Procrastination

I read this thread a few weeks ago, and you know why I'm just now posting my thoughts. ;-)

I guess that's where the emotional center comes in? It doesn't just force us to do something while we hate it, it somehow changes our perspective to make us not want to do anything else, at least at the moment, while that emotional energy is still flowing. So how to develop this emotional center to be consciously used and always keep driving us and inspiring us to do what is important, without having it constantly turn off and we keep being bored and waiting for it to click on?
I was wondering something similar. There's gotta be some dopamine connection as well. And I recall the C's quote about bulls submitting and clearing the logjam from Session 10 May 2014 :

Q: (L) Okay, so the next question is: We have numerous activities that are creative for people to be able to release some of their pent up emotions about all of the things that are happening in the world that make everybody unhappy. They can get on SOTT, they can write commentary, they can work on the forum, they can write things on the forum, they can have exchanges, they can have meetings with other people. There are many things that people could be doing, but it's like the excuse always comes down to, "Oh, the frequency fence. I can't do anything because I'm depressed, or I'm this, or I'm that or the other thing." You're saying that they've won half the battle, but it seems to me that it's harder than that. There is something else. How to get over that initial resistance?

A: Taking the bull by the horns is always fearful in the imagination, but when you approach the beast, he usually lays down and submits.

Q: (L) That doesn't answer my question. Okay, what constitutes "approaching the beast"? Since that seems to be where everybody gets stuck...

A: As Yoda said, no try, just do, if only a little. That will break the logjam. Butterfly wings and all that.

But in particular I was wondering if there is some kind of hack for this procrastination problem? One solution is simply waiting until the last minute and then you get motivation and must do it. Is it possible to force it? To always feel like you have to do this right now! Because otherwise you wait for these predefined time cycles to come about. Usually it's Sunday evening for me. Ok time to end the weekend and begin the work week. If every day could feel like Sunday evening (or whatever your 'closing time' is) then you would be more productive.
 
I read this thread a few weeks ago, and you know why I'm just now posting my thoughts. ;-)


I was wondering something similar. There's gotta be some dopamine connection as well. And I recall the C's quote about bulls submitting and clearing the logjam from Session 10 May 2014 :



But in particular I was wondering if there is some kind of hack for this procrastination problem? One solution is simply waiting until the last minute and then you get motivation and must do it. Is it possible to force it? To always feel like you have to do this right now! Because otherwise you wait for these predefined time cycles to come about. Usually it's Sunday evening for me. Ok time to end the weekend and begin the work week. If every day could feel like Sunday evening (or whatever your 'closing time' is) then you would be more productive.
Hi 3DStudent, from my experience forcing full speed a said internal struggle, vice, vulnerability it won't do, at least in my case. When I was forcing a certain vice or programm against which I was struggling I've fallen prey oftentimes to frustration, despair, helplessness that gave to the predator mind more power over me since without realizing it I was dragging myself in a negative feedback loop, a personal hell for myself and a feast for the hyperdimmensional entities.

I've managed to overcome the vices, programms against which I was struggling by starting to admit to myself that there's a certain part in me that renders me weak and meek and since I've had enough of being a slave of my own inner programms and vices I'd better start doing something about it. And you start struggling little by little against whatever makes you week and vulnerable. You fall many, many, many times during this process, it's totally normal, since it's the part of the learning process. Every time you've gotten up after you fell you are building your inner force, your free will because you're doing something, you chose to act against those parts that render you week thus you've chosen to act in favor of your true nature. And you keep going further, step by step till you'll reach your goal, the key is to not give up every time you fall. Along the way you grow in knowledge and awareness, you network one the forum, our community, being patient, kind, loving and respectful towards yourself, knowing that this is a long process so don't get obsessed about it and just enjoy the ride.

The C's put it nicely in the above quoted session, you take the bull by the horns and don't give up till he doesn't bend to your will.

One really fails on his journey when he refuses to get up after falling too many times.

That's my experience with procrastinating and facing my own demons. Still, I've got a lot more to learn and grow, one step at a time, enjoying the ride.
 
Wow it’s been a few years since this thread! What I’ve learned since is to work with your machine rather than fight it head on by sheer will. So if doing certain things seems scary and intimidating and hard in your mind, do what the C’s said - do a little. Give yourself 10 minutes. Say for the next 10 minutes I’ll do the thing then I’ll relax. It’s just 10 minutes. If a thing needs more, say 1 hour, whatever time makes sense and isn’t scary for the activity. Often when you begin the thing, you will find it is a lot less scary or difficult or intimidating than your mind made it out to be - also exactly as the C’s said - the bull just submits without a fight. But if that doesn’t happen, and you can only do the 10 minutes, great you did 10 minutes, way better than 0 minutes! Now try 10 minutes tomorrow, and so on. Trick your machine into not being afraid like you would trick a child, because I think in many ways our machine is a child (after all we develop much of this machine as children), and so all those things parents do to get children to eat their veggies or do their errands would work on yourself and your machine. You just have to be your own parent. Just be a nice one and don’t yell at yourself, be a kind and understanding but also clever parent.

