How to do the thing when you're afraid of the thing and also feel okay
July 27, 2022 10:18 PM Subscribe
I habitually make myself afraid of the consequences of not doing the things as my only strategy to do the things. I don't have many if any other working strategies to do the things. As a result, I'm too afraid of the things to even start and continue and finish the things and the longer they go on the worse they get. This is a horribly destructive cycle I feel stuck in and want to know if anyone has any thoughts on how to do so.
I am in therapy but I feel that after a long time trying to understand this problem, I've fell into a circular discussion on the part of what to do about it and how to do anything about it at all when "doing hard things" is the problem. The answer has been essentially, respect and feel the feelings, try to want to do things, also take significant steps in a different direction with work, try to do more restorative things like going for walks and music, trying to connect with friends more. The work part has helped, but I remain plagued by procrastination task shame spirals and not taking good enough care of myself very often.
Any of these improvement plans, including thinking about things differently, experiencing painful feelings, trying to develop new habits, exposure to difficult stuff, not avoiding things, all take energy. As my only strategy for doing stuff is negative, I've tried to do all of this stuff many times before by means of the "you're a bad person if you don't this" strategy. I refuse to do this any more to the greatest degree that I can, but the habitual pattern of thinking is there and gets reactivated and is difficult to deal with. The whole endeavour feels pointless and strategies such as 'post it note on the wall', phone reminder, are all pretty useless (having chosen to ignore them thousands of times in the past). It gets very difficult to even decide to try to do something, then after I do I lack in good ways of making it happen including the basic part of "remembering that I was trying to do the thing". I have a hard time not putting all of my "doing the thing" energy into work because it genuinely demands a lot and there are times when "don't do the thing" is not an option and changing the work itself, though important, takes "do the thing" energy.
I tried one time to make a habit of writing down what I wanted to do, then checking off if I did the things - not that I had to do the things. That's the kind of thing that might be feasible but right now I feel too emotionally exhausted to deal with the getting hopeful about it then eventually giving it up and self-soothing and so on. I feel trapped in the world that's immediately surrounding me and my immediate impulse about what to do.
I know I have to start thinking less negatively and more positively about it, and I've made a lot of progress, but I still feel like I fall back into a hole and lose lost of progress (from a short to medium term basis – my therapist correctly points out that things have been much worse before but they were all worse in a different way, some of which included being totally unaware of any feelings). I accept that things will probably get overall better, but it is possible for things to get worse and I have to keep trying for them to get better. This one's actually pretty good as far as self-esteem and mood as a baseline, but as soon as it comes time to DO THE THING my brain falls back on my most reliable stimulant of anxiety, fear and rumination, and a narrative that "I can never succeed at this" and "if you can't do the thing, you're doomed" and "you suck because you cannot do the thing and did this other thing instead". Having that in my brain tends to bring down my mood obviously. Making it harder to do stuff, and increasing the resources needed to do each thing.
My brain is too busy to have it even register that I had a plan to do the thing, let alone what the plan was, and where the stuff is long enough to start doing the thing. Step one of doing any of the shame tasks is self-soothing about the task and getting up the courage to do it. But also my brain avoids things that need to be done because I'm so mean to myself about the things (habitually, in order to get the things done), then I have to deal with those mean things. I have a fear response about even opening up the document to do the thing (it took me a long time to realize this), meanwhile I've forgotten how to do it because it's been put off for so long. It's vastly disproportionate and disabling from doing the difficult cognitive work involved (which also drains energy from not work cognitive things).
Work is also is the only thing that can really consistently feed the tank and when it's going well, it's going well. When I suddenly don't do it, things get worse and I end up addicted to screens and anxiety simultaneously. But for tasks I'm afraid of or initially find difficult, it can be somewhat of a disaster. The feelings about the task start right when I know I have to do the task and already know I will have done it later than I need to due to procrastination, in a self-reinforcing cycle. At this point, I feel I have to work on how I feel about the work, in part by trying to just feel the feelings but also find some way to actually do the stuff and build the habits required to do so in a positive way (and avoiding disaster by making sure really important stuff happens even if by being afraid of the consequences).
I honestly feel like I have kind of a traumatic relationship with this whole thing due to a series of procrastination and mental health related struggles including serious consequences and lots of general misery.
Through some of these health struggles, I've had long periods of real absence of any habits around living and feeding myself and so on, and they've never had a chance to get in any way well-established.
I took a vacation recently, and without the stimulation of that, my brain settled on anxiety instead, and then when got back I was too afraid basically to pick the horrible tasks back up again. I know before it was not useful to be dependent on that work stimulation in the absence of my regular life. I feel like I've broken the cycle and am now kind of antsy and aimless (and very susceptible to addictive and dependence type behaviours related to the dopamine providing things in my immediate vicinity, in the absence of habits that might lead to like going outside and moving around).
I know I will climb out of this miserable mood cycle of the past two weeks (from vacation downwards) by getting into a different environment (going back to the office after an unfortunate and untimely bout of COVID that started while I was in this hole and very clearly made it worse). But I need to find ways of falling into shallower holes, not making myself feel bad about falling into them, tolerating them better, and climbing out of them when the time comes to do so. And at the same time not try too hard to get myself to do things and accept that maybe I don't have the capacity to make any progress on them at a given time.
This probably sounds like depression, and there is definitely depressive type thinking, but I know depression and these problems persist in the absence of it (I have bipolar type 2, and since it has been treated, I haven't had significant depressive episodes other than a few two-week or so ones, rather than several months of total inability to do anything). It's more like emotional difficulty and struggling instigated by the deep trenches of thinking developed in past depressions, perpetuated by the anxiety getting things done strategy. At least I can feel all the feelings now, including happy ones.
