P is for Procrastination by Carol Harrison

 

P is for Procrastination

Procrastination. I am good at that. Do you ever struggle with procrastinating?

Procrastination is the act or habit of delaying or postponing some task that needs to be done, whether it is around the house, at work, or in our writing. I have always tended to procrastinate some things and I am in a season right now where procrastination seems to loom large in everyday life. Tasks appear to be larger than they really are. The tiredness due to health concerns and grief make motivating myself difficult. What causes you to put things off?

Some of the causes of procrastination for various people include:

-        Fear of failure

-        Lack of clarity about the task

-        Lack of structure

-        Perfectionism

-        Laziness

-        Allowing good reasons to become excuses once the reason is no longer valid

I’ve been reading (another way I procrastinate) about ways to overcome these various causes of procrastination. Even good things can sometimes become those excuses to delay doing a necessary task such as reading. It is a good thing for writers to engage in but I’ve found myself reading so much other things get left undone.

Fear of failure:

-        Start with small steps that are manageable as you work towards a larger end goal.

-        Build your confidence by taking small steps

-        Listen to what others have said about your writing. Read critiques you received. Sometimes our mind only sees the negatives and forgets to look at the positives.

Lack of clarity:

-        Can you break down the task into smaller steps – stepping stones to reaching the destination of a job completed?

-        Having deadlines to work towards gives a clearer vision of necessary timelines for your goals. I seem to work better when there are deadlines, even self-imposed ones.

Lack of Structure

-        Find a place that works for you to concentrate on your writing – a dedicated space if that is what works for you.

-        Figure out a designated time of day that is optimal for you to accomplish some writing or editing.

-        Remember that editing and marketing are part of the writing journey too.

 

Lack of Motivation

-        Is there some physical reason for lacking motivation? Is there a health concern or a need to step back from tasks for a short time due to circumstances?

-        Get an accountability partner. I have people who ask me how my writing is coming, what I’m working on, and how I’m feeling about the entire process. They also pray for me as I write or speak.

-        Accountability partners can also help with goal setting or breaking those goals into smaller steps on your to-do list. My one daughter reminds me to look back at what I’ve crossed off the to-do list and get a picture of the done list to see what I’ve managed to accomplish.

There are likely many more tips you’ve encountered or that work for you regarding this topic of procrastination. It has been a good exercise for me to take a look at why I procrastinate and get some ideas about how to overcome it. Now to put them into practice sooner rather than some time in the future.  

 

 Carol Harrison writes and often procrastinates from her home in Saskatoon. She loves exploring other adventures through spending time researching family history and reading.

 

Making Our Calling Sure - Ramona Heikel

Lately I’ve noticed that my reading and devotions have been focusing on my “calling”, but thinking about that often makes me nervous.  It gives me performance anxiety, because I’ve been given an assignment, but what if I fail?  I believe God wants me to write, but I’m not sure if I have the ability to consistently glorify him, or be a good witness through my words.

Well, I need not wonder any more.  The fact is, I don’t have the ability.  That’s one of the freeing things about being 54 years old.  I’ve had most of my life to try as hard as I can to accomplish what I felt was important, and have become painfully aware of my limitations.

I not only fear that I will fail at my most important responsibilities, I fear making a fool of myself publicly by publishing what I write and having people chuckle to themselves about this newbie who should have revised a few more times, or roll their eyes at my silly ideas about life.

It occurred to me while I was listening to a sermon how much of a risk Noah and Moses took by obeying God’s call on their lives.  They could have made such fools of themselves if they’d misunderstood God.  And if the embarrassment wasn’t bad enough, they could have even gotten themselves thrown in jail or killed.  It took a lot of faith to do what they did. 

Or, I should say, it took a lot of faith in God to obey what he told them to do.  That’s different from having faith in themselves.

Lately, I am realizing that it is God’s responsibility to make something of my efforts.  He is the one that had the brilliant idea of working through humans to love and serve mankind, instead of taking the safe route of just doing it himself through supernatural methods (which would have taken a lot of pressure off of us!).  But I believe that this plan of his is perfect, because he is the one who thought of it.

