Manhattan Marriage and Family Therapy, PLLC
  • Home
  • NYC Therapists
    • NYC Therapists >
      • Angie Sadhu
      • Whitley Louvier
      • Megan Hernandez
      • Hannah Kang
  • CT Office
    • Amanda Craig, PhD Therapist
    • MMFT CT Partners >
      • Andre Burey, MD
      • Marybeth Jordan, LCSW
      • Ashlyn Campbell, LMB, FSC
      • Antonio Reale, ND, MS
      • Karen Hand, M.Ac., LA.c
    • MMFT CT Events
  • Services
    • About Therapy
    • Individual Therapy
    • Couples Therapy
    • Family Therapy
    • Premarital Counseling
  • Therapists Corner
    • Clinical Supervision
    • Clinical Blog
    • Professional Resources
    • Practice Toolkit
    • WORK WITH US
    • Internship News
  • Special Projects
    • Stand in Solidarity
    • COVID-19
    • Tween Mental Health
    • Breast Cancer Awareness Month
    • Recovery Awareness Month
    • Earth Month
    • Store
  • Workshops
    • Emotional Connection in the Family
    • Men and Depression
    • Living Your Best Self
    • Parenting Fireflies: the wonderful years of tweens
    • Life Work Harmony
  • Blog
  • FAQs
  • LIBRARY
  • Contact
  • Home
  • NYC Therapists
    • NYC Therapists >
      • Angie Sadhu
      • Whitley Louvier
      • Megan Hernandez
      • Hannah Kang
  • CT Office
    • Amanda Craig, PhD Therapist
    • MMFT CT Partners >
      • Andre Burey, MD
      • Marybeth Jordan, LCSW
      • Ashlyn Campbell, LMB, FSC
      • Antonio Reale, ND, MS
      • Karen Hand, M.Ac., LA.c
    • MMFT CT Events
  • Services
    • About Therapy
    • Individual Therapy
    • Couples Therapy
    • Family Therapy
    • Premarital Counseling
  • Therapists Corner
    • Clinical Supervision
    • Clinical Blog
    • Professional Resources
    • Practice Toolkit
    • WORK WITH US
    • Internship News
  • Special Projects
    • Stand in Solidarity
    • COVID-19
    • Tween Mental Health
    • Breast Cancer Awareness Month
    • Recovery Awareness Month
    • Earth Month
    • Store
  • Workshops
    • Emotional Connection in the Family
    • Men and Depression
    • Living Your Best Self
    • Parenting Fireflies: the wonderful years of tweens
    • Life Work Harmony
  • Blog
  • FAQs
  • LIBRARY
  • Contact

BLOG

Motivation, Procrastination, and the Sleight of Hand.

6/20/2016

 
Motivation, procrastination, and the sleight of hand. www.ManhattanMFT.com
By Alex Peskin, LMFT

The best magicians make us think we are seeing something that is hardly possible to believe. Really, unless we are lost in Hogwarts or Westeros, we know that what we are seeing is actually a sleight of hand.

Distraction and misdirection lead us to focus somewhere else while something significant is still happening right in front of us.

You might not realize it, but some of the best everyday magicians are those of us who are lacking in motivation. 
When we are stuck, we use distraction and misdirection to avoid facing the painful truth about our lack of productivity and effectiveness. Procrastination is one of the big tricks we use.
Procrastination is a neat way to explain why you were always up until 4am finishing a big project, why you never took that class, wrote that novel, or fixed the dripping faucet in the bathroom.

This word, so frequently used in our culture, makes the very unproductive and unappealing behavior somehow ok. It neatly ‘packages’ all those fears, doubts, self-loathing and perfectionism into an acceptable term that requires no further explanation. “I’m a procrastinator” has become a personal identifier akin to "I'm vegan" or "I'm Catholic".

It is hard to break out of a box like that because it’s so easy and comfortable to stay there. Or is it? Perhaps our own adeptness at misdirection hides in plain sight the pain and wreckage that such behavior, such lifestyle, brings.

Procrastination and avoidance deprive us of the joy and pride of celebrating our accomplishments, the satisfaction of fulfillment of our potential, and the serenity of balanced life. We are plagued by deadline-driven stress and shamed for under-performing.
Picture

The cozy little box of procrastination and work avoidance is really lined with nails. Tweet this.


You'd told yourself that there wasn't that much to do and you would get to it when you felt like it, had the time, was inspired, etc., knowing all along that more and more is being piled onto your metaphorical plate. Now, just thinking about what needs to be accomplished is overwhelming. You are being crushed by the sheer magnitude of the to-do list. Does this sound familiar?
A while back, Amy Novotney wrote a great article for the American Psychological Association where she described procrastination as the inability to self-regulate when it comes to completing tasks.  The article names self-doubt and fear of failure as the chief culprits for our inability to take action. The subjects of her study: graduate psychology students.

Nobody is immune…

(Want to know the top 15 excuses for procrastination? Click here.)

Where do you even start when an hour of work doesn’t feel like you’ve made a dent?

Just identifying your distractions and the emotions behind the procrastination might be a great start to feeling empowered. Begin by simply being truthful with yourself. Then, it’s all about being equipped with the right tools to get going and stay on the right path.

Charles Duhigg offers up some great tools to help maintain a feeling of control and combat procrastination in his new book
Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business.

He recommends writing to-do lists not to pat yourself on the back for small accomplishments, but to build internal motivation.  Having a large goal broken down to very specific and achievable steps makes sitting down to get started much less daunting. 

Start there. Take off the cape, put down the wand, and get honest about what is really going on. Talk about how you really feel and, more importantly, how you want to feel. 

Try different productivity strategies to find what works best for you.  Try bullet journaling to stay accountable, or stay motivated by using SMART goals. It doesn’t matter what technique you use, really, as long as you take action and maintain the momentum.  

Feelings of fulfillment, accomplishment, pride, and freedom are sure to follow the taking of responsibility for your own growth and empowerment.

Now, that’s some real magic!

Great books on the subject:


Stay connected! Get blogs like this delivered to you inbox once a month.


Comments are closed.

    Categories

    All
    Abby Crews
    ADHD
    AEDP
    Amanda Craig
    Amelia Flynn
    Angie Sadhu
    Anxiety
    Back To School
    Breast Cancer
    Brenda Nicholls
    Cliff Shuman
    Coronavirus
    Couples
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    Dads
    Daughters
    Debra O'Donnell
    Depression
    Divorce
    Earth Love
    Eating Disorders
    Education
    Emotion
    Family
    Fear
    Holidays
    Hope
    Jenna Hendricksen
    Keith Dixon
    Kimberly Kuskovsky
    Life Harmony
    Michelle Woodward
    Parenting
    Personal Growth
    Premarital
    Romance
    Sarah Trance
    Self Care
    Self Compassion
    Sex
    Singles
    Stand In Solidarity
    Stress Management
    Telehealth

    Archives

    December 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    January 2022
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    October 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    RSS Feed

Manhattan Marriage and Family Therapy, PLLC
Downtown Darien, 1051 Boston Post Road Suite 1, Darien, CT 06820
917-510-6422 | info@manhattanMFT.com

© COPYRIGHT 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.