I do think I understand this problem much better than I used to and I've listened to books and podcasts about various aspects of my various issues. I know exactly what I would do if I could magically do more things (try to get myself into different environments and with people and having fun probably). I know that if I did get to the places and talk to the people, it would improve my ability to do things just from the stimulation of it but getting into the habit of doing so takes an initial investment of capacity and a period where it's hard and not rewarding as with any habit.
I do have ADHD (obviously). Can heartily recommend the podcast Something Shiny on all of these topics – can't pick just one episode but the ones on procrastination and recent one about frustration tolerance especially are relevant to this topic. As far as I can tell, feeling this way is a common curse of many ADHDers. The frustration tolerance one set me off on this question, and did have useful ways to think about it. It reduced to essentially, doing the things is more painful for ADHDers than people can understand, and you have to go through painful things to practice to make them easier eventually but if you're too hurt to have any in the gas tank that's also valid. Validating but not the most hopeful in a situation when I feel like I have an empty gas tank all the time and need gas to drive to the gas station. Their discussions also made me much more aware of how much anxiety is self-stimulation needed to do the thing and needs to be replaced by something else or else I will simply be unable (same with anger, excitement). Procrastination is also a way of creating the stimulation needed to do the thing by increasing the stakes. Some procrastination is okay, but there has to be an end to it at some point before the point of disaster.
I'm open to suggestions for books/articles etc about this, but I'm unlikely to read them unless it's someone talking about having been in this situation and it getting better. Personal experiences and tales of hope and empathy I could try to make happen. Interested if anyone has felt this way and then felt this way less often.
I am in therapy but I feel that after a long time trying to understand this problem, I've fell into a circular discussion on the part of what to do about it and how to do anything about it at all when "doing hard things" is the problem. The answer has been essentially, respect and feel the feelings, try to want to do things, also take significant steps in a different direction with work, try to do more restorative things like going for walks and music, trying to connect with friends more. The work part has helped, but I remain plagued by procrastination task shame spirals and not taking good enough care of myself very often.
Any of these improvement plans, including thinking about things differently, experiencing painful feelings, trying to develop new habits, exposure to difficult stuff, not avoiding things, all take energy. As my only strategy for doing stuff is negative, I've tried to do all of this stuff many times before by means of the "you're a bad person if you don't this" strategy. I refuse to do this any more to the greatest degree that I can, but the habitual pattern of thinking is there and gets reactivated and is difficult to deal with. The whole endeavour feels pointless and strategies such as 'post it note on the wall', phone reminder, are all pretty useless (having chosen to ignore them thousands of times in the past). It gets very difficult to even decide to try to do something, then after I do I lack in good ways of making it happen including the basic part of "remembering that I was trying to do the thing". I have a hard time not putting all of my "doing the thing" energy into work because it genuinely demands a lot and there are times when "don't do the thing" is not an option and changing the work itself, though important, takes "do the thing" energy.
I tried one time to make a habit of writing down what I wanted to do, then checking off if I did the things - not that I had to do the things. That's the kind of thing that might be feasible but right now I feel too emotionally exhausted to deal with the getting hopeful about it then eventually giving it up and self-soothing and so on. I feel trapped in the world that's immediately surrounding me and my immediate impulse about what to do.
I know I have to start thinking less negatively and more positively about it, and I've made a lot of progress, but I still feel like I fall back into a hole and lose lost of progress (from a short to medium term basis – my therapist correctly points out that things have been much worse before but they were all worse in a different way, some of which included being totally unaware of any feelings). I accept that things will probably get overall better, but it is possible for things to get worse and I have to keep trying for them to get better. This one's actually pretty good as far as self-esteem and mood as a baseline, but as soon as it comes time to DO THE THING my brain falls back on my most reliable stimulant of anxiety, fear and rumination, and a narrative that "I can never succeed at this" and "if you can't do the thing, you're doomed" and "you suck because you cannot do the thing and did this other thing instead". Having that in my brain tends to bring down my mood obviously. Making it harder to do stuff, and increasing the resources needed to do each thing.
My brain is too busy to have it even register that I had a plan to do the thing, let alone what the plan was, and where the stuff is long enough to start doing the thing. Step one of doing any of the shame tasks is self-soothing about the task and getting up the courage to do it. But also my brain avoids things that need to be done because I'm so mean to myself about the things (habitually, in order to get the things done), then I have to deal with those mean things. I have a fear response about even opening up the document to do the thing (it took me a long time to realize this), meanwhile I've forgotten how to do it because it's been put off for so long. It's vastly disproportionate and disabling from doing the difficult cognitive work involved (which also drains energy from not work cognitive things).
Work is also is the only thing that can really consistently feed the tank and when it's going well, it's going well. When I suddenly don't do it, things get worse and I end up addicted to screens and anxiety simultaneously. But for tasks I'm afraid of or initially find difficult, it can be somewhat of a disaster. The feelings about the task start right when I know I have to do the task and already know I will have done it later than I need to due to procrastination, in a self-reinforcing cycle. At this point, I feel I have to work on how I feel about the work, in part by trying to just feel the feelings but also find some way to actually do the stuff and build the habits required to do so in a positive way (and avoiding disaster by making sure really important stuff happens even if by being afraid of the consequences).
I honestly feel like I have kind of a traumatic relationship with this whole thing due to a series of procrastination and mental health related struggles including serious consequences and lots of general misery.
Through some of these health struggles, I've had long periods of real absence of any habits around living and feeding myself and so on, and they've never had a chance to get in any way well-established.
