Summertime Procrastination

Dr. Tami, with special guest Tara Jollie, discusses summer-time procrastination and the internal self-defeating thoughts that can interfere with our ability to take care of ourselves.

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Transcript

[00:13] Dr. Tami: Boozhoo, it's Dr. Tami here. I am checking in, and I have a special guest, Miss Tara Jollie. We share a last name because she is my aunt. She's with us today. She wanted to check-in. She's been part of our podcast team. It's been a while since I've been able to record because I've been doing workshops and training for staff in the area of trauma and compassion fatigue and team building. So it's been a really eventful, productive month, and I'm excited to get back to creating some new content for the podcast. So thank you, listeners, for sticking with me during times when maybe I'm having difficulty getting this content out. I appreciate you. We appreciate you. So today Tara is here, and she wants to make sure that this content's getting out there. She's very devoted to this podcast. She's a regular listener herself, and she's also part of the development and creative process. So what would you like to talk about today in the world of psychology, Tara?

[01:20] Tara Jollie: Well, why am I so lazy in the summer? I can't get anything done. I procrastinate till the cows come home, and then I'll finally do something when I have to. Why is that?

[01:31] Dr. Tami: I hear you saying that. It sounds to me like procrastination actually serves eventually as your motivator.

[01:38] Tara Jollie: Yeah, but I'm better at staying on task in the winter.

[01:41] Dr. Tami: Oh, so you don't procrastinate as much in the winter?

[01:45] Tara Jollie: No, I don't. Not as bad.

[01:46] Dr. Tami: Okay, so when it's summer, you're feeling like you have a really big to do list. It's really hard for you to feel that energy or be able to set time aside to get things done. Like, what kinds of things are you really procrastinating on?

[02:02] Tara Jollie: Kind of for me, it's kind of hard to care about those things to get done. I kind of don't care if they get done or not. And I do need to get them done, but they don't have the priority, so I'll just put them off and put them off and put them off instead of getting them done.

[02:20] Dr. Tami: Well, I think that piece is part of human nature. It's part of how we prioritize. If it's something that we don't care about, then I'm assuming the consequences aren't really that big if you don't do it.

[02:32] Tara Jollie: They could be big.

[02:34] Dr. Tami: Oh, they could be. Okay. So that's where I'm thinking you probably get a little anxious. Maybe you do care, but you are trying to push it away, like you don't want to care about doing these things.

[02:46] Tara Jollie: Probably.

[02:46] Dr. Tami: Yeah, right.

[02:47] Tara Jollie: Probably more like it.

[02:48] Dr. Tami: So delaying and procrastinating probably creates a feeling of unease deep down during the summer.

[02:56] Tara Jollie: It's both. I'm not aware of that, any kind of feeling like that.

[03:01] Dr. Tami: Okay.

[03:01] Tara Jollie: It could be subconscious.

[03:03] Dr. Tami: Well, I think if it's part of what you brought up to talk about, you asked, I think even like, why am I so unproductive or unmotivated or I don't want to do certain things in the summer, though. I think it's probably up in your conscious level of I'm putting things off and I'm procrastinating. And this isn't something I tend to do in the winter. I tend to get things done. So something about the summertime is competing for your attention.

[03:28] Tara Jollie: It's usually something outside.

[03:31] Dr. Tami: Okay.

[03:31] Tara Jollie: Because I want to be outside as much as I can. And if I have to be inside, I feel like I'm being punished.

[03:40] Dr. Tami: Yet you're totally in control where you spend your time. Okay, so who would be punishing you?

[03:45] Tara Jollie: Just the forces.

[03:47] Dr. Tami: The forces? Okay. Can we get a little more specific? What forces end up punishing you when you don't get something done?

[03:55] Tara Jollie: So I live by myself, and so often I need to be in the house to clean the kitchen or do a load of laundry or fold a load of clothes or feed the dog. I mean, just too big a thing. But if the sun's shining outside, we rather be outside. And I just go outside and I just leave the housework another time.

[04:20] Dr. Tami: Okay. And then hopefully you said, well, there's some consequences and some I really don't care about. How would you prioritize that then? When you gave me the list of laundry, dishes, feeding the dog, what if you had to make sure to at least do one of those? Which one would you pick?

