Cutting to the core (3 of ?) Storylines

[marsden_online]

Back to my current favourite source of advice on procrastination

The procrastinator is in the bad habit, bordering on addiction, of letting the monkey win. He continues to have the intention to control the monkey, but he puts forth a hapless effort, using the same proven-not-to-work methods he’s used for years, and deep down, he knows the monkey will win. He vows to change, but the patterns just stay the same. So why would an otherwise capable person put forth such a lame and futile effort again and again?
The answer is that he has incredibly low confidence when it comes to this part of his life, allowing himself to become enslaved by a self-defeating, self-fulfilling prophecy. Let’s call this self-fulfilling prophecy his Storyline. The procrastinator’s Storyline goes something like this:
For the Have-To-Dos in my life, I’ll end up waiting until the last minute, panicking, and then either doing less than my best work or shutting down and not doing anything at all. For the Want-To-Dos in my life, let’s be honest—I’ll either start one and quit or more likely, I just won’t ever get around to it.
The procrastinator’s problems run deep, and it takes something more than “being more self-disciplined” or “changing his bad habits” for him to change his ways — the root of the problem is embedded in his Storyline, and his Storyline is what must change.

And the takeaway - good advice for anything you want to achieve in life...

3) Aim for slow, steady progress—Storylines are rewritten one page at a time.
In the same way a great achievement happens unglorious brick by unglorious brick, a deeply-engrained habit like procrastination doesn’t change all at once, it changes one modest improvement at a time. ... The author who writes one page a day has written a book after a year. The procrastinator who gets slightly better every week is a totally changed person a year later.
So don’t think about going from A to Z — just start with A to B. Change the Storyline from “I procrastinate on every hard task I do” to “Once a week, I do a hard task without procrastinating.” If you can do that, you’ve started a trend. I’m still a wretched procrastinator, but I’m definitely better than I was last year, so I feel hopeful about the future.

This storyline concept has shown up in a number of other articles I have read and also in my counselling sessions. Here are some of my most pernicious - by externalising them here I intend to given them substance whereby I can challenge them going forward.

1. I haven't earned this: Checking my privilege
- my parents paid for a private school education and paid for most of my university the first time round
- including buying a house for me to live in which they later gave me, worth probably more than I have been paid over my lifetime (haven't done the maths)
- which is how I was able to afford the Prius (Mortgage rates being cheaper than car finance)
It is only thanks to them that I have the liberty of being able to be broken and finding my own way to wellness, working to live rather than living to work and survive.

I consider myself honour-bound to the society I live in to play this good fortune forward in any way I can - as I have no kids of my own (though I would certainly like some) this is instead expressed in my contributions to my friends, my tribe, and anyone in fact who crosses my path that I perceive in need of a hand-up which is within my means. And being generous in nature is a great thing, but it needs cultivation. Growing wild it leads me to put the needs of others above my own in ways which are not healthy for me.

Growing wild it is nurtured and fertilised by the feeling that I *must* retroactively *earn* the things which have been given to me, in some sort of karmic sense.

There are also other karmic debts in my history which I don't feel will ever be repaid. The best I can aim for is "never again".

Counters:
* No one but me is counting this "debt", even if there were means to quantify it. I have a lifetime of paying it forward ahead of me, "good works" so much a part of my nature that I am proud of that it will never lapse.

* Though my life would have been incalculably different without these things I am confident I would still have developed in to a confident, successful person. Perhaps on a smaller scale, but with similar grand aims and goals. Perhaps I would have picked up those skills for dealing-with-crap and studying-working-hard that the lack of contributed to my breaking. My financial discipline is not so much a factor of my parents as of my own nature so I would still be moderately well off.

* Debt paid. Move on. It's all in the black from here.


2. I am the sort of smart intelligent person who can complete any task quickly and easily
- this sounds positive but is actually deceptive and leads straight to a feeling of low-self-worth when one encounters a task which is *not* easy for one. It can be devastating in conjunction with #3
- many articles online about this and it's companions

I've mentioned this earlier in the series. Like many others I was able to breeze through most of secondary school (not exceptional grades for my school but I was OK with that) and the first year of university without picking up the skill of *studying*. And this really worked against me in the later years of Uni (again how incalculably different might my life have been had I passed and graduated after only 3 or 4 years instead of dropping out and going back almost a decade later to complete the rest of my degree with mediocre passes).
The skill of studying overlaps with another I never picked up - working hard at something you are not enjoying. Past-me shows I am certainly capable of working (what appears to others) incredibly hard and turning out amazing results on tasks that I am interested in - or not too intimidated by a lack of knowledge to attempt.