Notice that in Acts 1:8 Jesus does NOT say, “After you ask for the Holy Spirit, you’ve got to try your hardest to demonstrate my power, and hopefully you won’t be too chicken to be my witnesses in your neighbourhood or overseas.”  (This is actually how I’ve been reading it for the past thirty years.)

No, he says, “You WILL RECEIVE power…and you WILL BE my witnesses.”  As in, “It’s going to be amazing what God’s power will do through you.  I can hardly wait!”

In Exodus 31, when God chose (called!) Bezalel to take responsibility for the designs of the Tent of Meeting and its furnishings, he “filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, knowledge and craftsmanship” so that he could make beautiful things.  God puts his Spirit in us, too, giving us writing ability, intelligence, knowledge and craftsmanship to make beautiful words.

I believe that this is what makes our calling sure: our awareness of God’s power and our willingness for him to use us for his own purposes.

Posted by Ramona

www.happilywriting.com

[Clipart courtesy of ChristianClipArts.net]

Into the Light of Day - Lynda Schultz

We had a team meeting last Saturday, prompted by the visit of a colleague from Colombia. There are plans being born for a cooperative effort between our Latin American fields and he asked me what I felt I could contribute.

The question should not have been threatening to me. When I submitted my job description and goals to the mission a few years ago, I focussed on my desire to write, to develop resources for the Latin American market. Consequently, I had a clear and carefully formulated answer to give, but the words stuck in my throat. My voice cracked, and I had a hard time controlling the tears that threatened to fall. It wasn't joy or passion that overcame me, it was fear. I was disturbed by my reaction so I sat down later to try to figure out why I couldn't talk about my vision for ministry.

An anonymous piece of advice tacked to my bulletin board says: "The most unfortunate thing that happens to a person who fears failure is that he limits himself by becoming afraid to try anything new." I realized that I was among the "unfortunate."

I was afraid that the people I respect would pity me, laugh at me, or reject me for my presumption. I was afraid that I would fail, that my dreams should have been left where they started—under the bedcovers of darkness. I feared my disappointment if I spent weeks, perhaps months, working on a project only to find that it was worthless.

Was this sense of already being a failure why I used the constant spate of company coming through my home as an excuse for not being able to maintain momentum with my projects? Have I always been looking for something or someone to blame for not completing things? Has all this procrastination simply been my way of avoiding being rejected because I'm not good enough, or as good as someone else?

My complaint about the constant interruptions, about the need for blocks of time to write, didn't hold up. When I had the blocks of time, I often found other things to do that would keep me away from my desk, my laptop, my writing projects. If I didn't do them, and could blame someone else for my not completing them, I could maintain the illusion that I really was a good writer—or could be if given the chance. Finding excuses for not beginning or finishing, helped me avoid the failure that I was sure was to come, and the threat that this failure was to my sense of self, significance, and security.

It's not that I have been idle. I have piles of materials that I have written and taught over the years. However, with the vision of turning these into something that is marketable, of exposing my work to public scrutiny, I was overcome with fear. I doubted myself.

In doubting myself, I doubted God. At the beginning of this year the Lord gave me a verse that I supposedly claimed. It comes from Luke 1:45 and says: "Blessed is she who believes that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished." Obviously I am having trouble claiming this promise. I struggle with believing that God is bigger than my deficiencies. In spite of the encouragement that God has sent along the way, I am still wondering if there is room for this "wannabe" among so many better writers, and if I have a contribution to make.

I have crippled myself, but I am tired of making excuses, of procrastinating because I am afraid. I am tired of being a failure because I haven't given myself the change to succeed. I am tired of living by someone else's definition of success rather than being guided by God's definition of it.

I am writing this in past tense as though it were not a recent experience. Somehow identifying the enemy has loosened his grip and pushed him into the past. However, the battle is probably not over and there will arise both old and new opponents. At least I now recognize the problem. That alone has given me more freedom and courage to expose the dreams that I have had in the dark to the light of a new day.