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.
Upbringing and procrastination
Reading this article: http://www.2knowmyself.com/Self_regulation_and_parenting made me think about my own procratination roots. It has been clear to me for a while that my upbringing has played a big part in my problem. But it took me a while to come to that realization because my parents are so far from the image of stern, extremely strict and loveless that a phrase like "authoriative parents" conjure.
My mom was always looking out for me, always worried about practical matters, but unfortunately instead of teaching me how to look out for myself, she just took care of the matters herself to protect me. My dad was very proud and supportive of me and as a child school and music did come effortlessly to me so it was only fair that he was. But as I grew older and demands got higher I still expected things to come easy to me which they of course didn't. Instead of encouraging me to get better, my dad kept supporting my mediocre results, even though it was obvious to everyone that I was not really getting anywhere. In general they were very quick to excuse me when I messed up and I'm sure they did it because they loved me.
Complaining about loving parents may seem very ungrateful and privileged but when you never take a fall for yourself, when you're not really held responsible for your own actions, you become helpless. The combination of "mother knows best" and "you don't have to strive" might be comfortable when you're a child but as a grown up I feel like these mindsets have done some damage.
It's of course important to never let these things become excuses, because everyone has some baggage. It's just easier to sort out your problems when you know the roots.
I'm quite curious as to how other procrastinators were raised. Did your parents take care of things for you? Were they procrastinators too? Did you have a happy or difficult childhood?
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My parents had (and still
My parents had (and still have, despite the fact that I'm 23) a very
rigid style of parenting. I was a good kid, but I was constantly yelled
at for things like taking off my shoes in the living room (and not
instantly running to my room to put them away), finishing a glass of
water and not putting it up in the kitchen as soon as the last drop was
gone, and other things that generally involved neatness/tidyness.
To
my parents, these were cardinal sins, but they didn't have a consistent
method of enforcing their beliefs. Instead of there being a training
period, where they would remind/show us what to do, I remember being
about seven and getting yelled at by my father about how "You should be
self-motivated to clean your room/take up your dirty dishes/whatever,
what's wrong with you?!" Other times, he wouldn't have the energy or
time to berate myself and my brother and would let things slide. We'd
get long "sermons" (lasting an hour or more) about how we were so
selfish and lazy. "Ungrateful" and "spoiled" were his favorite words. Often what triggered it was something as simple as a
scuff mark on the floor or a room that wasn't quite clean enough.
My
mother was on me the other day about changing my oil because I happened
to let it slip that I needed to make an appointment to get it changed. I
live 1200 miles away and she kept texting me about it. "Made the
appointment yet? When are you going to get the oil changed?" She's the
sort of person who literally can't rest until a task is accomplished,
even if it's not her task. She feels uneasy with letting things lie, or
putting them off.
I think the combination of my parents is what
created some of my procrastination tendencies. I could put off and
forget things because my mother served as a nagging day planner, and I
didn't feel like doing them because I was just going to get yelled at by
my father anyway. However, the cost of me not being proactive (like my
father apparently wanted) was that I was constantly surrounded by
negativity. I think I associate tasks, even the smallest ones like
putting away a dish, with a huge cloud of negative feelings.
Additionally, with my parents, there was always the need to rebel, and
the only way to rebel was to not do the thing they wanted. So doing
"chores" has a huge negative connotation for me, and not doing them is
the only way I feel "free". This logic doesn't fly in my own apartment,
but that's still the way I feel, tethered to these negative thoughts and
memories.
My brother joined the Marines and I am in the process
of also joining up. We both love it. I do martial arts as well. I'm
convinced that we're both reservoirs of pent-up aggression because we
were yelled at from such a young age. However, why do we both thrive in
military environments? My personal theory is that it's about respect. I
never respected my parents' parenting style. I respect them in other
aspects-my mother and father are both intelligent and can be witty, my
mother's a great cook and my dad's a skilled hunter. But they weren't
good disciplinarians. The Marines are consistent and nothing's personal
with them. I was talking to one of my guy friends about the fact that I
was joining up and he raised one eyebrow and said "Ah, Daddy didn't love
you enough, I see." I mean....maybe.
Totally relate
I can really relate to what you wrote about your upbringing, Odette, especially the following:
-parents expecting you to be self-motivated and disciplined to keep your room clean at age 7 and berating you for not having done it, rather than teaching you the motivation step by step.
-being an adult and mother is still calling|texting to remind you to do errands.
-rebelling against their demands by putting off the task, and feeling falsely "free" about it (until the guilt kicks in or you realize you are only hurting yourself).
i guess we have to learn to be to ourselves the parents our parents did not know how to be..