The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play by Neil A. Fiore

Author:Neil A. Fiore
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Industrial & Organizational Psychology, Developmental, Motivational & Inspirational, Psychology, Psychological aspects, Marketing - General, Time Management, Personality, Play, Finance, Business, Careers guidance, Popular Psychology, Procrastination, Child, Work, Economics, Self-Help, Advice on careers & achieving success, Business & Economics, General, Personal Guidance, Marketing
ISBN: 9781585425525
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2007-04-10T01:04:32+00:00

TOOL #2: THE WORK OF WORRYING

He said, “For this reason I tell you, do not worry about what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear; for life is more than nourishment and the body more than clothes. . . . Who of you can add one moment to his life’s course by worrying? So, if you cannot bring about that little, why be anxious about the rest?”

—LUKE 12:22-26

Worrying can warn you of danger and evoke action to prepare for that danger. Respect your ability to worry as a means to alert you to potential danger. But the rapid flow of frightening thoughts characteristic of most counterproductive worrying simply creates more threats—you think, “It would be awful if that happened. I couldn’t stand it. I have to do well or else.” Stopping there, with simply the frightening aspect of worrying, is like screaming “Danger!” without knowing what to do or where to run. In effect, your scream has caused a lot of disturbance in people but has not told them what they can do to escape the danger. By alerting yourself to a potential danger without establishing a plan for how you will cope, you have done only half of the job of worrying. You’ve left out the positive “work of worrying”—developing an action plan.

Once a threat is raised it must be dealt with to avoid worry and anxiety—that trapped energy that can’t be used productively now. Until you reach a solution or cancel the threat, worrying can operate like a recurrent nightmare that repeats a puzzle or problem. Plans, action, and solutions are required to direct the energy and complete the work of worrying.

Procrastination is an ineffective way to cope with worrying because it stalls action and simply piles up more worries. The worry that accompanies procrastination is usually learned very early in life. Parents, bosses, and teachers often use threats and images of disaster to motivate us to achieve goals they have chosen. This belief that vinegar can motivate better than honey is so prevalent among those in charge of our schools, factories, and offices that most of us suffer from some form of fear of failure and worry about being unacceptable because of our imperfection.

Familiar examples are the boss who stingily withholds compliments for the work completed while freely criticizing what is unfinished and imperfect, saying, “You’ll have to do a lot better than this. . . . There’s a lot more to do and I need this as soon as possible.” Or the parent or teacher who tries to motivate by saying, “So what if you got three A’s, why did you only get a B in math?”

This terrible training—that your work is never good enough—leads to the belief that you are never good enough to satisfy a parent or a boss. Feeling ineffectual regardless of how hard you try is very depressing and damaging to your sense of worth. Without an established sense of worth that bounces back from criticism in the

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