Just keep starting

NoMore – 

Well, your post was certainly what I needed to read today. I'm "starting" again today, trying to put one foot in front of the other in a directed, deliberate way instead of running away.

A month ago, I lost another important client — the best opportunity to come my way in four years — due to my continued inability to deliver work on time and within scope. It took maybe a week for it to sink in, and then I felt pretty depressed and hopeless for a couple weeks. Today I'm back from a nice vacation with my family. No real hopefulness in me, but at least I'm clear that running is just going to make things worse and worse. 

I relate so much to your post, NoMore. I'm 45, a creative professional with some impressive work behind me. But I too have been crippled by this affliction my whole life. I've created so much pain through procrastination and perfectionism that I've turned to all sorts of drugs/behaviors to self-medicate. That's how I got into the 12 Steps nine years ago. But I've learned that those things are just superficial manifestations of the affliction — it's my desperate need to be beyond criticism and judgment from others that's at the core of everything. And the procrastination/perfectionism have always been the core expression of the affliction. 

Your post brought to mind something from a book called Turning It Over; in a section called "A Pattern of Failure," the author writes:

The reason New Year's resolutions get so much attention i sthat hope soars skyward, but promises crash like a windless kite. It's human nature to reach high and fall short. And to believe that it'll be different next time. 

So it was with our self-destructive behaviors. We always thought it would be different the next time we indulged. We would be in control next time. Nothing would go wrong because we would watch it; we would be more careful. And of course it never worked. Like the kite, we always crashed.

Consequently for those of us in 12 Step programs, the idea of attempting something noble — even something humbling — is disheartening. The thought of failure is ever with us.

Until I hit bottom and asked for help in AA, I was not able to stop drinking. I had promised myself thousands of times, but promises are quickly forgotten in the throes of withdrawal. Because of my repeated fruitless attempts to stop killing myself, you might say I was programmed for failure.

I am so accustomed to trying and failing that it is second nature to me now. I failed to control my behavior so often that I lost my self-respect. Because I was a victim of disease, not weak will, I can now see that this was inevitable. The results of trying to gain control were foregone conclusions. Everyone who knew me could have predicted the ending. Everyone but me. Yet deep inside I knew, too, that with each attempt I would fail once again.

This was a common trait with most of us. That's why we try to live one day at a time. When we set our sights on a goal today, suddenly we're likely to experience that old gut-clutching panic. We weren't very good at carrying out our resolutions then, and we're probably not a whole lot better at it now. So we're apt to be careful about making promises to ourselves or anyone else. We don't want to go through another humiliating failure.

It's a common fear. So it's only natural to balk at trying something as strange and as seemingly impossible as turning our will over to a Higher Power. Look at our track record. We can make pledges, we can promise, but what's always happened when we've done that? Failure.

First time I read this, years ago, I felt like I'd been tacked out like a frog on the dissection table. It's only become more true as the years have gone by; I'm not out of control any more with booze, drugs or compulsive behaviors but I can't seem to fix the stuff that is interfering with my career and my ability to make a living.

The author goes on to describe how the paradoxical promise of the 12 Steps is that the admission of total defeat — in my case, that I, on my own steam, will never be able to control my procrastination, perfectionism, and obsession with finding my self-worth in others' opinions of me — is the key that makes it possible to let go of managing my own decisions a single day at a time.

And when I do that, when I surrender say-so over what I do, then things do tend to get better. Slowly and painfully, maybe, but they do improve.   

I've been here about 3 weeks and I've got more help and support than anywhere else ever.

I too have a successful career, yet I've regularly been in trouble for failing to get work done in time, and my financial life is a bit of a disaster.  But checking in regularly here and using the chatroom when necessary has given me a real practical boost.  I still don't know why I procrastinate, but reporting here in this non-judgemental environment has already had massive benefits in my work.

Glad you have joined us - I hope you enjoy the benefits as much as I do

H.