[04:36] Tara Jollie: Feed the dog.

[04:37] Dr. Tami: Beautiful. That's the one I was hoping you'd say. But that's how we look at when we need it's very tough in our culture to give ourselves permission to rest, permission to enjoy. It sounds like for you it's much more enjoyable and it's part of taking care of yourself. When you see the sun shining, you'd rather be outside enjoying that sun, taking advantage of everything that is good about being outside outdoors. And so I think that's the way your body's telling you gravitate toward towards what makes you feel good.

[05:11] Tara Jollie: Yeah.

[05:11] Dr. Tami: The piece where people really struggle is start to self punish when we're turning towards something that's actually calling us and it's good for us.

[05:20] Tara Jollie: Must be me punishing myself.

[05:22] Dr. Tami: Right. That's usually most people, we're very fearful or we've been trained that interactions with others that if we let them down, we get punished, or if we don't do something right away, or if we're slacking on our house, then maybe we're lazy. We start to develop that internal voice in our head that's really critical.

[05:44] Tara Jollie: Oh, yeah.

[05:45] Dr. Tami: It's really difficult to try to change that unless we're kind of really going back and saying this back and forth with myself that I say that I'll be punished or I'll feel guilty or I'll feel bad about my choosing to rest versus take care of things in the house or duties. And then instead, what we're starting to see is that voice didn't come from us originally, came from somebody else. We're trying to maintain that expectation that maybe was placed on us years ago when we were younger and little, and we kind of created our model of the feedback that we got from others around us. And the good thing is that's something that we definitely can change. It's not set in stone, but it's one of those things you actively have to start to pay attention to what you're telling yourself in your brain, what the conversations you have with yourself, and then to start to say, it's actually really healthy for me to gravitate towards something that makes me feel good.

[06:44] Tara Jollie: I don't rest when I go outside. I still work. I'm on my feet. I do this and that, cleaning up in the yard.

[06:55] Dr. Tami: What would you like to do when you're outside?

[06:57] Tara Jollie: Well, I like to play with my dog.

[06:59] Dr. Tami: Okay. Would you consider that resting?

[07:02] Tara Jollie: Oh, no.

[07:03] Dr. Tami: Okay. Does that feel like work? Okay.

[07:06] Tara Jollie: No, it doesn't feel like work, but it's not resting in a chair. It's up.

[07:10] Dr. Tami: Okay. So I think that's another interesting thing to talk about with our listeners is defining what rest means. It's not always taking a nap or sitting and meditating or totally shutting down. To me, rest is taking time to do something mentally that's rejuvenating. Playing outside with your dog is something that helps you feel good. It's part of there you go. So that could be part of your resting plan where it's nurturing you. And we don't always need a nap to rejuvenate or feel rested. It's more giving ourselves permission to do the things that help us feel rested, relaxed, enjoyment and happy. And the other thing is, when you're called outside that sun, it gives you vitamin D. It helps regulate your melatonin. And the melatonin is your sleep hormone in your brain. And so when you have a lot of sunlight, that's where you can get that energy. And so it is really natural to be drawn outside to enjoy that and let your body absorb and get all these good vitamins and energy from the sun and the fresh air and just being out and letting your body be outside. That's where sometimes I think people have this competing factor of I should be doing something else. That's that cognitive, that voice in our head that does tend to punish us when we're trying to enjoy, rest or relax without doing some busy work.

[08:36] Tara Jollie: How can I improve my self discipline to get things that I need to get done?

