s not my core work and therefore should not, in any circumstances, dominate my creative time and energy.
Procrastination might look like doing my accounts or replying to emails, or answering DMs from my clients. Again, this needs to be done. But. Does it have to be done right now? Could it be done, for example, after I’ve written one thousand words for my book?
It could also look like other aspects of writing work. For example, was I putting ‘write an ebook to self-publish through my blog’ at the top of my list last month because it felt like a much easier project than ‘write an ebook to self-publish through Amazon’ or ‘set up the Confident Creative Club’?
I know for sure that this was me procrastinating. Self-publishing through Amazon and setting up a membership club scared me so much. It was easier to tell myself I needed to self-publish a book through my blog because I’d already done that twice before.
But the book to self-publish through my blog wasn’t fully thought through. I didn’t have enough to write it at this stage. I’d made it a priority without thinking it through or questioning if it was right for now. So I procrastinated on that, I procrastinated on my book of essays and I procrastinated on my Club Membership - all because I wasn’t putting the terrifying projects at the top of my planning. Again, this all comes down to a lack of self-belief and lack of confidence.
So, what are the side effects of procrastinating? How do we know when it’s a real issue?