Breaking the cycle of procrastination, avoidance and perfectionism

As a coach, I frequently receive questions from empaths, intuitives and highly sensitive people from all over the world, looking for further guidance. I take the submissions, make any personal references anonymous and provide responses to share with my subscribers and here on Medium.

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I generally enjoy my introverted life, but sometimes I get stuck in thinking and exhaust myself. Doubting myself and rethinking, rewriting, revisiting, etc. until procrastination or paralysis creeps in. Sometimes I worry my introversion is a defense to counter-balance my confusion, exhaustion and apathy.

Bevin’s Response:
Two of the four common characteristics of a highly sensitive person come into play when you find yourself in a cycle of overthinking, procrastination and avoidance.

First is depth of processing, or how your brain is naturally wired to process stimuli and information more deeply. Instead of just looking at something as black or white, this or that, an HSP brain tackles it from 17 different angles, every possible perspective, thinks about it right now, revisits it two hours from now and even four months later. This is incredible if you really need a creative, out of the box solution.

However, all of this processing can become overwhelming, in essence your brain seems to not shut off. It depends, but overthinking usually kicks in when you also have an emotional connection to the topic. You experience fear, doubt, uncertainty. Your feelings and thoughts feed each other, then you hesitate (procrastination) and have no idea how to move forward (paralysis).

I’m going to make a radical suggestion — procrastination is not always bad. It is simply a message, that you do not have enough information to decide, create or take charge of this project. Or, it is the wrong timing, the wrong action, the wrong person. Or perhaps you have a much more pressing need that is calling for your attention at that time. I’m not excusing inaction. As a coach I very much believe in stepping out there and taking care of business. However, most HSPs and empaths are highly intuitive. When something does not feel right, when we don’t have all of the information, we receive an internal message to wait.

Society tells us, push through and do it anyway and of course there are times when that’s true — like, stop binging on YouTube videos and pay your rent/mortgage so you have a place to live. Alright. Got it. When the consequences are immediate, you may need to give yourself an inner pep talk. 1, 2, 3 begin.

However, for crucial decisions in your life, it is perfectly fine to give yourself time to mull it over. Mulling is different than obsessing. Obsessing is your mind’s and ego’s desperate search for a solution. It will do anything it can to come to some conclusion, any conclusion so you don’t have to feel uncertainty. Not knowing feels unsafe, but it’s when you are in that liminal state, a multitude of possibilities are open to you.

Mulling is inviting your logical mind to take a break and coaxing your intuitive mind to come forward. Allowing the topic to just simmer in the background. Go about your life, do other things and trust that when all information is available, when everything comes into alignment, you will receive that aha! moment.

One quick note about avoidance and procrastination. Because HSPs notice every subtlety, we see what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’. About ourselves, our performance, our writing, our way of being, everything. Perfectionism breeds procrastination. One of the things to practice is how to allow something to be ‘good enough.’

How to allow your work to be good enough, allow you to be good enough. Practicing letting go of re-reading the same text over and over and over, wordsmithing just to be sure you didn’t miss something. It’s a fine line between craftsmanship and obsession. Observe your behavior to determine what side of that line you are standing on.

Give yourself a break, perhaps what you are calling procrastination is not the right move, at the right time, in the right place. Wait and see what happens.

To submit a question, email me at tunedin@perceptivesouls.com.
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