[08:42] Dr. Tami: Well, this would be really specific to what you're bringing up and any of our other listeners who can relate. And I'm sure there are several. If you want to make sure to keep yourself on track and you don't want to let all of your duties fall to the wayside in the summer, it's a good idea to then think, well, maybe after the sun goes down, that's when I'll work on some laundry. And the priority list, if you have five things that you want to do in the house, but only one's a priority. Do the priority. Feed your dog and give yourself that permission of guilt free the rest of the day. I want to be outside. I did my priority. My dog is fed. That took me maybe two minutes in the laundry. I can do either tonight or tomorrow. That will be my priority. It's that back and forth that you're almost negotiating. We shouldn't have to or those people have really been trained to take care of themselves. They don't do this back and forth. So you're retraining yourself on how to set those good limits with yourself. Allow yourself to listen to what your body's telling you, to feed it with what it's asking for, without and you're saying, okay, if I do too much of that, I really feel like I could fall behind. So I want some kind of plan. Another thing that works really well is to kind of an if then. So if I get up early and I do the dishes, then I get to spend the rest of my day outside. So that is a very powerful way to keep ourselves motivated and also having us do the sticking to an activity that doesn't feel reinforcing or really exciting. So we do it first, then we do the thing that we want to do, and we get that reinforcement. So it's tricking your brain into saying, okay, get the dishes done, then I get the rest of the day outside. This is a great conversation. And when you're living in North Dakota, where we have about nine months of winter, that it's really important for us to learn how to set and enjoy that outdoor time in the summer and guilt free. Part of that is finding out how to give ourselves permission and retrain prioritize our own wellness and self care, of taking action to be imitating and accepting of where our body and our mind is calling us.

[11:04] Tara Jollie: Yes, it's been really interesting and helpful. I really didn't know why I was arguing with myself. I don't have anyone to answer to.

[11:13] Dr. Tami: And as adults, we set our own bar. So many people I work with, they set their bar so high. Some of that comes from the expectations. Like I said, we're trained some of it in our adult life. There's people that rely on us. So those consequent your dog. But that's when you start to prioritize, and that's where you learn the balance of how much of this is me pressuring myself in fear of my own self loathing and punishment that we can really do something about. We can definitely flip the script on that. But it does take practice, and it does take engaging in conversations like this. Because to me, it is self punishment. Because I hope as an adult, somebody else is not punishing you verbally or mentally for you not being able to do certain things exactly the way or in the timeline that somebody else expects. Yeah, for a lot of people, they're going through that. They're in relationships or they're surrounded by certain people who have certain expectations of them that can feel like pressure. And yet when we start to do it to ourselves, that's where we start to say, I have complete power over how I can start to talk to myself and nurture myself and flip the script in order to start to feel like I can have more control in managing the things that I want to do. That learning that can help me to not procrastinate, but to tackle things in certain times or even become familiar with why my procrastination is happening.

[12:42] Tara Jollie: Well, I bet a lot of people go through the same thing and can get some pointers from a conversation, kind of leave that guilt at the door of not getting enough done.

[12:54] Dr. Tami: Right. And procrastination, for many people, that is the biggest motivator. So some people procrastinate because then they're in a time crunch, they get an adrenaline rush, they function much better under pressure, so the procrastination in itself becomes the motivator, and it revs them up to get their job done. Actually, that's another podcast episode that I'll be talking about, that active role of procrastination for those individuals who it's so reinforcing because it's their motivator, it's their driving force, and so it's part of their process of how they complete tasks.

[13:33] Tara Jollie: Well, good. I look forward to hearing that one.

[13:36] Dr. Tami: Well, miigwetch, thank you for coming and listening. And do you have any final comments for listeners?

[13:42] Tara Jollie: Go get busy doing something.

[13:45] Dr. Tami: Go get busy resting. It's a beautiful day.

[13:48] Tara Jollie: Yes, it is. I got to go out in the sun right now.

[13:51] Dr. Tami: Remember that resting is visiting with people, watching your dog play, sitting outside.

[13:57] Tara Jollie: I got a bunch of cousins right up here that I need to go visit.

[14:01] Dr. Tami: There you go. So when you're done that was a nice rest I took.

[14:04] Tara Jollie: Yeah.

[14:05] Dr. Tami: Doesn't mean you took a nap or you sat and did nothing. It means you sat and engaged in something that was restful and peaceful and enjoyable and fed your soul.

[14:14] Tara Jollie: I'm going to go right now.

[14:16] Dr. Tami: Good. Well, thank you. Yes, miigwetch, thank you. And thank you to our listeners. PS. We all tend to procrastinate, and we all have different reasons why we can do that. When it's about rest and being called to something that can actually feed you and help you rejuvenate. We really want to look at trying trying to find that nice balance so that we're not avoiding or punishing ourselves when we want to engage in this type of rejuvenation and just want you guys to all start thinking about that. Check in again with us for our next episode. Thanks for listening.