Procrastination…The tip of the Iceberg

Procrastination is the putting off or avoidance of an activity or task that requires completion, by focusing on some other activity or task. For the person procrastinating this may result in stress, guilt, loss of productivity, creation of crisis, and the consternation of others for not fulfilling one’s responsibilities or commitments. While most people procrastinate to some degree, it becomes a problem when it impedes functioning. The word procrastination is derived from the Latin word procrastinatus: pro- (forward) and crastinus (of tomorrow).

The symptoms of procrastination commonly reflect the inability to finish tasks, meet deadlines, arrive on time, and keep promises. Poor concentration, negative internal messages, unrealistic expectations, and the inability to organize and work constructively are present with procrastination. It is a part of an inner system that has many parts to it. Procrastination is principally caused by low self esteem and self criticism.

Self esteem issues begin early on. The common causes of low self esteem stem from childhood loneliness, emotionally distant parents, critical parents, an alcoholic parent, a parent with low self esteem or a passive parent. Children identify with distant, critical and unloving parents by blaming and criticizing themselves. They cannot abstract that the environment is not providing enough emotional sustenance and support. The child feels hurt and angry because he is not receiving the love, affection and attention that he needs. The anger that he feels cannot be expressed for fear that the parent will be more critical or withdraw even further. So, the anger is pulled back into the self for safe keeping. This same anger connects to the self in an interesting way because the solution to feeling lonely, distant or bad is to be perfect, and the anger that is now identified with the child becomes self criticism when perfection fails.

Procrastination has been associated with perfectionism, which is the tendency to negatively evaluate outcomes and personal performance, or the intense fear and avoidance of evaluation of one’s abilities by others. It can also be associated with a heightened social self-consciousness anxiety, and recurrent depression. Psychologically perfectionism begins as a result of an attempt on the part of the child to draw closer and gain approval from a distant or critical parent. The attempt to be perfect causes the child to create an idealized or perfect self to replace or to hide the inadequate true self. This means that the actual self is pushed down and the ideal one, the perfect one over-rides it. This creation forms into a pleasing personality on the outside and a critical or angry process inside. The pleasing personality is meant to both hide the true inadequate self from exposure and feared rejection and to put forth an acceptance seeking personality. The purpose here is to feel better inside by gaining approval and to bring in emotional supplies that are in short supply because of a critical internal environment. The original anger the child felt toward his parents that was internalized comes back to him as self criticism and makes it impossible to fully take in the approval from people pleasing. Finishing tasks then becomes a referendum for his adequacy. Procrastination has two main purposes, first to avoid the confirmation of inadequacy because the product will never be perfect enough and second to evade self criticism when the outcome is less than perfect.

 

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