Fighting a battle through procrastination might be such an automatic and reflexive way to defend yourself that you may not even be aware you’re doing it. Since using procrastination to be in control may or may not be conscious, take some time to consider whether you procrastinate when you are expected to comply with “the rules.” Do you toss parking tickets into the glove compartment? Do you ignore credit card due dates and then feel resentful when you are charged a late fee? We won’t even bother asking about how seriously you take the April 15 tax “deadline,” which all procrastinators know can be turned into an extension until October, but have you actually paid your taxes? If you’re on probation at school or with your employer, have you shaped up, or are you still way behind?
We’d also like you to think about what impact your procrastination has on the people around you. Are there people who are inconvenienced by your delays? Do you ask others to make special arrangements for you because you’re late? Is anyone thwarted by your procrastination, unable to carry out a plan because you didn’t get your part finished on time? Does anyone have to do more work because you didn’t do yours?
Consider, too, how people respond to your procrastinating. Do they become irritated by your lateness? Frustrated with your excuses? Angry because you didn’t do what you promised? Do they give up trying to influence you and eventually let you do things your own way? Without realizing it, you may be using your procrastination to assert your independence. You may be more of a fighter than you think, and procrastination may be your way to battle for control.
Let’s look at some of the themes that come up when people do battle-by-procrastination.
Rules Are Made to Be Broken. There are undoubtedly times when obeying rules is tedious for you, and you feel an urge to break free. For some people, this occurs only in a limited number of specific situations; others feel they are constantly subjected to rules against which they want to rebel. Whether you fight against rules occasionally or constantly, you probably feel restrained by directives that seem to be too confining for your sense of who you are.
A public relations specialist recalled his experience in high school and junior college. “When the class was given an assignment that was open-ended, like writing a short story about anything we wanted, I didn’t have any trouble doing it. But when the teacher told us what to write about, I felt there was no room for me to express my own individuality or to be creative. I would end up asking for an extension, and then writing about something different from what was assigned anyway. Somehow, this helped me feel that I wasn’t just a cow in a herd of cattle, even though I was usually graded down for not following directions.”
Rules come in the form of restrictions or expectations imposed on us by external forces—the time we’re supposed to be at work in the morning, the law that says we can’t drive faster than the speed limit, the policy on returning merchandise. If you feel that following a rule somehow makes you unimportant or indistinguishable from others, then you may feel compelled to break it. As one procrastinator said, “The rules of mortal men do not apply to me.”
Rules can also come from principles you have internalized from important people in your life. These “rules to live by” can remain in effect long after they were created and long beyond their usefulness, but they remain battlegrounds for procrastination. Adrienne describes her rebellious experience: “When I feel that I should sit down and write thank-you notes or clean up the kitchen, I instantly have this feeling of not wanting to do it. I don’t want my whole life to be spent doing chores. My mother always made me write thank-you notes the minute I opened a present, and I had to spend hours cleaning the house every Saturday morning while my friends were out playing soccer. Those are two things I invariably put off, and when I do, I feel wonderful, like I’ve given myself room to breathe.” Even though Adrienne now lives two thousand miles from her mother, the pressure of these rules is as strong as if she were still a teenager living at home. Procrastination increases her sense of freedom and reassures her that she is not a prisoner of these injunctions.
The rules you break may be your own. You might decide you want to follow a 1,200 calorie diet every day for two weeks, but you put off going to the grocery store to buy what you need. If you do get around to filling your kitchen with vegetables and low-fat mayonnaise, you don’t get around to eating them. You might “sneak” a candy bar (as if you’re not looking?), so that you don’t feel so restricted. Even though the idea for the diet was originally your own, it feels like an external demand you have to fight in order to feel free. When a project you choose to accomplish for your own good reasons becomes disconnected from your internal desire, when a “want” is transformed into a “should,” it seems to exist outside of you, and you forget that it was your idea in the first place!
Power to the Underdog. Battle-by-procrastination also occurs in situations where there is a formal hierarchy of power—and you aren’t on top. The very fact that there is someone in a position of authority over you may leave you feeling small and helpless. This reaction is common in highly authoritarian corporate, academic, and family settings where, to enhance their own sense of power, subordinates delay responding to their superiors.
Perhaps you delay turning in reports or put off preparing presentations for your teacher or your boss, even though you may be on time doing things for friends. If, as you delay, you worry about whether your report or presentation will be good enough, or about how it will compare to others, your procrastination probably has more to do with fear of judgment than with fear of losing the battle. But if you find yourself thinking, “This is a ridiculous assignment. I shouldn’t have to do this!” or, “Why should I do it her way?” then you are more likely battling for power. In situations like these, procrastination can act as an equalizer. Your superior seems less powerful, because she or he wasn’t able to force you to be on time. You feel you have more control because you’ve done things on your terms—late.
