Our Changing Identities
June 2009, age 28. The month I got excited about a garden. In my defence, it was my garden. The former gravel pit surrounded by blue concrete walls began its transformation into an urban oasis. To me growing up, caring about a garden was a symbol of the dullness that was the lives of the old and boring. It meant cardigans, classial music and copies of The Daily Telegraph. That was not somewhere I could see myself going. And then one fine day I caught myself thinking happy thoughts about a garden. I was dimly aware of an invisible line not so much crossed as trampled underfoot several miles back.
Until recently my peer group did most of the same things at the same times. School. University. Getting a job after graduation. Leaving home. But now that those highly structured years are behind us we’re free to go our own ways more than ever before. We’re all doing different things in different combinations and at different speeds. Careers. Relationships. Living arrangements. Planning for the future. Taking each day as it comes. In all respects, changing and adapting to others’ changes. We’re meeting new incarnations of each other; none of us is any longer the student we once were, or even the person we were last year.
The things that bring me enjoyment are changing and starting to include stuff that I and others might think painfully uncool. It’s a gradual evolution. I still like some things the high school, university, and early twenties versions of me liked, while others fall out of favour. Video games are largely forgotten but I like to think air guitar will be with me always.
So what’s the point? I see a tendency to regard identity as largely fixed, with any changes taking the person further away from their previous self. This can be threatening to the person concerned and those around them. If the person you first got to know is wholly or partially gone, it can feel like a betrayal. “Hey, you’re not the person I once knew! I liked that person!”. Entirely possible.
Part of the art of living is managing your relationships with yourself and others. Demand respect for who you are and who you become. Extend the same to others. We’re engaged in an ever-changing dance of identity, sometimes making subtle, measured gestures, sometimes busting out some serious moves, and all the time influenced by the others on the dancefloor. So get out there and throw some shapes.
You Today, You Tomorrow
Procrastination. Now I know you don’t indulge, but you know people who do. Putting off what you’ve told yourself you ought to be doing or have done. That doesn’t mean putting things off is always procrastination. It’s easy to tell. When you tell yourself you’re going to put whatever it is off (again), do you feel guilty? If yes, you’re procrastinating. If no, you’re likely making a sensible decision about allocation of your finite resources. This gut test is very reliable - it’s much harder to rationalise procrastination to your subconscious self than to your conscious self. That’s the way we’re wired.
So we normally know when we’re procrastinating. Does that stop us? Not always. Not hardly. Not often. Not ever. Pick whichever of those four applies to you. One of them almost certainly does.
I’ve written before about the power of positive engagement as a procrastination-busting strategy. Briefly, the more you care about an outcome - the more connected you are with why you’ve told yourself to do what you’re putting off - the more engaged you become and the easier it is to get down to it. It’s good stuff, try it.
Recently though I came across another strategy in a book called The Mind Gym*.
A Conversation with Yourself
The idea is to think about You Today as distinct from You Tomorrow. When your tell-tale gut alerts you to procrastination in progress, imagine this conversation. You Today doesn’t want to do whatever it is. You Today is tired/too busy/doesn’t feel like it/can’t stand the thought of it, and so tells You Tomorrow that he or she will have to pick up the slack. Except instead of meekly acquiescing, You Tomorrow doesn’t take this lying down. You Tomorrow points out that he or she is busy too/is also tired/doesn’t like the task either. Why should You Tomorrow get dumped on? Try explaining to You Tomorrow why it is that they are better placed to do Unpalatable Task A. If they fight back, reconsider whether you really ought to be a good citizen and do your fair share rather than slacking off and relying on ‘others’ to cover you.
You might be a veteran procrastinator. You might find it too easy to put You Tomorrow in a headlock and tell him or her they damn well will do this task because You Today says so. In which case, it’s time for level two. Imagine You Tomorrow is not simply a future version of you, perhaps easily dumped on, but a relevant colleague, friend or partner. Explain to this person why it is that they must deal with said Unpalatable Task so that you can slack off. You might find that a tougher conversation.\
California woo-woo?
Does this involve a fair degree of talking to yourself? Yes, though not out loud unless that helps. If you’re put off by that, remember that you talk to yourself all the time, you probably just don’t notice. Is this Californian woo-woo visualisation stuff? A little. But if top athletes use visualisation to improve their performance it surely isn’t just self-help fluff.
Just remember, You Tomorrow is a reasonable person but doesn’t like constantly cleaning up after messy predecessors. He or she has things to do too, so make sure You Today pulls their weight.
Will this eliminate procrastination entirely? Unlikely. Will it give you another weapon to deploy in pursuit of increased productivity in the real world? Sure. That’s got to be worth a try.
*Not an affiliate link. I’m not here to make money.
photo credit: Violets and Handshakes
