Creative Avoidance – Procrastination

Creative Avoidance – Procrastination
by Corey Wells
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I consider myself an achiever. One of those people that decides what they want to do with their life and then goes for it. I’d like to think I’m really good at putting my mind towards a goal and not stopping until it’s achieved. This is how I see myself, yet something can sometimes interfere. My old enemy, “Creative Avoidance.”

Creative avoidance is what I like to call procrastination. As an achiever I certainly don’t want to think of myself as a procrastinator. As a matter of fact I’d never say I procrastinate. What I tend to do is find something that I can justify as a reason why I’m avoiding doing what I need to get done.

Here’s an example. The other day I had to finish some work on my corporate tax return. Taxes are not my favourite activity but it’s something I’m proud to say I do myself. I’m a Certified Financial Planner and I have a good understanding of accounting principals. It’s something I want to do for my business. The problem is I want to do it, but I don’t like doing it. So I find ways to avoid doing it. On this day I started working on my taxes when a simple thought crossed my mind, “You should really get your goals worked out for this month.” Initially I tried to shake this thought off. I told myself, “There will be plenty of time to do that when you finish your taxes. STAY ON TASK!” It didn’t work. The next thing I remember was thinking of a great goal I could achieve next month. That was it, I was excited about this goal. I had to leave and write it down.

This left me further behind on my taxes and has added a couple of days worth of stress. So, was it worth it? Nope. Could I have written the goal down and continued on with my taxes? Absolutely. So why didn’t I? What’s stops me? Why do I find ways to distract myself from what’s important? This is creative avoidance. I avoid doing what’s important to do something I enjoy more.

How can I overcome my creative avoidance? Honestly it’s something that I struggle with. I’m certainly much better at it than in my younger days. I can usually fight through the little things that I don’t enjoy, but I struggle with the bigger things. Practically all of my coaching clients have issues with creative avoidance and it’s a constant battle for me as a coach to help them overcome these issues. Usually the issues they are avoiding are the very ones that will help them achieve their goals.

In coaching, I use a technique called accountability. I hold them accountable to the actions they’ve set out for themselves. To do this involves the pain and pleasure principal. This principal states that people will generally move away from pain and towards pleasure. With this in mind, I give my clients a healthy dose of pain for not achieving their outcomes. Equally I give them rewards, (pleasure), for achieving them. Some of the rewards I offer are a free coaching session, a dinner out, a Starbucks gift card, or an i-tunes gift card. This helps them have an extra carrot to move towards the results they want. However, most of my clients are motivated more by pain than pleasure and I spend most of my time coming up with consequences. The consequences, (pain), are things like, loss of money, buying me dinner, or even the loss of future coaching sessions.

In addition to the pain and pleasure technique I will add daily accountability to monitor their results. This means they must call or email me each and everyday to tell me that they accomplished their goals for that day. This also allows me to add positive reinforcement. When they provide me with a review of their day, it gives me the opportunity to let them know that they are on track. Often this feedback is a bright spot in their day. They enjoy sharing their success with someone that is truly proud of them.

Being forced to account for their day, combined with daily positive reinforcement and a bigger reward for achieving results is usually enough to keep them on track. Of course there are up’s and downs and good days and bad days. In my experience coaching somebody using these methods works.

This brings me back to my problem with avoiding doing the things I need to do. What kind of a role model, or example, am I setting for my coaching clients. I’ve decided to make some changes to make sure that I stay on track with my tasks. To do this I’m going to hire a coach, myself.

Normally I wouldn’t advise coaching yourself. It’s very hard to be objective with ourselves when we are so close to our lives. Having said that I think I have a strategy that is going to work for me and if you suffer from creative avoidance this might help you too.

Here’s my plan:

1. Set my plan for the day.
   The night before or first thing in the morning I will write down the tasks I need to get done the next day. I’m going to limit these to less than 3 items. For this to work I don’t want to overwhelm myself. I’ve now defined the 1-3 things that will be achieved tomorrow.

   I don’t want to put too much on my plate and you shouldn’t either. I’m going to take my large task of taxes and break it down into smaller manageable tasks.

2. Review my results.
   At the end of my day I’ll take 5 minutes and review my results. Chances are I’ll know whether I’ve achieved them long before the end of the day, but I’ve decided to set a reminder to review my day. This 5 minute exercise is going to be very important to my success. I’ll look at my day and find all the things that worked well and identify areas that need improvement.

   I’ll reward myself for everyday that was successful. For me this will be a reward chart. I’ve created a chart that I’m calling my success board. Every day I’m successful I’ll add a star to my success board. I’ve seen this work well with changing my son’s behaviour and there’s no reason it can’t work for me too.

   One thing I’ll avoid is beating myself up for an unsuccessful day. I’ll be disappointed in myself but I don’t want to impact my self-esteem by being overly critical. It will be enough to know I’ve left a hole that can never be filled on my success board.

3. Reward or consequences.
   I’ve decided to set up a reward and consequences system for myself. Utilizing the success board above, I’ll have it cover the complete month. My success will be earning a star for each working day of the month. I’m going to allow myself to have 3 unsuccessful days a month. If I complete the whole month with 3 or less unsuccessful days I’ll earn my reward. If I have more than 3 unsuccessful day’s I’ll face my consequences.

   I’ve set up for myself a reward that is truly motivating and at the same time I’ve put in place a consequence I’d do almost anything to avoid.

This plan is new for me and I’ll be sure to update you with my progress. However, it has all the elements that make a coaching relationship successful and I believe it will work for me.

If you decide to give this a try I’d love to hear your feedback. If you want to have some accountability, leave a comment below, and update your results. I’ll check this post daily and help hold you accountable. In addition, publicly stating your goals is a great way to start you on the road to achievement.

(C) 2009 Corey Wells
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