Get Off My Back. There are times when a person feels restricted not so much by rules or someone else’s power but by a sense of intrusion. Procrastination becomes a way to resist that intrusion. You might feel that someone has invaded your personal territory, like a woman who resented her neighbor’s insistent request for a secret family recipe. “She had no business asking for it! She knows it’s a secret.” Rather than saying “No” to the request, the woman told the neighbor that she could have the recipe—and then kept “forgetting” to write it down. “Eventually, after I’d procrastinated for over three months, my neighbor gave up and stopped asking. I was so relieved to finally have her out of my hair!” A simple request can feel like an intrusion if you don’t believe you can refuse it; procrastination may seem to be the only way you can say “No.”
Sometimes people feel intruded upon by a task they see as an unnecessary imposition on their time and energy. Think of how you feel when, in early January, those inevitable tax forms arrive in the mail. Said one procrastinator: “As soon as those forms arrive, they seem to take up all the space in the house. So I put the forms in a drawer and forget about them. That way I can still enjoy the rest of my life—at least for a while.”
Maybe even things you have asked for feel like intrusions. After putting it off for months, a young man finally created an online advertisement to sell his car. Receiving thirty responses on the first day the ad ran, he didn’t answer even one. “It was just too much! All those people were after me, wanting something. I felt like telling them to go away and leave me alone. Of course, that was ridiculous because I’m the one who placed the ad. But when people responded, I felt as though I’d been invaded, so I just didn’t answer.”
Beat the Clock. In contrast to the safety procrastination can provide from intrusion, there are times when procrastination increases a person’s enjoyment of danger and risk. People who love risk describe the thrill of being “on the brink.” They feel elated when they take a situation to its limits and emerge victorious. They might get this thrill f
rom driving race cars, playing the stock market, rock climbing, working for a start-up company, or engaging in high-risk behaviors such as gambling or dangerous sex. The excitement comes from flirting with danger and surviving by your own wits and skill. Your senses must be totally alert since you risk your job, your security, or your life at every turn.
Some procrastinators feel a similar sense of risk when they delay until the last possible moment. They take things so far that their lives and well-being are jeopardized. As one procrastinator described, “It’s like walking along a very narrow cliff and trying to see how close you can get to the edge before falling off. You never know whether you’re going to make it this time or not.” How much lateness will your professors put up with before flunking you? How long can you delay work for a client before being dismissed from the job or sued? How much will your spouse tolerate before becoming infuriated with you and deciding to leave? Finally, when there seems to be no chance for escape, these procrastinators act. If they are lucky, they survive, elated and triumphant.
The Taste of Revenge. Procrastination can also sweeten the victory of revenge. If you feel hurt, angered, slighted, or betrayed by someone, you can use procrastination to retaliate. Perhaps a colleague said something critical about your work; perhaps your spouse doesn’t pay as much attention to you as you would like; perhaps your manager changed the rules without warning. Procrastination can become your means of inflicting some pain or discomfort on those who hurt you.
For example, your manager needs your quarterly sales report so that he can prepare for his meeting with the company president. When you delay, your boss looks bad to his boss and, inwardly, you are delighted. Or, suppose you haven’t studied very hard for a class because you felt the teacher wasn’t putting enough time into planning the lectures. You miss the final but are able to convince your teacher to give you a make-up exam. She now has to create a new exam just for you and must schedule time to be with you while you take it.
The Ultimate Battle. The most profound of all battles-by-procrastination is the battle against reality. Some of us are simply unwilling to accept that what is, is. We can’t stand limits; we can’t stand that we can’t control other people; we can’t stand that we’re not going to be rescued. Sometimes people invent how they think things should be and then live according to their vision, as if it were reality. Lindsay, a computer programmer, had trouble keeping jobs. She came late and left early. She asked a lot of questions of her coworkers and manager rather than take the time to figure out solutions for herself. When she started a temporary job, she assumed she would be kept on permanently without having to work hard to prove herself. Recently, Lindsay applied for a job that required knowledge of a computer language she didn’t have, but she figured they would train her on the job. After all, it was obvious that she was smart and a quick learner, so she shouldn’t have to bother spending her time and money to take courses to upgrade her skills. Lindsay spent money as if she already had her next job instead of accepting the limitations of living on unemployment checks. The word “budget” was not in her vocabulary, but “Can you lend me money until I get a job?” was. People were always telling Lindsay to “get real,” and Lindsay’s response was, “I hate reality.” She clung to her version of how things should be and procrastinated on dealing with things as they were. Some people just cannot accept the facts of their situations, and their procrastination is a fight against a reality they don’t like.
