Let’s have a little Christmas quiz shall we – have a guess. What was it that helped my client move from a place of putting things off to getting things done..
- More discipline?
- More motivation?
- Carrot and stick?
- Bribery?
None of the above.
It was self-compassion.
Pure loving kindness.
Yeah she had that reaction too – “Alex you talk about self-compassion all the time and I’m just not sure that it’s powerful enough to get me moving.”
So I explained..
… the root of procrastination is shame. Not laziness or overwhelm or just being that type of person. It’s shame.
And there is nothing that defeats shame quicker than self-compassion.
So, we tried a few things. Because I could tell she still didn’t believe me.
- A classic procrastination tool: the 5 second rule. Every time my client thought of something that needed doing, she had to start within 5 seconds. What this does is override the narratives that feed procrastination (“I’ll do it later”, “I’m not ready yet” etc) and gets you into the habit of acting immediately.
- New language in terms of how my client spoke to herself. We did a lot of work on the inner critic. So that when she procrastinated, instead of being harsh and critical of herself, my client instantly forgave herself and was kind and gentle. To her surprise, this didn’t make her procrastination worse. In fact, what this did was allow her to look at the situation and identify what she could do differently next time (because she wasn’t too frozen in shame to think clearly). As she was able to come up with new solutions and different approaches, her procrastinating got less and less.
- Nervous system work. Shame has a strong hold on our bodies and can dig in deep. My client felt her shame as a burning feeling in her chest. So we created a list of options for self-soothing, from working with smell to breathwork and touch. Every time she felt shame or fear, she would run down this list and over time she learned to use her nervous system to reassure her mind and body that she was safe.
And from that place of safety she found action to be easy. Exciting even. No longer a struggle against what felt like a huge obstacle.
If you struggle with procrastination there is nothing wrong with you. It’s just likely that you don’t yet have the mindset and tools in place to see how to remove this from how you function.
I would love to help you with that. I am taking on a couple of new 1:1 clients in Jan and Feb – book an intro call for any time after 27th Dec to chat about whether resilience coaching is a good option for you to become more proactive and action-driven (and how we’ll do it).
You can also get a whole week of free self-compassion tools via email with Start Your Year with Self-Compassion – sign up here.
Be kind to yourself – self-compassion is what resilient people are made of.
