If you’re a person of the human kind, you already know about self-sabotage.
You know how people do a crappy job at a task so they can have an excuse to fail.
You know how people seek out the wrong partners because it’s a comfort zone for them to repeat childhood traumas.
You know how people ruin relationships because they feel like they’re not good enough for someone.
And then there’s me. I’m guilty of procrastination. Sadly, confessing won’t absolve me of my sins, nor will it cause punishment. Procrastination is the ultimate form of self-punishment. The catch is that the consequences are a Future Me problem.
I often think of a quote from some lyrical master who I don’t remember: if it’s good for you, it feels bad before but better after. If it’s unhealthy, it feels good for you before but awful after. That sums up procrastination.
The feeling of completing a large task or a checklist of tasks is amazing. It’s a mental high-five because no one else cares that you cleaned the bathroom and kitchen while also squeezing in a workout. Feeling accomplished is a reward for intrinsic motivation.
Once upon a time, I was the queen of accomplishments. I had no choice; I was a married-but-single working mom of two small kids, one with autism. My life was keeping all the plates spinning because if one fell, they all fell. It was exhausting, but I was a powerhouse at getting stuff done.
Fast-forward to a pandemic, a divorce, and buying a new house.
Do you remember in The Little Mermaid (Disney edition), when Ursula takes souls and they turn into little unhappy grey blobs? I feel like I was King Tritan before Ursula was a dick to me. And now, I’m just a blob regretting life choices and wondering why I can’t do anything anymore.
For fun, let’s go through the laundry list.
Exercise is a no-brainer. I’m struggling to find a new schedule because, before the divorce, I could squeeze in late workouts since the one task the ex-husband did was get the kids to school in the morning. I also didn’t feel guilty not spending time with the kids 24/7, so I could work out when they were playing.
You’d think I’d have more time being a Part-Time Mom (that still hurts on so many levels to write) but my time is fragmented. When I have my kids, I feel like an asshole working out and ignoring them for an hour. When I don’t have my kids, I’m juggling meetings at my new job.
But really, there’s no excuse. Sometimes I say I’m too tired and will go to bed, only to end up scrolling through TikTok for three hours (kudos to that app maker, I seriously struggle to shut it off).
It’s impacting my mental health. My eating disorder is bubbling to the surface, waiting for me to crack and resort to extreme measures to stay thin. While I don’t love my body when I’m exercising, it’s the only time I feel comfortable in my skin and feel like I can wear whatever I want. For someone who has spent her whole life hiding behind baggy clothes and hoodies, it’s liberating to feel confident about my body.
Today I ate a healthy egg white and veggie breakfast. Then I chased it with two cookies. Not just any cookies…we’re talking about the Costco chocolate chip ones. You know what I’m talkin’ about. Those don’t even taste that good and yet, I’m addicted like crack to sugar.
Speaking of sugar, I have on a deeply-buried list to detox sugar. But since that falls under “feels bad before but will feel better after”, I choose short-term satisfaction.
There are so many chores to do. So. Many. On one hand, it’s hard to squeeze in time when I’ve got 50% fewer available weekends because I don’t want to waste the time with my kids doing housework. On the other hand, I have nine walls and four different paint colors I need to tackle because of re-piping my entire house.
I re-piped my house five months ago. I’ve re-hung the stuff on my walls to get it all off the floor.
Home maintenance is a hell of a lot easier when you’re married with two disposable incomes. I can’t even think of gardening when in my prior life, I paid $100/month for a gardener to handle all this crap. My splurge is having a cleaning person do the hardcore scrubbing bi-weekly; I’ve tried doing it on my own but it takes an entire day what her crew does in two hours. I sell on Etsy, I write on Medium, and I sell on eBay to justify the $240 I spend each month.
I’m lucky I don’t need to call a handyman anymore. I’m still dating Jeremy (cue the bells and Cinderella birds chirping because…Jeremy) and he’s a home improvement whiz. I genuinely feel guilty for how much he’s saved me in repair costs. At this point he could punch me in the face and I’d say, “okay before I break up with you, can you fix the wonky shelf in my son’s room?”
The biggest procrastination is work.
I started a new job. I knew leaving a cushy gig I’ve had for ten years was going to suck balls. Spoiler alert: it sucks balls.
I have to like, work for my paycheck. Except the kicker is, I didn’t realize that this established company is still in startup mode. I refused to go back to startups because I’m too old for that crap. Even worse, there are more politics than the entire 90210 series combined (including the reboot). It’s hindering my ability for me to be successful.
Instead of building out the documentation system I was hired to spin up, I’ve spent three months writing project charter and presentation decks on what I want to do. I’ve had to beg for $250 in added system fees, which is a drop in the park from my prior job where I begged for $30,000 when I needed something.
I’m not a program manager. I’m not a marketing guru. Creating project plans and presentation decks is outside of my wheelhouse but the one reason I left my old job prevails: I’m getting paid a boatload more to be a whore for this job. If they need me to create a communication plan, which entails a lot of Googling “what is a communication plan”, so be it.
Except I’m not doing any of that. Procrastination is my vice. I hate humans and I’m an introvert; working for a 100% remote job means endless meetings when in the past, I knew everyone from years of working in person that I could connect easily by Slack. By the time I’m done with meetings, I crawl into bed.
I know I’m frustrating my boss. He cherry-picked me and poached me from my old position. I knew it would take a lot for me to quit the cushiest job on earth but being down to one income with a mortgage, I had no choice. I can finally save money instead of living paycheck-to-paycheck.
On a side note, I’m trying to save loads of money to move closer to my ex-husband before my son starts high school. The distance sucks and there’s no way he’s leaving his house (I wouldn’t want him to, it’s more than double the size of mine and our mortgages are the same). I’m giving myself two years to save like a mofo.
I can’t save anything if I’m not employed.
This form of procrastination is manifesting like I have ADHD. My desk is covered in Post-Its with meeting notes and To-Dos, despite that I keep Microsoft OneNote open on my desktop during meetings to remain organized.
“Remain” organized…I mean, “attempt to be” organized.
So here I am, obsessing over my body dysmorphia and squirreling money away as I did pre-divorce instead of focusing on my job and working on things I’m not good at.
I researched “procrastination” on TikTok to get quick sound bites on how to handle it but needless to say, it only fueled my self-sabotage.
Time to get to work. But first, let me do something else…
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: Bruno Gomiero on Unsplash