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.
In a BIG hole
Good Morning everyone,
I'm grateful for this forum. I am seeing
positive change in my life and encouragement. But I know if I don't
keep working my program, that will change quickly into disappointment,
despair and blaming others.
I work for a small company and over
the years I have taken on too many responsibilities. I never really took
all of them seriously, only the most immediate ones. And my excuse was
that those tasks took all my time from 9am to 7pm, so how could I
possibly be caught up with EVERYTHING? Well the end result of that kind
of thinking is, we are about 200K in the hole. Because I didn't even try
to stay caught up. So I didn't really know that I had taken on too
much. I just thought I was lazy, and felt justified. Anyway, this has
happened several times over the years and I always dug us out of the
hole because I CAN work hard when I want to. But this time is by far the
worst. I got fired from one position and the only reason I didn't get fired from both was that I'm the only one who knows how to collect the money and we need it, like yesterday, to be able to pay our operating expenses. And it almost sank our company. So now I'm looking at the BIG
task of getting caught up. Already somewhat fruitful, but I am SO scared
that I will let everything slip again after I dig us out.
So my wish and sincere desire and also greatest fear is to stay caught up with my work and not let this horror happen again. I may, just maybe, may be able to keep my job (which I love) afte this is all said and done. It feels like such a joke and I feel so full of shame when I think about it, I have been this way all of my life, so why do I expect to be able to change now?
I feel like if I can just do one day, one moment, one task at a time, with God's grace, I can change.
Thank you for listening.
Lauraji
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Thank you
Thank you, icemountainguy, vic, and clement, for your words of encouragement. And your prayers. I am have a spiritual inclination but I feel like this problem has really been crippling me, and kept me from God, and it's time I did something about it, and took responsibility, instead of blaming others, which is really easy to do.
So I will work my PA program today, the best I can.
Peace,
Lauraji
(Laurajl)
Welcome and please keep coming back.
This whole thing is such a mystery because the procrastination is just the tip of the iceberg, and we each have different icebergs. However, this is the only place I have found that I can feel "understood" about something that is not logical or makes any sense, even to me.I have found hope, support and growth here and have made friends in spirt at a level most people could only wish for and you can too.
good reading in Melody Beattie Language of Letting go:
"Unfinished business doesn't go away. It keeps
repeating itself, until it gets our attention, until we feel it, deal
with it, and heal. That's one lesson we are learning in recovery.
Many
of us didn't have the tools, support, or safety we needed to
acknowledge and accept pain in our past. It's okay. We're safe now.
Slowly, carefully, we can begin to open ourselves up to our feelings. We
can begin the process of feeling what we have denied so long - not to
blame, not to shame, but to heal ourselves in preparation for a better
life.
It's an acceptance process. It moves us from
our past, into today, and into a better future - a future free of
sabotaging behaviors, a future that holds more options than our past. "
praying for lauraji
your situation sounds really scary. I hear some hope in it that you can dig yourself out, and that's really good. And yet you are worried about keeping your job. I have been there, not with money directly in my job, just with accomplishing enuf work that it's worth them to keep paying my salary.
When i read tracy-la's post / reading on one of the 9 feb days, it struck me as to how true it was to me, and it appears to fit your situation as well.
If you have time you might want to read the whole thing cuz it says we're all in this together. I found it very encouraging. Hope you will too.
Now it "just so happens" that over the last 2 days i was not behind schedule!!! It's been so long i dont even know what that feels like anymore, and i did not procrastinate during those 2 days. (Now, i'm behind schedule again ;)) But that was so different from the past, it's almost shocking. I really do conisder it miraculous, and i can't locate the strength or reason inside myself for why it was different. I believe that God working directly on my mind and the great people and atomosphere in this fellowship are what changed me. I feel like i literally draw strength from these things each day.
But, the point is that it seems like the situation you said you will face when you dig yourself out and then dont want to get yourself in a hole again. I believe it is possible, but it is not easy. For me it has not always been fun. And i still regret, in a way, having to admit that i can't do it by myself, that i NEED to come here each day to focus, remember, stay on track, etc. But, better than than the alternative, so i swallow my pride and do it. Altho i still have times where i think i can do it myself. And i slip up. And i end up back here. But it think for me that happens less often.
Anyway. I feel like i'm rambling :(
But I also have to echo what icemountainguy37 said "and there is no reason to be ashamed of yourself or angry at yourself because that's not going to help you get motivated." Of course, even tho i know that's very, very true, i still get ashamed and angry at myself all the time :P Ah well.
But that statement of yours:
"I feel like if I can just do one day, one moment, one task at a time, with God's grace, I can change."
with an attitude like that you can't lose!! :D
Wish you all the best, Lauraji, and will be praying for you!
take what you like. leave the rest.
fall down seven times, get up eight - japanese proverb
hello Laura it seems
hello Laura
it seems like you're in quite the pickle there. I'd say it's never too late blah blah but I feel that sounds clesche which I probably just mispelled. Now I feel as though life is shaped to teach us how to become better people. But it's not a pass or fail kind of deal, where you just get to walk away from the lessons when it gets rough. Because it'll just keep throwing that same lesson at you over and over again until you get it. I feel like it's the law of the world, life just wants everyone to grow. The idea here is that I believe your situation is resolvable and you can make it through, and I hope everything turns out well sometimes you just got to shove through. The big question is can you change, can you truly genuinely change your habits. And I think a big part of that will require you just remembering now, remembering how much you don't like being in this sort of situation and using that to motivate you to never want to come back ever. That helped me keep a consistant change. And remember if you can't handle that much work because it's just too much then lighten your load no amount of money is worth causing yourself alot of stress. Because stress causes and has been correlated with numerous illnesses. So good luck to you.
and there is no reason to be ashamed of yourself or angry at yourself because that's not going to help you get motivated. We are all here to learn and sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes actually we make a lot of mistakes, in fact I feel like most people in life make a whole lot of mistakes it's just a part of the whole deal. It's just different people make em in different areas. as long as you are willing to work and imporve it's all good. Be kind to yourself, and help yourself through this.