THE ISSUE OF AUTONOMY
As you can see, procrastination is often a declaration of one’s independence, a way of saying, “I am a person in my own right. I can act in the way I choose for myself. I do not have to go along with your rules and your demands.” People who use procrastination to resist control may be trying to preserve their sense of individuality and reassure themselves that they are living life on their own terms.
While some procrastinators measure their worth by their experience of success or failure, these procrastinators rely on feeling autonomous as the measure of their self-worth. The self-worth equation that we described in the chapter on fear of failure applies here, too, though with some modification. The procrastinator again defines self-worth in terms of performance, but in this case, it is by not performing, that is, by procrastinating, that self-worth is enhanced. Not doing is a demonstration of the procrastinator’s ability, rather than a way to avoid testing it. The difference here is in the definition of “ability.” For people who fear judgment, “ability” refers to how well they are able to do on a given task. For those who fear losing the battle, “ability” refers to how well they are able to resist control and defy any attempt to restrict their autonomy.
Self-worth = Ability (to be autonomous, defy control) = Performance (on my terms, via procrastination)
When we understand that procrastination is a battle for more than just control, that it is a battle for self-worth and self-respect, we can understand why losing the battle evokes such intense and powerful fear—and why these procrastinators are so stubbornly resistant to change. If your sense of self-worth is based on your ability to defy influence by others, every encounter can take on exaggerated importance. A single, small defeat can leave you feeling as though you have compromised yourself, that your ability to be an autonomous individual is in doubt. Life may therefore have become a battleground on which you fight every rule, argue about anything, or ask for special consideration in large and small ways. In the back of your mind, you may be always assessing who is stronger, who is in control, who has the upper hand. You are ready, at the least provocation, to rebel against authority and assert your own influence in the situation.
Sam, an accountant and hardcore procrastinator, is a case in point. His major concern in life is making sure that he is not controlled by anyone. “I am my own man,” he asserts. “I know I’m supposed to be at work at eight or have an audit report prepared for a client by a certain date. That’s just it—I’m supposed to. I hate that word. If I go ahead and do it, I feel weak, so I don’t do it or I do it late. That way, I can show them who’s in charge—me!” Sam not only delays fulfilling work responsibilities, he also resists the smallest request or expectation from anyone. If Sam’s wife, Eileen, asks him to do an errand on the way home, he invariably “forgets.” Sam regards taxes, monthly bills, and late notices as nuisances. Saying that he won’t let his life be governed by such trivialities, he pays his bills only when he feels so inclined—usually once every six months. Sam even fights when no one is involved but himself. He has run out of gas on the freeway because driving out of his way to look for gas while the indicator reads “empty” makes Sam feel as though he’s giving in to the petty requirements of everyday life. So he doesn’t do it.
Some procrastinators are so determined not to lose the battle that they are willing to pay a very high price to win. Sacrificing something of great personal significance may seem a necessary price to pay for a sense of personal power and the feeling of leading a life of one’s own. Jessica has diabetes and is extremely overweight. The feeling that she can’t have chocolate or that she must go for a walk is so noxious that she puts off exercise and weight loss even though she knows she’s putting her health at risk.
Does all this sound far-fetched to you? Before you conclude that this talk of battle and extreme consequences is not relevant to your own situation, consider the story of another procrastinator. Courtney didn’t realize she was caught in a struggle for independence that was diminishing her life.
Courtney is an intelligent thirty-four-year-old woman who presently works as a department store sales clerk. As a child, Courtney’s life was managed by her mother, who also took credit for Courtney’s good grades, bragging about her successes as if they were her own. Courtney’s father, a prominent attorney, viewed her academic success as enabling her to attend law school and join his firm. When Courtney went away to college, she finally felt free. She did a lot of socializing and very little studying and ultimately flunked out of school. “I couldn�
�t figure it out then. I actually enjoyed most of the classes, especially the sciences. I even thought about going to medical school to become a pediatrician. I know I had the ability to make it. But there seemed to be another part of me that wanted to destroy that possibility.”
It wasn’t until years later that Courtney realized her procrastination in school had something to do with her reaction to her parents’ control over her. Growing up, she felt she had no life of her own, with her mother directing her activities and her father deciding what her future would be. “I refused to give them the satisfaction of making me into what they wanted. The sad part is that I really wanted to do well in school and to make something of my life. At the time I didn’t think it was possible to do well and maintain my self-respect at the same time. If I had felt more secure about my independence, I wouldn’t have had to work so hard to prove it. I wish I could have believed then that doing well in school didn’t have to mean that my parents were controlling me.”
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