I took a vacation recently, and without the stimulation of that, my brain settled on anxiety instead, and then when got back I was too afraid basically to pick the horrible tasks back up again. I know before it was not useful to be dependent on that work stimulation in the absence of my regular life. I feel like I've broken the cycle and am now kind of antsy and aimless (and very susceptible to addictive and dependence type behaviours related to the dopamine providing things in my immediate vicinity, in the absence of habits that might lead to like going outside and moving around).
I know I will climb out of this miserable mood cycle of the past two weeks (from vacation downwards) by getting into a different environment (going back to the office after an unfortunate and untimely bout of COVID that started while I was in this hole and very clearly made it worse). But I need to find ways of falling into shallower holes, not making myself feel bad about falling into them, tolerating them better, and climbing out of them when the time comes to do so. And at the same time not try too hard to get myself to do things and accept that maybe I don't have the capacity to make any progress on them at a given time.
This probably sounds like depression, and there is definitely depressive type thinking, but I know depression and these problems persist in the absence of it (I have bipolar type 2, and since it has been treated, I haven't had significant depressive episodes other than a few two-week or so ones, rather than several months of total inability to do anything). It's more like emotional difficulty and struggling instigated by the deep trenches of thinking developed in past depressions, perpetuated by the anxiety getting things done strategy. At least I can feel all the feelings now, including happy ones.
I do think I understand this problem much better than I used to and I've listened to books and podcasts about various aspects of my various issues. I know exactly what I would do if I could magically do more things (try to get myself into different environments and with people and having fun probably). I know that if I did get to the places and talk to the people, it would improve my ability to do things just from the stimulation of it but getting into the habit of doing so takes an initial investment of capacity and a period where it's hard and not rewarding as with any habit.
I do have ADHD (obviously). Can heartily recommend the podcast Something Shiny on all of these topics – can't pick just one episode but the ones on procrastination and recent one about frustration tolerance especially are relevant to this topic. As far as I can tell, feeling this way is a common curse of many ADHDers. The frustration tolerance one set me off on this question, and did have useful ways to think about it. It reduced to essentially, doing the things is more painful for ADHDers than people can understand, and you have to go through painful things to practice to make them easier eventually but if you're too hurt to have any in the gas tank that's also valid. Validating but not the most hopeful in a situation when I feel like I have an empty gas tank all the time and need gas to drive to the gas station. Their discussions also made me much more aware of how much anxiety is self-stimulation needed to do the thing and needs to be replaced by something else or else I will simply be unable (same with anger, excitement). Procrastination is also a way of creating the stimulation needed to do the thing by increasing the stakes. Some procrastination is okay, but there has to be an end to it at some point before the point of disaster.
I'm open to suggestions for books/articles etc about this, but I'm unlikely to read them unless it's someone talking about having been in this situation and it getting better. Personal experiences and tales of hope and empathy I could try to make happen. Interested if anyone has felt this way and then felt this way less often.
Best answer: I also believed I sucked because I developed lots of anxiety around things I 'should' do, so I'd blow them off for things that were anxiety-reducing instead like smoking pot. Then I'd totally dis myself. I'd eventually do the 'thing' but the negative process caused much angst and self-flagellation which fuelled the next round of anxiety. Repeat. I too, like you, tried to generate internal motivation using shame and fear. And as we have both discovered, identifying oneself as a repetitive failure and doomed is not a sound recipe for achievement.
Then I began to reframe the connection between my identity (who I am and what I can do) and the outcome I want. Now I choose to see myself as successful before I have even started. Successful is the default. This helps me to approach and begin doing the 'thing' without anywhere near as much anxiety. Motivation kicks in once I begin doing the thing, encouraging me to complete the thing. The thing gets completed, I get a buzz and it becomes easy to approach the next thing with the same attitude.
The key step in-between sucky and successful was learning self-compassion; learning to speak kindly to myself when I flagged or fucked up, when I did fail. Not to make excuses for myself but to accept and reflect and move forward, and to be there to cheer my achievements. I try to treat myself as I would a strong and capable yet sensitive and precious loved one. Once I began to do that, shame decreased and my worth as a person was untied from my capabilities because my self-talk around doing 'things' was no longer regularly negative against me as a person. Overall, the benefits of self-compassion have rippled far further than just making achieving tasks and goals less traumatic. I think it is a superpower.
posted by Thella at 12:15 AM on July 28, 2022 [14 favorites]
Then I began to reframe the connection between my identity (who I am and what I can do) and the outcome I want. Now I choose to see myself as successful before I have even started. Successful is the default. This helps me to approach and begin doing the 'thing' without anywhere near as much anxiety. Motivation kicks in once I begin doing the thing, encouraging me to complete the thing. The thing gets completed, I get a buzz and it becomes easy to approach the next thing with the same attitude.
The key step in-between sucky and successful was learning self-compassion; learning to speak kindly to myself when I flagged or fucked up, when I did fail. Not to make excuses for myself but to accept and reflect and move forward, and to be there to cheer my achievements. I try to treat myself as I would a strong and capable yet sensitive and precious loved one. Once I began to do that, shame decreased and my worth as a person was untied from my capabilities because my self-talk around doing 'things' was no longer regularly negative against me as a person. Overall, the benefits of self-compassion have rippled far further than just making achieving tasks and goals less traumatic. I think it is a superpower.
posted by Thella at 12:15 AM on July 28, 2022 [14 favorites]
Best answer: I just have a short input as a fellow (diagnosed) ADHD human: what's been the key breakthrough for me is being able to at least have one iota of belief in the statement: "i like myself". Eventually to "i like myself a lot". Self-love understandably is a reiterative process (wherein your actions contribute to the mental model of yourself as a loveable person) but this is also where a rights-based model and the sense of fairness that ADHD and autistic people seem to have in more emotionally immediate way really helped for me. In that, even the worst person deserves human rights and nothing they do individually takes that away and when it conflicts another person's rights then it's important to negotiate a common accommodation. Couple that with that immediacy of trying to address injustice, what happens is whatever i do or not do, isn't from a place of fear? I do it because it's only fair and right that i take care of myself . Spending time developing that mental framework would help a lot imo, because compassion is key in both giving yourself grace but also celebrating what you can do and have done.