Also don’t laugh but it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself how awesome you can be when you’re at your best. Remember those times you did some crazy seemingly impossible things pretty effortlessly? Things that other people didn’t even think you or anyone could do but you were like “hold my beer, watch this”? You’re still that same person, you’re basically Hercules who is being a baby about a spider in his room after he defeated the Hydra and had its heads for lunch. So just remember how capable you really are, and how much you can do in those 10 minutes! Anyway try the 2-pronged approach - make it less scary, and simultaneously remind yourself that you’re actually really good at stuff, way harder stuff, and nothing is so hard or scary to spend a few minutes on it! Like I just tell myself “I’ll just show up at the gym, I don’t have to work out, just show up”. Of course what happens effortlessly when I am standing in the gym?

By the way that was my 10 minutes just now, see you guys tomorrow! 😂😂😂
 
Procrastination is an epic problem. We all do it to varying degrees, but it's often the case that you can become addicted to the process. It reminds me of school days, where I'd do as little as possible whilst always making time for football, movies and video games. I'd wait till the last minute to do homework/exam study/revision, and I'd feel euphoric that once again I'd pulled it off, ie:- doing as little as possible whilst making pass grades in school. We'd brag about it in the schoolyard. I did the same in Uni too, but I was less successful there, only scraping a 2.2 degree. Fellow students seemed more mature than me back then, they actually loved reading books, whereas it was still work for me. It wasn't until I started reading on Sott/Cass that I found info that was a joy to read, sounds corny but in my case it was true. The Wave didn't live in an intellectual void like most of my earlier reading felt to me, I enjoyed writing that placed the reader into a place where we weren't in some musty hall of academia, we were placed actually in the everyday world. To me, this form of reading it was not work, I read for pleasure. Plus I've always been nosy, I love learning suppressed information.

And that's the rub; if it feels like work to you, then it will always be something that creates resistance within. I think the C's said once that the best way to proceed is to "do the things that come most natural, which is easy for you". So long as you don't have negative proclivities then you should be fine that way. You can still push the envelope as you go on, you can test the boundaries of what is possible for you as an individual. And, of course, work/brain/effort is like developing a muscle, wherein when you do more, then more energies become available to you. The quality of the interest I take in things is higher these days, I genuinely can put my curiosity to good use, and it always feels fun to do so. Work of doing/reading has become a rare pleasure, and so a man who was always a master procrastinator (in my case a cocky, lazy kid) has managed to solve the issue to a reasonable degree. Just do what feels natural for your FRV and abilities, and keep on trucking as you go.
 
I think the confusion might arise from the fact that a lot of people are denied that stage that Laura describes, where they get to try everything and let their own curiosity guide them. So as adults they've become accustomed to just doing whatever is immediately gratifying (i.e. provides material rewards or narcissistic supply) and stop looking for what is truly within them to do.

My current understanding is that in developing our emotional centers, part of the work is getting back in touch with that part of ourselves that knows what it wants to do and does it well regardless of how difficult or externally ungratifying. I guess that would involve in some ways catching up on what was missed in childhood by trying your hand at many different things and allowing that curiosity to resurface. Boredom and procrastination don't even really enter the picture when we're doing what comes naturally, rather than what we've been programmed to do.
I've been kind of emotional lately and not all in a good way-- kind of a baby's waking up kind of a thing.
So one of the things I've learned is through life, and lot of turmoil, is to become like a mother or really a father actually because that's what I was born to be.
So as adults with many different undeveloped parts of ourselves it's incumbent to sometimes at least in my case really focus on raising those babies.
That means being gentle, that means being loving with ourselves and definitely engaging a lot of play and it has to be obviously a personal thing and a personal responsibility and so every baby's going to have natural proclivities and interest and so those things have to be focused on and they actually will guide us, or me to fulfillment.
 
I think it's possible to tell when Inspiration comes from the real self. You know, when you feel and see and understand the terror if the situation, and nothing in the world seems more important to you than to contribute to the greatest efforts to wake people up and wake yourself up. At that point you may find yourself doing what you *know* truly matters, because at that moment you understand it is the only thing that matters. But this is usually a passing state, because after all, we are all machines. So probably most of the time we will find ourselves inspired for distractions and mindless entertainment and things that we KNOW are a waste of our time.

So it seems the problem is, we wait for the "higher inspiration" to turn on before we do what is of vital imprortance. So it seems we have some options:

A) Just do what you're currently inspired to do, even if that means wasting time because one of many i's is in the lead at the moment making you do what it feels like doing.

