Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.
glad to know there are more!
Hey, I'm sato (named after a comic book character who's a hikikomori, which I would be if I were a little more belligerent), I'm 19, and I've been a procrastinator since third or fourth grade.
so, my past: it started when I got into a gifted program in third grade, and I felt like I was so bad at it that I just blocked it out. I avoided it and never told my parents. it leaked into my regular schooling and during a conference, when they wanted to know why my grades had gone down so suddenly, I couldn't speak. all I did was burst into tears. I've done a lot of bursting into tears in front of teachers in my years. I've always been unable to communicate my feelings. it's weird. my parents want to know what's wrong, but they really actually don't. they just want it to be over. it's weird having parents who spoil you all the time, and then when you show any emotion besides joy they tell straight out to grow up.
it's hard knowing you have a reason to cry but at the same time knowing you're just being a big baby for it. instead I don't do anything.
I'm doing my senior year again in a lenient alternative school, but I've already failed classes simply because I'm scared of starting an assignment.
I'm a chronic procrastinator, and it doesn't have a name like depression or ADD or something. instead I'm just the lazy girl who should've dropped out if she didn't want to be in school. it's frustrating, to say the least. to say the most, I'm totally screwing my life up.
knowing that there are those who procrastinate so badly that it's a serious problem is uplifting. it doesn't feel so alien anymore. not to have any false epiphanies. here's to hoping I don't give up on this!
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me too
they didnt have a gifted program in my school when i was a kid, but you're scaring me because my 3 kids are all in one.
Personally i coasted thru HS getting As and Bs. With a little work i could have gotten all As. My parents let me coast by. Not sure they knew i was building an ingrained habit of procrastination. If they knew, they would have done something, i'm sure. But how could they know? Or are they fellow sufferers? When i got to college, i was no longer one of the top kids in the class, but surrounded by top kids in the class from HS all over the world--it hit like a shock. There was no way to get As w/o studying, and i had horrible study habits. Procrastination doesnt make a good study habit.
Now, every week i fear i'm going to lose my job because of the hours i whittle away.
Here's a quote i saw recently. Ironically, it was at a conference for gifted children :)
"Genius without education is like silver in the mine" - Ben Franklin.
So we're all here because our mining tools are broken. And we're trying, together, to fix them.
You're in my prayers
Hey,being told you're smart
Hey,
being told you're smart quite a lot as a kid can be bad for your motivation.
See:
http://blogs.chron.com/schoolzone/2007/02/stop_telling_your_kids_theyre_...
Basically, smart is something you are without trying, right? Which means, if you're having to do *work*, you musn't be that smart, right? And you avoid challenging yourself, because you don't want to make a mistake, and be shown to be 'not smart'. You keep screwing up to give yourself an excuse for failing. You start things at last minute so that if you do badly, hey, it was because you started at last minute - and if you do well, hey! You must be really smart!
Thing is, that works in primary school (grade school?). Then you actually *do* have to work, and everything falls to pieces. If you got into the gifted program, hey - you probably are a little smarter than the average bear. Yay for you.
But actually, you still need to work. Homework. Projects. :P
Similar stuff happened to me, and basically, I needed to learn to... let it go. Maybe I am smart, maybe I'm dumb. Maybe I'm surely both.
I'm trying, *trying*, to reward myself for the things I DO. For putting the effort in. But I know it'll take a lot to change.
And hey, if it helps - stay at school, do what you can, but if it doesn't work out, hey, it's not that big a deal, in the grand scheme of things, or your life as a whole. I got into Uni anyway as an 'older student' without having to have finished highschool - and I was only 20!?!!
There's a lot of things you can work on, things that'll change over the next decade or so - so you're not the person you want to be now. You *can* be.
:)
It's what I tell myself!
;D
ouch!
whincing away at your insight: it strikes too close to home. I went back to my high school reunion and yelled at my teachers for letting me get away with not doing work. Nothing like being insightful and good at tests to get me off the hook of acting responsibly. Today I work in a university library and seeing the same students there day after day reminds me of how imuch I did not follow through on as a student. It took years of working to remedy the image of myself in my head as a person who did not produce. Little else makes me feel better than being productive.
Sato
You're intelligence has nothing to do with procrastination. Most procrastinators are very intelligent people and I am sure you are one.
Procrastinating is doubly hard on the ego because we know we can do SO MUCH but it feels like our feet are stuck in cement. I want to affirm you and say that you are going to make it. There is no LIFE SENTENCE except the one we sentence ourselves to.
Define what you want in life and pursue it. You only fail when you quit and you only can quit when you decide to...so don't!
This is the place to vent, heal and grow. There are some great people here.
Douglas
Welcome, sato!
Sato, I agree with the suggestion to read the article about "Demand Resistance". You sound a lot like me in that regard.
Here is that article:
http://www.procrastinators-anonymous.org/node/184
welcome, sato
You are in the right place. Your story resonates with me as well: I had forgotten that I had a similar experience in 4th grade when they tried to put me in the 5th grade math class. It was actually traumatic and I did not stay there for more than two weeks, but it changed me in fundamental ways. I stopped doing my english grammer homework, thinking in my young mind that I could speak, read and write well, who cared about diagrammiing sentences! In fact, that choice has haunted me since, and have a block against grammar. Funny how those childhood decisions can become life sentences.
As for dropping out, it can be freeing. I left college after an abysmally bad year and it was an enormous relief to begin to work on my schedule, not the one outlined by others. The attitude of choice allowed me to feel like I had some sense of control, that despite the fact that I my goal since the age of 3 was to be a graduate student (not kidding) and that I still am struggling to finish my masters at 48!
Take a look at some of the articles that Pro has posted here about demand resistance (what I call 'you can't make me' syndrome). Half the time I am the one who is telling myself I can't make me do something! I ABHOR deadlines, but if I can take them out of the picture I sometimes can find myself choosing to work on things.
Keep coming back!
to elisaveth
LOL elisaveth, did you notice you typed "life sentences" -- SENTENCES -- in a paragraph about your struggles with grammar. <insert grin here>
blushing
LOL, need I say more????