This is especially good because the other thing we have is time-blindness and that gets expressed in how we don't actually see our future self as the same person (well we don't see it at all). So maybe for now use that anxiety to kickstart, but later use love as your spark but essentially what you need to reframe is thinking all these things as things you want to do to do right by this future self.
TL;DR you have to at least start from a place of, "I'm going to do myself a solid because it's only right a person has this".
posted by cendawanita at 12:26 AM on July 28, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is especially good because the other thing we have is time-blindness and that gets expressed in how we don't actually see our future self as the same person (well we don't see it at all). So maybe for now use that anxiety to kickstart, but later use love as your spark but essentially what you need to reframe is thinking all these things as things you want to do to do right by this future self.
TL;DR you have to at least start from a place of, "I'm going to do myself a solid because it's only right a person has this".
posted by cendawanita at 12:26 AM on July 28, 2022 [5 favorites]
Best answer: Hello! This Ask is my everyday life! You can even check my Ask history for it, including the one I posted today!
Honestly, you're doing everything and knowing the steps, but it takes tons of practice, so don't beat yourself up for not mastering it immediately, it is literally impossible!
You probably have work related CPTSD - I do too! It is painful and awful snd kills your self worth!!
But the only balm that I've ever been able to figure out is to really ask for support and talk about it and essentially be shameless about how much help I need, and express how much I am trying and needing help to figure this out. What we need is safety, warmth, comfort and joy and security in knowing that we are actually okay inherently, and anything else is a lie that our brains internalized in order to survive painful situations. We can build this for ourselves by asking for help and learning to understand that we can act in non-fearful ways and nothing bad will happen! If something bad happens, then reach out for help and get the support you need right now! A lot of trauma and anxiety is formed because we didn't get the support we needed before it ossified in our brain.
My therapist always reminds me that it was probably useful at one point, but it is useful to remind myself in the moment right now what it is and what the situation is, and how I'm actively working to find support and reach out to my support networks. How do you feel about yourself and your current ability to reach out to your support networks?
posted by yueliang at 12:30 AM on July 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
Honestly, you're doing everything and knowing the steps, but it takes tons of practice, so don't beat yourself up for not mastering it immediately, it is literally impossible!
You probably have work related CPTSD - I do too! It is painful and awful snd kills your self worth!!
But the only balm that I've ever been able to figure out is to really ask for support and talk about it and essentially be shameless about how much help I need, and express how much I am trying and needing help to figure this out. What we need is safety, warmth, comfort and joy and security in knowing that we are actually okay inherently, and anything else is a lie that our brains internalized in order to survive painful situations. We can build this for ourselves by asking for help and learning to understand that we can act in non-fearful ways and nothing bad will happen! If something bad happens, then reach out for help and get the support you need right now! A lot of trauma and anxiety is formed because we didn't get the support we needed before it ossified in our brain.
My therapist always reminds me that it was probably useful at one point, but it is useful to remind myself in the moment right now what it is and what the situation is, and how I'm actively working to find support and reach out to my support networks. How do you feel about yourself and your current ability to reach out to your support networks?
posted by yueliang at 12:30 AM on July 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
I also live this life. Things that help:
* Making a list and doing ANYTHING on the list, even if the thing I do is not the thing that is currently ON FUCKING FIRE. Objects in motion, etc.
* Bribery. I do not get coffee until I open my email. I don't get lunch until I X, I can't Y until I Z.
* Body doubling. You can do this virtually, there are groups.
* When I get really stuck I pay another human to come unstick me. You can hire a virtual assistant to open and read your email to you, or make task lists, or whatever. (I hire a real person to do this instead.) An hour or two will usually get me rolling and a follow-up a week later keeps me accountable.
This is a struggle every day and realising that this is not something I am going to cure or overcome and instead need to manage on an ongoing basis, is what keeps my chaotic world spinning.
Incidentally, and apropos of absolutely nothing, have you been screened for ADHD?
posted by DarlingBri at 1:15 AM on July 28, 2022 [5 favorites]
* Making a list and doing ANYTHING on the list, even if the thing I do is not the thing that is currently ON FUCKING FIRE. Objects in motion, etc.
* Bribery. I do not get coffee until I open my email. I don't get lunch until I X, I can't Y until I Z.
* Body doubling. You can do this virtually, there are groups.
* When I get really stuck I pay another human to come unstick me. You can hire a virtual assistant to open and read your email to you, or make task lists, or whatever. (I hire a real person to do this instead.) An hour or two will usually get me rolling and a follow-up a week later keeps me accountable.
This is a struggle every day and realising that this is not something I am going to cure or overcome and instead need to manage on an ongoing basis, is what keeps my chaotic world spinning.
Incidentally, and apropos of absolutely nothing, have you been screened for ADHD?
posted by DarlingBri at 1:15 AM on July 28, 2022 [5 favorites]
Oh hi it me.
