At least once a month, I get an email from someone saying they’re procrastinating…and need to stop.
I need to act! Go! Start it! Do it! Finish it! Get it handled!
So infuriating, they know they want or need to complete something, and yet, nada.
Twenty years ago right now, this month, I was very pregnant with my son (turned out, he was born on the 4th of July).
I was also in graduate school.
I had taken all the courses, tests, the oral statistics exam (scary), written all my papers, read all the books, completed all class projects.
But I hadn’t finished my master’s thesis.
All my classmates got to walk through graduation, without me.
One of my favorite classmates and friends had his graduation party at my house (it was awesome) since I myself couldn’t have one!
Up to that point, even though I wasn’t graduating with all my friends and colleagues, I never had the thought that I was procrastinating by putting off writing that huge document. The thesis had to be accompanied by a very thorough “Action Research Project” where I would investigate an organization or a company, and help decide what blocks or problems existed there among staff, management, and systems and THEN help them make changes.
And write about the whole thing when it was over.
Since I was kinda nauseated at the beginning of that year of graduate school, I had made a clear decision to wait until next year to do this huge project. It could take 10 months to complete.
But then…the next year came, and I had a newborn, then a three month old, then 10 months…
I didn’t exactly feel like going out to businesses, dressing up in business clothes, and asking them if I could do a graduate thesis project on their company.
You only have five years to complete your whole entire master’s thesis when you’re getting a master’s degree. Students getting a PhD, a doctorate, have ten years.
Sounds like a lot of time, right?
There’s actually a term for almost-finished advanced degrees, which you may know If you’re part of that world: ABT.
All But Thesis.
Since my dad was a professor, I heard the term.
But I wasn’t too worried.
My son turned one, I started working part time as an editor. I could work at home. I didn’t go back to my old regular job.
I’ll do it pretty soon. I got this.
And then….I got pregnant again.
Now, I only had two years to finish this thesis. I had spent thousands of dollars on the tuition and gone through all that previous work.
It was now, or never.
I couldn’t live with never. I knew I would deeply regret it.
But I needed help, because the project was long, big and looming. The clock was ticking. I couldn’t put it off any longer, I wouldn’t even be ABLE to do it with a second baby.
I wish I had The Work back then…it would have been so helpful with the thoughts I had about contacting organizations, going to work in the one that said “yes”, interviewing all the staff, consulting with managers and leaders, and writing an 8 chapter thesis about the outcome.
This will be hard, this is scary, this is difficult, I don’t have time, I’d rather do something else, I want zero responsibilities, this sucks, I shouldn’t have gotten pregnant during grad school, I should have done it differently, I should stay home with my baby, I think I’ll go get some coffee.
When I look back at that time, I see that because the end result was so dang important to me (and failure seemed so terrible), the fear of not graduating after all the work I had already done was awful.
I asked for help.
Once again, the key to success….noticing that on my own, with my anxious, busy, reactive thoughts…
Nothing happened.
But one phone call to several people who really cared about me: my mom, one of my sisters, a close friend….
….was all it took to get off the ground.
They helped me focus on what I was thinking was “hard”, and see what we could put in place to make it easy.
I can look back on it now and call it the Turnaround Project.
*Childcare—I asked friends and one of my sisters, and they gladly volunteered
*Quiet writing time—I went to the library, I scheduled Saturdays from 2-5 pm for writing in my bedroom while my husband took our son out
*Creating and running two staff retreats for the organization I was working for—my mom’s big beautiful house
*Fear I was doing it wrong—meetings with my professors, phone calls to check in with them
The project was huge, and so worth it.
I finished, I published the thesis, it was a gigantic accomplishment.
I walked across the stage, graduating three years later than most of my friends from when we started grad school.
I didn’t know one single other student graduating that day with me.
But I walked, with my brand new baby in a sling across my shoulder (my daughter had been born two weeks before).
Tears began to well up and fall down my cheeks as I received my diploma, as I looked into the audience where my mom, my husband, my two-year old son, sisters, and a few friends sat clapping for me.
If you have a big project…or maybe even a little one…that you know you’d love to complete, or feel desperate to complete…
…you don’t HAVE to, of course.
But write down why you hate the project, what’s hard about it, what sucks, what feels burdensome…
….and question it.
Is it true? Are you sure?
Are you sure you want it to be super easy, not a burden, not something rigorous and demanding?
If you lived the turnaround, that it is NOT hard or impossible, that it does NOT suck, that it’s NOT a burden, that it’s a blessing, it’s completely possible, exciting, and you don’t even WANT it to be easy…
….who would you be?
“I never have the sense that anything I haven’t done is undone. I see the things that don’t get done as things that need a different timing; I and the world are better off without them, for now….
This life doesn’t belong to me. The voice says ‘Do the dishes’—okay. I don’t know what it’s for, I just do it. If I don’t follow the order, that’s all right, too. But this is a game about where life will take me when I do follow. There’s nothing more exciting to say yes to such a wild thing. I don’t have anything to lose. I can afford to be a fool.” ~ Byron Katie
That thing you’re procrastinating about today?
List your objections to doing it, see if they are true.
Ask for help. Let it go.
Graduate from your crushing thinking.
I noticed that yelling at myself to do something doesn’t work, so try something different for a change.