I’m an idiot. I’ve often procrastinated and put off/avoided doing things with a wide range of difficulty and significance:

-School projects

-Cleaning my living area

-Acquiring internships during college

-Running my Fantasy Football league

-Work tasks and projects

You get the point. Lots of things. Why? Because I’m lazy? What is being lazy? The dictionary definition is “being unwilling to work.” But why would one be unwilling to work?

Speaking personally, I think it’s fear. Fear of failure. Maybe fear of success. Maybe lack of confidence. They’re probably all related.

Case in point… I got a new car recently and out of the dealer they put a temporary registration on the windshield and when the official one comes in the mail I need to take to temp out and put the official one in. It’s on a sticky backing, its really simple to do…

I got the official one in the mail and I didn’t do it right away. In my mind, I built it up to become a big, difficult, challenging thing to do. Oh the drama. Then I kinda forgot about it. Then today I passed my car and saw a $65 ticket on the windshield.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

Ok, $65 won’t bankrupt me but that’s not the point. This was easily avoidable if I just sucked it up and took the immediate action. It’s literally a 5 minute task, max. But I didn’t do it right away. I dramatized the task, then over-dramatized the task to the point that I wasn’t going to do it until I absolutely had to, then forgot about it.

To be honest, I act similarly everywhere in my entire life. When things look difficult I’ll put it off and deal with the easy-to-do, low hanging fruit in life. Then when the difficult thing becomes urgent or even past due , I’ll do it, making the necessary apologies.

This is constantly how I operate. This self destructive pattern has followed me throughout my whole life. At one point I realized that people affected by my procrastination will take it easier on me if I played dumb, saying I had misunderstood something. I can’t just tell them that I was lazy, afraid to start, that I was a deer in headlights… that would make me look REALLY bad.

Playing dumb makes me look bad too, but not AS bad. Maybe.

Currently, at work there is a project I own that I’ve convinced my boss that it’s taking so long because it’s such a busy time at work and it’s a difficult task. And it is.

And… I’m sure I can be much better at prioritizing and scheduling the work to do the project with velocity.

Maybe he’s become ok with my excuses, or maybe he’s just tolerating me and it’s going on my record and I’ll hear it on my review. Probably the latter.

That’s awful, why am I doing this to my life? Why sabotage success like that? Procrastination, no matter why, is sabotage. I think it’s because I have a low self image. Do I have that low self esteem and identity that I subconsciously make sure my life stays that low?

Eww. Eww. Eww.

That pattern of living gives me a mediocre life. I suck at living my life.

I need to find a way to improve my life performance and sustain that new level. My life as I currently lead it is not working.