The thing that works most consistently for me is having a buddy. My best friend is awesome because for the past few years I’ve been able to say “hey I need you to come keep me company while I do this thing” and he does. No judgement about how easy the thing apparently is or how bad it is that I haven’t done it yet. And when it’s a super scary awful thing, like, say, confirming my identity to the IRS or figuring out how to push back on an absurd medical bill, I can ask for him to sit down, read through stuff, sift through shitty websites and read badly written instructions and so-on, and then rephrase to me the steps I need to take. It’s all a huge boon for me. He has his own stuff I can help him with, and the fact is is that I’m usually asking him to like, sit at the kitchen table while I wash dishes or whatever impossible mountain I’ve created to climb. So it shakes out to feeling pretty fair in the long run.
Of course you don’t have a bestie to hang with you and help you stay focused at work. But maybe you can have someone virtually cheerlead you in a private chat? Or join a general chat like a casual discord server where you go like “aaah I have to send emails!!! wish me luck!” And then random people can be encouraging at you, and you feel like you have a bit of company without causing undue burden.
Basically my point is, it can be super easy to slip into this black hole negativity thing when you feel like you’re alone. But rebuffing that is a lot easier for me, at least, when I have a trusted person with me who is acting calm, not shaming me, essentially modeling the attitude I want to have. You don’t have to navigate all of this by yourself.
posted by Mizu at 2:55 AM on July 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
The thing that works most consistently for me is having a buddy. My best friend is awesome because for the past few years I’ve been able to say “hey I need you to come keep me company while I do this thing” and he does. No judgement about how easy the thing apparently is or how bad it is that I haven’t done it yet. And when it’s a super scary awful thing, like, say, confirming my identity to the IRS or figuring out how to push back on an absurd medical bill, I can ask for him to sit down, read through stuff, sift through shitty websites and read badly written instructions and so-on, and then rephrase to me the steps I need to take. It’s all a huge boon for me. He has his own stuff I can help him with, and the fact is is that I’m usually asking him to like, sit at the kitchen table while I wash dishes or whatever impossible mountain I’ve created to climb. So it shakes out to feeling pretty fair in the long run.
Of course you don’t have a bestie to hang with you and help you stay focused at work. But maybe you can have someone virtually cheerlead you in a private chat? Or join a general chat like a casual discord server where you go like “aaah I have to send emails!!! wish me luck!” And then random people can be encouraging at you, and you feel like you have a bit of company without causing undue burden.
Basically my point is, it can be super easy to slip into this black hole negativity thing when you feel like you’re alone. But rebuffing that is a lot easier for me, at least, when I have a trusted person with me who is acting calm, not shaming me, essentially modeling the attitude I want to have. You don’t have to navigate all of this by yourself.
posted by Mizu at 2:55 AM on July 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I find making it a rule that I do that thing every day helps. I don't have to make ANY progress, but I have to physically engage with it. That means that when it is too hot to ride my stationary bike I still make myself get on it at least once a day, even if I don't peddle, and that counts because it is the way I promise myself I WILL get back to it when the weather is cooler and I WILL NOT forget.
The same thing works with my taxes. I may not be able to brain on a given day, but I can attempt to read them at the page I left open and formulate what my next step would be. I don't have to be able figure out what I am supposed to do. I don't have to enter anything in the field. I just have to open it and look at it.
The fact that I do not actually have to do ANYTHING to get credit for progress and habit takes the anxiety away, and the fact that I show up regularly means that one fine day it's nice and cool, or my brain is working well I will make a little progress or even be inspired and make so much progress I get a big goal completed. I know I haven't forgotten it. I know I am working away at it and I am giving myself lots of time.
Setting these tiny goals - like today I only have to look at the name of the file, and don't have to open it until tomorrow, and tomorrow I only have to open it but don't have to read anything in it - all reduces my anxiety surrounding the task. I can meet the goal of looking at the file name without pain. It wasn't so bad that I dread the next day's task when I have to actually open it, and I can self soothe with the thought that I can get tomorrow's task over so easily, and will get a pay-off of vastly reduced anxiety as soon as I do it.
There are a few other tricks I use. One is setting a timer and doing something else that completely absorbs me so the anxiety doesn't built up while the timer ticks. The moment the timer goes off I instantly pivot to doing the thing. Jumping in like that when I get the cue means that I skip the dreading and having to tear myself away. Often I will use something that has a natural end as my timer, such as playing a game turn. When darkness hits in minecraft my character has to scoot into a safe location and stay there until daylight. The moment they get inside safe from the zombies, up I get and to work on my taxes I go. I can usually stick it out on the taxes until daylight as I know I only have ten minutes to endure it, at which point I am entirely entitled to drop it and get my character out foraging for blocks. Ten minutes later it's getting dark again, I have a happy feeling of progress due to the iron ore blocks I collected for my character, my character is scampering towards my shelter and I am ready to face the taxes again.
Another thing I like to do is count the number of times I worked on a thing and get credit for each instance, but not lose any credit for the times I failed or didn't work at it. This changes my self evaluation from "I have only worked on this three time and its been more than a week since I even looked at it," to "I have done the first three installments of working at the task; if I do one more installment I will be working away at it averaging one day in four, which is almost twice a week." Over the course of six months or a year that is a lot of progress if I sustain it.
Keep in mind that when you feel crappy with Covid you will feel crappy about everything you think of, and if you think of your responsibilities you will feel crappy about them. Sometimes it's not the thing you are thinking about making you feel crappy, it's external circumstances such as social anxiety in the workplace, or physiological circumstances such as being sick or needing food or exercise. It's very worth checking if it's not the task you are avoiding that is triggering the crap feelings. The crap feelings may be already there, or you may associate the crap feelings with how anxious you feel when you are at work. The actual work itself could turn out not to be the problem.