B) Force yourself to do what you know is important, even if you're totally uninspired to do it at this moment. So that would mean you've already experienced, if only for a moment, that "higher inspiration" and understood what is important, and so you simply ignore all other inspirations and simply DO what you know is important, even if you're totally uninspired and don't "feel like" doing it at the moment when some little "i" is in control. This would take willpower since you're consciously going against what your "inspiration" is telling you to do.

C) Try to find a way to bring back this "higher inspiration", and if you manage to consciously bring it back, then you'll simply again start doing what you know needs to be done, and love every moment of it because you're inspired. How to do that? I'm not sure.

D) Balance between doing all 3 of the above. I think the bottom line is, when we do the Work on self, the "higher inspiration" driven by our higher emotinal center and complemented by our intellectual center will show up more and more often. Ultimately, the goal of the Work is that the real "I" is in control at all times - so you'd always be inspired to do the most important work.

But until that time we're machines, and will be inspired for nonsense much of the time. So how to balance A, B, and C, without harming ourselves or going astray? Well one thing I could think of is - when it comes to "A", we do have to throw a piece of meat to the predator every now and then. When it comes to "B", that too probably should be done with care because the C's said not to force it, but simply to do what feels natural, or else we risk going astray. However, the problem is, what feels "natural" very often is precisely that which leads us astray, because our mechanical state is natural to us, distractions and mindless entertainment often feels very "natural".

We can't do all "A" because we'd not accomplish anything important if we're just flying where the wind blows. We can't do all "B" because we'd have extreme difficulty sticking to the game plan and completely ignoring the predator / many i's. So it seems a little bit of "A" and "B" is necessary, but also "C" and doing the Work as much as we can.

So often we'd have to simply ignore our mechanical urges and DO what we know (even if we don't feel it at the moment) to be the right thing to do. Occasionally we'd succumb to the urges and take a break. And meanwhile we network and develop our emotional center so that the "higher inspiration" naturally comes more and more often, stick around longer, and is more and more objective when it does come. And the more we develop the less we have to do of "A" and "B" because what is "natural" will start to merge with what is "important".

But this does take willpower, it does mean we have to simply DO what needs to be done even when it's "against ourselves" at the moment, and if it's really just too much then we can "recharge". At least this is what makes sense to me right now, and what I'm trying to do. I find myself falling into "A" (feeding the predator/mechanical urges) much too often though, and that's a problem. It's not so easy to simply WILL yourself to do something when your mind is "against it". And that's why the Work is a constant battle against yourself - your real "I" trying to develop and take control while everything else is kicking and screaming. And as G said, consciousness cannot develop unconsciously. It won't just happen if we just do "A" all the time, that's what everybody does by default. We have to consciously will ourselves to Work, there seems to be no other way, and it IS difficult, it was never meant to be easy and always fun, and we can't always wait till we "feel like it" or when it seems fun before we do it, that may never happen.

But as we develop, it becomes easier and more fun - because our "I" becomes more active and is easier to access, inspiration for real Work comes easier and more often. But initially it won't, and maybe for a long time it won't, but fire is not easy to start when you're spinning a stick on the ground, you gotta put in some serious effort to spin it before you get some smoke, a spark, and eventually/ultimately perpetual "inner fire" (perpetual only when consciously maintained tho, cuz all fire burns out if not maintained).
My biological father was a hard ass, so balance is important.
I'll primarily focus on fun activities that integrate and focus.
But I won't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I'll intentionally take an icy cold shower for ten minutes.
And trust me that's the opposite thing that I want to do.
In doing this intentional suffering I discover a strange thing.
Part of me actually likes it, even has fun.
I shouldn't be surprised I grew up in the North after all.
and also there's a part of the mine that seems to when shocked going to pretend mode so at the moment of shocks part of the mine says oh it's hot water it's actually hot.
The water doesn't actually have to be continually perceived as hot to be able to stand the cold shower it's just those moments help relax a little bit and it's like "okay I know it's freaking freezing but I discovered that there's something to this trick of the mind".
I find myself in social situations sometimes being afraid the truth is is I'm quite a quiet person amongst people and I like it that way I just like being around them and then I just sort of focus better.
The fear is of course getting them to want to be around me LOL.
And I just thought the other day-- what would it be like if just to not be afraid.
 
I saw this and thought it was a good reminder for help with procrastination. Basically the 2 minute rule, or just starting or showing up. Like the C's say to create a vacuum and then like energy will fill the space. And there's a bit about self-representation at the end:

Jeanie Colón - How To Stop Procrastinating:

 
I actually procrastinate to feel “pressure” the emotion “helps” me get “it” done and or it makes the thing to get done not so much of a chore.

They say procrastinating is linked to early trauma. Maybe a form of rebelling
 
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