What did I get myself into, AGAIN?
You may be thinking this too if you joined the NaNoWriMo challenge this month or any other challenge, commitment, program or whatever. For me, it’s Day 3 of this 30 Day challenge and I am already wondering if I have it in me to cross the finish line.
This isn’t a new phenomena for me. A typical scenario plays out like this…
See shiny object >>> Chase shiny object >>> Get excited for a day or 2 or 3 >>> Get discouraged, disinterested or otherwise less than enthused about committing to this latest “thing”.
I have done this with the Whole 30 – mine lasted a Whole 6 days.
I have done this with writing in journals. At last count, I have 8-10 started journals, some with as many as 30 days worth of entries, but most with only a page or two.
I have done this with weight-training, running, walking, reading and eating. You name it, I’ve started it and not completed it.
WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF???
I’ve read countless books, articles, blogs and listened to podcasts, friends and family and still have not been able to break through and finish what I start. So what am I missing?
Your thoughts please?
While I am waiting for you to weigh in on this, I did a little research and here’s what I turned up.
I STARTED WITH WHY. Why am I not finishing things?
Joseph Ferrari is a professor of psychology at DePaul University. He wrote the book Still Procrastinating: The No Regrets Guide to Getting It Done. and poses three potential reasons for why…
1. Fear of failing to impress.
“People don’t want to have their ability judged, they’d rather have their effort judged,” says Ferrari. Prolonging the completion of a task or project could be a way of avoiding the fear of having their work harshly evaluated. Not sure this applies to me.
2. Fear of setting the bar too high.
Sometimes success that makes people avoid completing a task or project. According to Ferrari, if you “do too good of a job the first time around, you might set yourself up with impossible standards for the future.” Not sure this applies to me.
3. Not wanting to put an end to the fun.
If you’re having a good time working on a project or task, finishing can be disappointing. This definitely does not apply to me.
So, back to my question – Why don’t I finish things?
According to Ferrari, starting a new project is like falling in love. It’s exciting, emotionally arousing, and infused with the natural motivator of novelty. This can even lead us to become obsessive about this new activity. We only see the positive parts of this activity, event, challenge, project or whatever is it we are embarking on.
We turn a blind eye to potential obstacles or downsides that may accompany this new love.
After some time goes by, the activity turns into harder work than we expected – this is me to a tee! Maybe it takes longer to complete than we’d hoped, or there’s some not so fun or exciting tasks involved. At this point, we realize maybe we aren’t so in love with this new “thing”.
Stuck at this point, we grind to a halt. We usually don’t recognize that we’ve essentially quit trying. We just put off the “getting back to it” until such time as we imagine it will be effortless again.
This shelving of the project could be fueled by perfectionism or a host of other reasons. No matter, the fact is that almost inevitably, we simply stop moving forward. Laziness may be one small piece of the problem, but few of us are lazy when it comes to doing what we love, what’s easy, and what’s intrinsically rewarding.
So…I need to find things that I love, are easy and intrinsically rewarding. That may not be as easy as it sounds 🙂
*If you’re wondering what NaNoWriMo is… it stands for National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is an annual event that began in 1999 as a challenge to writers to write a novel of 50,000 words in one month! Whew, crazy right? Not everyone uses this challenge to write a novel. Take me for example, I signed up for NaNoWriMo and challenged myself to write one blog post every day for a month and that is what you are seeing in these NaNoWriMo posts!!!