Remember spaced repetition is the key to learning and to remembering things. Days when you don't practice are the recovery days essential to building muscle and avoiding joint injuries. If you practice your music every day for fourteen days and then go seven days before practicing again you will recall it much worse than if your practice on only ten days with different length gaps between practice days. Those gaps are how you convert short term memories into long term memories. This means that you can turn procrastination into a tool to improve your long term productivity. Instead of berating yourself if you miss a day, cherish yourself and turn it into a good choice. Deliberate breaks from working away at things makes it possible to come at it with fresh eyes and new insight. If you are a writer you know that you need to put your manuscript aside for a week or a month in order to be able to edit it well. Those fresh eyes enable you to see the flaws so you can correct them. If you rush something to the printer you will wince over all the spelling errors that don't get caught.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:52 AM on July 28, 2022 [7 favorites]
The same thing works with my taxes. I may not be able to brain on a given day, but I can attempt to read them at the page I left open and formulate what my next step would be. I don't have to be able figure out what I am supposed to do. I don't have to enter anything in the field. I just have to open it and look at it.
The fact that I do not actually have to do ANYTHING to get credit for progress and habit takes the anxiety away, and the fact that I show up regularly means that one fine day it's nice and cool, or my brain is working well I will make a little progress or even be inspired and make so much progress I get a big goal completed. I know I haven't forgotten it. I know I am working away at it and I am giving myself lots of time.
Setting these tiny goals - like today I only have to look at the name of the file, and don't have to open it until tomorrow, and tomorrow I only have to open it but don't have to read anything in it - all reduces my anxiety surrounding the task. I can meet the goal of looking at the file name without pain. It wasn't so bad that I dread the next day's task when I have to actually open it, and I can self soothe with the thought that I can get tomorrow's task over so easily, and will get a pay-off of vastly reduced anxiety as soon as I do it.
There are a few other tricks I use. One is setting a timer and doing something else that completely absorbs me so the anxiety doesn't built up while the timer ticks. The moment the timer goes off I instantly pivot to doing the thing. Jumping in like that when I get the cue means that I skip the dreading and having to tear myself away. Often I will use something that has a natural end as my timer, such as playing a game turn. When darkness hits in minecraft my character has to scoot into a safe location and stay there until daylight. The moment they get inside safe from the zombies, up I get and to work on my taxes I go. I can usually stick it out on the taxes until daylight as I know I only have ten minutes to endure it, at which point I am entirely entitled to drop it and get my character out foraging for blocks. Ten minutes later it's getting dark again, I have a happy feeling of progress due to the iron ore blocks I collected for my character, my character is scampering towards my shelter and I am ready to face the taxes again.
Another thing I like to do is count the number of times I worked on a thing and get credit for each instance, but not lose any credit for the times I failed or didn't work at it. This changes my self evaluation from "I have only worked on this three time and its been more than a week since I even looked at it," to "I have done the first three installments of working at the task; if I do one more installment I will be working away at it averaging one day in four, which is almost twice a week." Over the course of six months or a year that is a lot of progress if I sustain it.
Keep in mind that when you feel crappy with Covid you will feel crappy about everything you think of, and if you think of your responsibilities you will feel crappy about them. Sometimes it's not the thing you are thinking about making you feel crappy, it's external circumstances such as social anxiety in the workplace, or physiological circumstances such as being sick or needing food or exercise. It's very worth checking if it's not the task you are avoiding that is triggering the crap feelings. The crap feelings may be already there, or you may associate the crap feelings with how anxious you feel when you are at work. The actual work itself could turn out not to be the problem.
Remember spaced repetition is the key to learning and to remembering things. Days when you don't practice are the recovery days essential to building muscle and avoiding joint injuries. If you practice your music every day for fourteen days and then go seven days before practicing again you will recall it much worse than if your practice on only ten days with different length gaps between practice days. Those gaps are how you convert short term memories into long term memories. This means that you can turn procrastination into a tool to improve your long term productivity. Instead of berating yourself if you miss a day, cherish yourself and turn it into a good choice. Deliberate breaks from working away at things makes it possible to come at it with fresh eyes and new insight. If you are a writer you know that you need to put your manuscript aside for a week or a month in order to be able to edit it well. Those fresh eyes enable you to see the flaws so you can correct them. If you rush something to the printer you will wince over all the spelling errors that don't get caught.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:52 AM on July 28, 2022 [7 favorites]
Best answer: I'm struggling with this myself and working on it. What has helped:
1. IFS therapy/"parts work." It sounds very corny but the approach my therapist used was basically having me close my eyes and broker a meeting between the part of me that wanted me to be successful and therefore used these kinds of negative motivation strategies, and the part of me that wanted to just veg out and do nothing because it wanted life to be about pleasure.
2. Out of this came a different sense of my relationship to work, which was that I had been thinking about it as something that I uniformly hate under all circumstances but began to think of it as something that, in the right circumstances, was inherently motivating. The problem was that the intrinsic motivation was getting swamped and suppressed by the violent negative motivational strategies.
3. The concrete thing that came out of this was the following technique: rather than imagining a long todo list and hating myself for not accomplishing it, I suspend all judgment and ask myself, "what's the next thing you want to work on?" I find that I usually have a pretty good sense of what that thing should be and how to do it, it can be very small but it always ends up being necessary. And that way I make progress bit by bit on a lot of work and life things by just following what my brain feels like doing at any moment without trying to violently wrench it in a particular direction.
This hasn't been a silver bullet (as my last question suggests) and it has almost certainly reduced rather than increased my productivity, but you know what? It's fucking worth it to not be an enemy/taskmaster/abusive boss to myself.
posted by derrinyet at 6:25 AM on July 28, 2022 [8 favorites]
1. IFS therapy/"parts work." It sounds very corny but the approach my therapist used was basically having me close my eyes and broker a meeting between the part of me that wanted me to be successful and therefore used these kinds of negative motivation strategies, and the part of me that wanted to just veg out and do nothing because it wanted life to be about pleasure.
