Week 5: Procrastination

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

—Marcus Aurelius

Procrastination

We are all gonna die

Motion. Everything is in motion. You are either going forward or you are going backwards. Progressing, or regressing, or alternating between the two in an unhealthy cycle of binging and fasting. There is no stasis.

There are a few laws governing objects in motion. The first law that Newton put forward states that an object at rest stays at rest until acted upon by an outside force, and conversely, remains in motion unless an outside force acts on it.

An object in flight is concerned with 4 forces that come in two pairs, weight, and lift, thrust and drag.

Thus we have forces that are required for motion, while there are forces also acting in opposition to that that forward motion, that are determined to bring that body in motion to a stop. Life is no different.

We remain at rest, lazy, apathetic and unmoving unless we are motivated to action. That motivation may come from many places, internal or external, but it seems to be essential for action. And then there are forces of opposition that impede that action.

Inertia and momentum are the first law of motion in play. These concepts describe how an object at rest will resist movement, and how an object in motion wants to resist stopping. Both can be overcome with sufficient energy. Both to start and to stop.

There is another concept known as static friction. Static friction, opposed to kinetic friction, is the resistive force of friction to an object at rest, which is always the greater force. So the force to overcome static friction is always greater than the force required to sustain motion once the object is in motion.

So what does this tell us? Hopefully by now you can see where we are headed with this, if not I will explain. Goal setting and habit planning is not motion. They are only plans for. We might now say that procrastination is the time gap between planning and action, or the mental resistance or impedance to that action. And that first action overcoming procrastination will likely require more energy than it will take once you get started in a task.

So when endeavoring to start something new, we must be aware of the natural tendency to procrastinate and understand why and how we procrastinate so we might overcome it.

Summary of concepts thus far:

We begin with a desire for positive change. Self-awareness tells us we could do better.

We make a deliberate attempt to see ourselves for how we really are through self-assessment.

We make a plan for where we want to go through goal setting and describing your vision and mission.

We craft a more thorough plan of action by planning systems and habits that support our goals.

At every one of the previous steps, procrastination, the first obstacle to action may have already been slowing your planning, but now when it comes to action is when you might really see it affect you. Procrastination is a potent opposition force, but it may not be the greatest, however learning to deal with procrastination is a requirement for personal growth.

Procrastination Reflection:

Why are goals, goals? Because they are things we have yet to achieve. And while the reasons for lack of achievement might be many, I think it’s fair to say that the reasons that most goals remain goals has to do with not starting in the first place. So why do goals remain goals and not achievments, what are reasons why we don’t start.

Limbic friction, is a term coined by Andrew Huberman which is a short-hand way to describe the impedance to action. More specifically the resistance brought two different states. The first state being anxiety which prevents you from performing a particular activity. The second state is that where you are feeling generally lazy and unmotivated. I like this term because it describes something that is very important to be aware of when trying to move towards any objective or goal.

Imagine water flowing. Water always follows the path of least resistance. Us humans are naturally not too different. We are naturally lazy and generally tend to follow this same pattern. Now that we have set our goals, we next need to analyze ourselves and determine where our limbic friction lies.

Think about one of your goals, think about the habits you are trying to develop. Perhaps it’s going to the gym more. Try to think of as many sources of resistance to a particular goal or habit that you have. Be it mental objections, such as, “I can’t go to the gym without caffeine”, or “I don’t even know what I am going to do at the gym anyways”, or even physical barriers such as the gym being an inconvenient distance from your house. Try to think of as many of these objections, excuses, or obstructions as possible and write them down for each goal and associated habit. For every excuse, write down a solution to overcome this excuse.

What is the goal? What are the habits? What are my objections? What are the solutions?

Discussion

What do you think of the life calendar? Does this help you think about mortality in a new way? How? What long term goal in your life do you have that you keep putting off?