Counters:
* I don't particularly feel the need to learn to study, but I would like to acquire it's sibling skill. For now I'm going to see how much the habits I am learning to beat the procrastination monkey will also have positive application here.

* there are ways to reword this storyline in a more positive manner eg "I am the sort of person who can take on any task and have a good go at it even if it initially seems outside my capability". Work on this.


3. It is better/more efficient that someone else does this / someone else is better suited to this task. I will only fail / make a mess of it / do an unsatisfactory/incomplete job / waste the time and then someone else will need to redo it anyway.
- often applied to tasks which fall outside my "areas of expertise" or that I don't know where to start
- in direct contradiction to #2, but the human mind isn't known for being rational about these things

Counters:
* I may not be the best person for the job, but I am apparently the best person for the job right now
-- trust in manager's judgement / assessment of the trade off between my working on this, my working on something else, someone else working on this, someone else working on something else
-- rise to the challenge. Give it my best.

* Welcome the opportunity to LEARN

* Succeed and feel the accomplishment, or fail knowing I did my best and accept the bittersweet satisfaction of being proven right. Win/win?
-- being very careful not to self sabotage Instant Gratification monkey will doubtless try to grab the latter sooner rather than later.

* this has become a lot better at my current job, where I am almost always working in my area of expertise although I would certainly do well to stretch the limits of that more.


4. Relationships (or lack thereof)
There are a whole lot of pause-giving storylines here. Some of them I firmly believe are correct, for example
* As a much older man and "elder of the tribe" I have the responsibility not to initiate go-nowhere relationships with the young things which sometimes catch my attention (#powerdynamiccs),
* and also the experience-thus-responsibility not to let them (or risk them which may bear closer examination) form an attachment to me which is certain to end in tears. (This responsibility is to my own well being as well as theirs.)
* This [list of traits] experience tells me are a good sign X and I will not be compatible. (It's not a short list. But amenable to compromise if someone has a lot of traits on my equivalent "look for" list.)

On to some of the negatives
* Telling X that I would like to be more than a friend will cause them to become uncomfortable around me and strain the friendship we have built up
- It is a fact that beyond mere physical attraction I almost invariably only become interested in a relationship with someone after I count them a friend. In younger years this led to an awful lot of "friend-zoning" and awkwardness (as much from my side). I have pretty much stopped trying, and when I do set myself to try I often end up not, or self sabotaging (see next point)

* I need to wait for the right moment (knowing at the back of my mind that it probably is not going to occur, or if it does I will hesitate and it will be gone)

* This is one of those questions that you shouldn't ask unless you are already sure of the answer. Look for enough obvious signs that X *is* interested in you as more of a friend before even trying for more.

* If at first you don't succeed - it is possible to prove worthy.
- This is a particularly insidious cultural one, and one I internalised well before ever having a relationship. Guy tries to get girl, girl rebuffs guy, guy performs ever greater feats until eventually girl realises he is worth her love. (Or the other way around, girl wins guy). It is only in recent years I have been exposed to material which has led to an understanding that and how and why this is wrong, and start purging it from my system.
- To my now great regret this one put a lot of strain on an otherwise very dear friend in our younger days :( OTOH the year put into courting my second true love (who harboured similar "romantic" notions) was not IMO wasted, and the year after that was one of the happiest of my life.

Countering these negatives:
* I am in many ways much different person now than I was at the time I continue to base my expectations on, especially in terms of social skills. People generally seem to find me pretty awesome. I need to take the confidence I have taking the lead in other areas of my life - actually pretty much every other area of my life - and use it here as well. Instead of passively waiting for "the right moment" it is within my ability to create a "near enough" moment to have these conversations.

* A short conversation earlier in the piece could well resolve matters without the aggregate spoon-draining doubt and longing and insecurity which build up - and likely have a more subtle but just as negative effect on the friendship and how comfortable X feels around me. Beyond that - I owe it to my friends to be honest about how I feel about them.
(I will always be honest if asked by not-intoxicated-particular-friend how I feel about them, but there are certainly times it might be better to volunteer that information.)