2. Out of this came a different sense of my relationship to work, which was that I had been thinking about it as something that I uniformly hate under all circumstances but began to think of it as something that, in the right circumstances, was inherently motivating. The problem was that the intrinsic motivation was getting swamped and suppressed by the violent negative motivational strategies.
3. The concrete thing that came out of this was the following technique: rather than imagining a long todo list and hating myself for not accomplishing it, I suspend all judgment and ask myself, "what's the next thing you want to work on?" I find that I usually have a pretty good sense of what that thing should be and how to do it, it can be very small but it always ends up being necessary. And that way I make progress bit by bit on a lot of work and life things by just following what my brain feels like doing at any moment without trying to violently wrench it in a particular direction.
This hasn't been a silver bullet (as my last question suggests) and it has almost certainly reduced rather than increased my productivity, but you know what? It's fucking worth it to not be an enemy/taskmaster/abusive boss to myself.
posted by derrinyet at 6:25 AM on July 28, 2022 [8 favorites]
Best answer: I think a lot of us deal with this with a framework of being a good partner to Future Me. Because even in the depths of procrastination, we know how much harder we're making it later when it all comes to a head. So it's a little less "I am terrible because" and a little more "this'll be better if". You have to roll with it in the times that you let Future Me down, and you have to also be a supportive Future Me when the time comes, but I think it's so useful to change this dynamic to "help" or think of it as a collaboration along the timeline rather than a failure framework.
I am increasingly convinced that how you talk to yourself is a significant factor in just literally every kind of success. Other commenters have mentioned it too, what a difference it makes to have a practice of inserting positive narrative into your existence. It doesn't have to be gloopily effusive, it can be as simple as "I'm glad that's done" or "this is actually kind of interesting" or "hey I learned something new!" You can manufacture some percentage more interest in the things you have to do by just casting them as interesting, you can frame them as satisfying to have completed, you can even think of it in terms of making you look good/together/enthusiastic to others when applicable.
You gotta be a friend to you, though, to do this. Even if you have all the bad-talk tapes of depression and anxiety, you have to make a choice to develop a better relationship with this person you're stuck collaborating with. It may start out as one of those relationships where you can barely stand them but you'll tear any outsider apart who tries to harm them, but with a goal of actually coming to like yourself and even appreciate your flaws.
For me, this also means trying to find and use the productivity tools that work for Team Me without being too punitive or reward-based. My particular uphill climb is that I will stall on anything that isn't novel OR is unfamiliar and I might fail, which honestly means I get very little done left to my own devices. Timers, lists broken down to tiny steps that can maybe be completed in a single timer round, sometimes having meetings when an email might have sufficed, inventing all kinds of ways to obtain body doubling - these are tools I know work.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:43 AM on July 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
I am increasingly convinced that how you talk to yourself is a significant factor in just literally every kind of success. Other commenters have mentioned it too, what a difference it makes to have a practice of inserting positive narrative into your existence. It doesn't have to be gloopily effusive, it can be as simple as "I'm glad that's done" or "this is actually kind of interesting" or "hey I learned something new!" You can manufacture some percentage more interest in the things you have to do by just casting them as interesting, you can frame them as satisfying to have completed, you can even think of it in terms of making you look good/together/enthusiastic to others when applicable.
You gotta be a friend to you, though, to do this. Even if you have all the bad-talk tapes of depression and anxiety, you have to make a choice to develop a better relationship with this person you're stuck collaborating with. It may start out as one of those relationships where you can barely stand them but you'll tear any outsider apart who tries to harm them, but with a goal of actually coming to like yourself and even appreciate your flaws.
For me, this also means trying to find and use the productivity tools that work for Team Me without being too punitive or reward-based. My particular uphill climb is that I will stall on anything that isn't novel OR is unfamiliar and I might fail, which honestly means I get very little done left to my own devices. Timers, lists broken down to tiny steps that can maybe be completed in a single timer round, sometimes having meetings when an email might have sufficed, inventing all kinds of ways to obtain body doubling - these are tools I know work.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:43 AM on July 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
Honestly for similar issues the thing I realized I need is an external accountability partner - someone who will tell me to get started and check up on me periodically, like an assistant/coach throughout the day.
posted by jello at 9:09 AM on July 28, 2022
posted by jello at 9:09 AM on July 28, 2022
remove the judgement from it. it has no meaning - the task not 'good' or 'bad' - it's just a thing that needs doing. you're not 'good' or 'bad' because you did/did not do the thing. you're just a person who has a task.
posted by j_curiouser at 5:09 PM on July 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by j_curiouser at 5:09 PM on July 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
I find a way to be curious about the task, and to sort of hook myself with the smallest possible task. (Hey, I wonder what the topics were for this big paper I'm late on? Let me go back and look at the syllabus. Oh yeah, I remember this one topic...). It feels a lot like I am trying to coax a cat out from under the bed, if that's a helpful mental state to try and get in to.
Another friend finds other ways to make it more interesting by making it more difficult - like writing her code for a very simple program in, I don't remember exactly but it was a form of poetic meter. She does this actively because she says novelty and challenge are the only things her brain seems to respond to, so she has to find ways to make things new (new location, new patterns, new something) or make them difficult enough, before she can do them.
