3 Lessons I've Learned While Procrastinating Writing on Here

"Locking in" isn't working out.

You’re not lazy. You’re not a loser. And you don’t just need to “lock in”. It’s deeper than that.

It’s been a while.

Last time I wrote on here I was trying to write a follow up series of posts reflecting on the chapters of my book, The God Who Riots, and that didn’t work out like I’d planned. I was hoping the structure would motivate me to write more on here but I think it just did the opposite. I kept wanting to write about everything else, so I just stopped writing. And besides that, most of my writing energy has gone to my second book that I’ve been writing for a little over a year now. This book has brought up all kinds of emotions that I didn’t expect, so I’ve had to process a lot.

The last year has been overwhelming. But as I’ve searched for the source of that feeling of overwhelm I’ve learned a lot. My procrastination is just a response to my feeling overwhelmed. So let me tell you some things I’ve learned about my own procrastination. This is really a message to myself but I’m posting it here for you all because I imagine that some of you may resonate with some of these points too.

1. You’re not under-motivated; you’re over-motivated.

For way too long I thought my lack of productivity was based on a lack of motivation. I googled “how to find motivation” and consumed all kinds of content from entrepreneur bros to self-help gurus to neurologists to other writers giving advice about how to push yourself to take life more seriously and “get shit done.” And I tried. And I just became even more distracted, exhausted, and uninspired.

It took me a while to realize that one of the burdens that held me back from getting things done was actually my guilt about being unable to get things done. The more I tried to motivate myself the worse I felt because I was just stacking pressure on pressure, leaving me unable to move underneath it all.

I don’t need any more motivation. I need grace. I need to lower the stakes, not raise them.

The longer I go without creating the harder it is to start again because I get too in my head about it. So at this point I’m pretty sure the thing that will help me get going is to just start somewhere, and let it flow from there.

You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to show up. So here we are. Meta, I know.

2. You’re just avoiding your emotions.

Sometimes there will be a day where I sit there and try to make myself write all day, only to give in to scrolling through garbage on the internet until sundown, without a word written. But then there’s days where I take a break from writing, and guess what? I lose all desire to scroll.

Both of those days I get nothing done.

So what was I scrolling for?

Because I had something to avoid.

And avoidance comes from fear. So what am I afraid of? A lot of things. I’m afraid of writing badly. I’m afraid of being misunderstood. I’m afraid of criticism. I’m afraid of people thinking I’m inauthentic. I’m afraid of everyone hating me. Why? Trauma, I’m sure. That’s for another conversation. But I trained myself to run away whenever those fears peek out.

That’s usually what procrastination is. It’s not laziness. It’s a coping mechanism of avoiding things when you feel overwhelmed. The task itself isn’t what’s overwhelming you. It’s the emotions you’ve attached to it. It’s difficult to process all the emotions that emerge when you try to do that one task, so you do something easier instead. You wait until you feel like you’re in the right headspace to do that task but that doesn’t happen on its own. You gotta process your emotions. You can’t stuff them down. You gotta go through them, explore, and make it out the other side.

My friend Levi talked about realizing his writer’s block is actually a vulnerability block, and I resonate with that so much. Doing this work where I’m constantly putting my thoughts out there is very vulnerable. And this book I’m working on is extremely vulnerable (we’ll talk about it more another time). And I’m still learning how to be vulnerable.

3. Your mind hasn’t stopped working; your methods have.

My mental health has gone up and down quite a lot over the last couple years. I’ve wondered if I even still have it in me to do this work. There’s been days where it felt like whatever gifts I may have had before just abandoned me. But then other days disprove that, and on those days I feel more creative than ever. So I know I’m not done. I just need to switch things up a bit.

For a long time I tried so hard to “work on myself”, “heal myself”, and “fix myself” because I was trying to feel the way I remember I used to feel. I was trying to feel good the way I used to feel good. But there’s no going backwards. Everything just changes, period. I’ve changed, but of course I have. So have you. Everything is always changing. And some tools and methods stop working after a while. And you just need to approach it from a different angle.

I once heard someone say they don’t believe writer’s block is real, and “if you think you have writer’s block, then show me your bad writing. And if you can’t show me your bad writing then that’s your real problem.” Again, there’s fear there. When someone says “I can’t write” they usually mean they can’t write good enough to meet their standards. We all can write badly.

So for this post, I wrote those three headings like a month or two ago, then got scared and avoided writing this, and tonight I decided to shut up the editor in my head that’s been screaming at me during the writing of this whole thing and just write this whole thing out. Then I went back and cleaned it up a little. Now I’m going wrap this up and schedule it to send out in the morning.

My hope is to come back and keep writing on here very soon, but of course, I’m practicing what I preach and I’m not putting too much pressure on myself these days. I’m also probably going to change the name of this newsletter soon because I came up with one I like better a while back, so I have more to come! And I can’t wait to talk to yall more about this book I’m working on. It’s going to be very special.

Happy New Year!

---

Consider upgrading your subscription to financially support this project. For $5 a month (or $50 a year) you’ll get access to everything, including additional essays for paying subscribers, along with the complete archives.

Thank you for reading today’s newsletter! Share it with somebody!