If you can't identify anything your brain is good at except "the shame tasks are unthinkable", there are some ways to reduce pressure on yourself, like saying you can ONLY do a piece of it. You aren't even going to try to return the book to the library today, but can you at least find it? Or if finding it feels overwhelming, ok, today you will just check under the bed. Nothing else. Checking under the bed is a win. And you do that, and you don't have to then do the whole thing, but that one step is done and everything is still ok and you're still ok.
posted by Lady Li at 1:04 AM on July 29, 2022
Another friend finds other ways to make it more interesting by making it more difficult - like writing her code for a very simple program in, I don't remember exactly but it was a form of poetic meter. She does this actively because she says novelty and challenge are the only things her brain seems to respond to, so she has to find ways to make things new (new location, new patterns, new something) or make them difficult enough, before she can do them.
If you can't identify anything your brain is good at except "the shame tasks are unthinkable", there are some ways to reduce pressure on yourself, like saying you can ONLY do a piece of it. You aren't even going to try to return the book to the library today, but can you at least find it? Or if finding it feels overwhelming, ok, today you will just check under the bed. Nothing else. Checking under the bed is a win. And you do that, and you don't have to then do the whole thing, but that one step is done and everything is still ok and you're still ok.
posted by Lady Li at 1:04 AM on July 29, 2022
Best answer: Hey it's me! One thing I've found helpful is to remember that me and my brain were really clever to come up with a replacement for a working executive functioning system. I try to make that as neutral as possible: of course I pick up the butter knife I was using as a screwdriver for decades, I'm used to it. And when I notice that, I can say to myself "hang on, is there a screwdriver around?" Using the butter knife is bad for me in the long run, and makes a lousy screwdriver, but butter knives aren't evil or shameful.
posted by heyforfour at 4:39 AM on July 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by heyforfour at 4:39 AM on July 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks everyone for your answers, they have been really helpful and I have been returning to this thread to reread over the past couple of days (and printing out a copy to keep on hand).
Just to highlight a couple of my most important takeaways – one is self-esteem and self-worth being the primary and most important thing. The very excellent Something Shiny podcasts (specifically the All About ADHD Series) when getting into the “what to do about it” part listed three things – self-esteem and the belief that you can do it, advocating for accommodations and developing your personal list of what those look like, and metacognition (thinking about thinking). It’s a nice framework for slotting in all of these answers which each tackle different pieces.
Another was breaking down from one huge overwhelming problem into its actual components and targeting those.
I’ve picked some best answers but really they are all best and I’m so very appreciative of the time and thought taken by you all. Things are slowly on the up again and it’s in part thanks to all of you (and to me I suppose, since I’m practicing being nice to myself)!
posted by lookoutbelow at 1:50 PM on July 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Just to highlight a couple of my most important takeaways – one is self-esteem and self-worth being the primary and most important thing. The very excellent Something Shiny podcasts (specifically the All About ADHD Series) when getting into the “what to do about it” part listed three things – self-esteem and the belief that you can do it, advocating for accommodations and developing your personal list of what those look like, and metacognition (thinking about thinking). It’s a nice framework for slotting in all of these answers which each tackle different pieces.
Another was breaking down from one huge overwhelming problem into its actual components and targeting those.
I’ve picked some best answers but really they are all best and I’m so very appreciative of the time and thought taken by you all. Things are slowly on the up again and it’s in part thanks to all of you (and to me I suppose, since I’m practicing being nice to myself)!
posted by lookoutbelow at 1:50 PM on July 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: Update! In case anyone looks here again and this keeps getting favorites. My job eventually became impossible due to health issues. I took a break and came back doing something different for a smaller portion of my time. Now I'm working on developing a new area of expertise and career plan. I no longer have this problem to any significant degree and just feel passionate about what I'm doing instead. So if anyone is struggling with this, you may be fighting an impossible battle and evaluating the bigger picture will help you.
posted by lookoutbelow at 7:56 AM on April 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by lookoutbelow at 7:56 AM on April 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
For the problem where you lack energy to get things done, physical solutions might be the best. For me the solution was a combination of changing my antidepressants, starting an easy but regular exercise program, and drinking tea or yerba-mate energy drinks when I need a boost. There are ADHD-specific treatments that might help if you aren't already taking one.
For the problem where you can only do things when you fear consequences, my advice is that people do things for MULTIPLE reasons at the same time and it's totally fine if one of those reasons is anxiety or fear. Try to accept that you are doing things partially out of fear, but remember that you're also doing these things to achieve important life goals. It sounds like you are actually meeting your life goals fairly well, even though you may feel like a failure.
For the problem of being scared of failure, you can try to change what you're comparing your success too. Of course you're not meeting all of your goals for self improvement, that's not realistic for the vast majority of people. Instead, think about what it means to "fail" at trying to become a better person. Failing to improve is no worse than never trying in the first place, so you might as well try. Of course there are plenty of tasks where failure has actual consequences, but your fear of real consequences will keep you motivated for those.
For the problem of getting distracted and not doing the things you want/need to, this has been tricky for me. Because I have grown to expect to fail, I tend to self sabotage and take actions that cause me to fail. If know that if I can legitimately be more optimistic, I will sabotage myself less often. Most people try to solve this with simple slogans like "look on the bright side" but that's never worked for me. Instead, I need to slowly learn that these actions are good by reinforcing the positive when I make good choices. But this is really hard because when I actually take actions that are "good choices" I tend to feel incredibly uncomfortable and even "fake" because it feels like I'm forcing myself to do something that isn't natural. To solve this I have to deliberately ignore when I get a "gut feeling" telling me to stop. My gut feelings about possible success or failure are often totally wrong and I do better when I accept when my depressed/anxious body and mind are lying to me.
Anyway, I'm not saying these specific ideas will work for you (or even myself) but by breaking things down it might make them less intimidating. Good luck finding something that works for you!
posted by JZig at 11:29 PM on July 27, 2022 [5 favorites]