I should probably apologise for the delay between posts. It’s been hot, I’ve been busy, and I’ve been putting it off.

I put a lot of things off.

In all aspects of my life, I am constantly kicking the can down the road to be picked up by future me.

I consider procrastination to be my single biggest flaw. I’m always thinking about what I could be doing instead, what I’d like to be doing, and what I’ve failed to do.

I’ve been writing for over twenty years, and still haven’t started writing a book. I’ve wanted to make music my whole adult life, and only picked up a bass guitar for the first time a couple of years ago. I want to travel, yet rarely get further than the sofa. I want to be fit and healthy, but I eat shit instead of putting effort into my diet. I want to find my perfect woman, and yet have done literally nothing in the year I’ve been single to meet her.

It’s not just the big ambitions, either. It’s the small things. I first wanted to write this post three weeks ago, but didn’t. And it’s not like I spurted out some gibberish and have been feverishly tinkering with it. I’ve barely thought about it, other than to boot it firmly into tomorrow’s problems. Even now, by writing it, I’m procrastinating – I should be working on a project I’m overdue on, another victim of my casual attitude to life.

It’s a snowball turning into an avalanche.

I despise feeling like this. Every time I procrastinate, it’s like being grabbed from behind with two gigantic hands. The pressure of the palms around my back, the fingers tightening around my ribcage, the thumbs pressing down on my neck and digging into the back of my head.

I am being suffocated by the weight of my own inaction, contorted by stress, asphyxiated by anxiety.

When something is weighing over you, everything you do in the meantime is tainted. Every distraction is hollow, anything you engage in is meaningless. Physically, you are doing nothing. Mentally, you go into overdrive. You question your ability, your talent, all the bullshit you tell yourself about the person you are.

I begin to knock myself. I tell myself that I’m no good, that my self-professed talent is just a lie, that the worthlessness I feel in myself is the only truth I know. My inaction serves to confirm that – if I’m not an imposter bullshitting myself about being a better person, then surely I’d be on top of things?

As the list of stuff that isn’t getting done goes up, my self-belief continues to spiral. The life I lead is a reflection of the person I truly am, and through a lack of achievement, I see that my life isn’t worth shit.

By this time, I’ve beaten myself black and blue. I’m as exhausted as I would be if I’d done a whole day’s work, and I haven’t even lifted a finger. All the good intentions and self-realisations and epiphanies about who I am – they don’t add up to anything. They are just words. I’m talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

Procrastination is a major catalyst for anxiety and, frustratingly, is also a symptom of both it and depression. In failing to get a handle on it, the stress goes through the roof, and anxiety gorges itself on the cortisol. I’d argue that procrastination should be recognised as a mental health condition in its own right, but I can’t be arsed.

To compound the issue, it’s an ingrained approach to how I deal with a problem. When I was growing up, I relied heavily on my intellect to get by. I still do. If you learn from an early age that you can coast to get by, chances are you’ll repeat the behaviour often and to great effect. The result is that concepts like hard work, applying myself, and discipline are somewhat alien to me.

From my point of view, this would be absolutely fine if I could just turn it on whenever I needed to kick it up a gear. I find that doing nothing is a great way to spend your time – in fact, down time is essential to achieving some sort of balance in life. But when I’m faced with a problem that needs consistent, sustained effort, I crumble.

I’ve read a ton on how to tackle procrastination. I’ve made to-do lists. I downloaded The Rock’s alarm clock so I can get called a jabroni in the morning. I’m always making plans for how to overcome procrastination. How this time it’ll be different. How I’ll finally crack it. That I’ll get going and become that productive, useful person I’ve always wanted to be.

But whenever the moment comes, I fall. I set my alarm clock early to get those exercises in, and just use the extra time to stay in bed. I clear the day to start writing my book, and spend the day abusing assclowns on Facebook. I put together my diet, buy all the groceries, and dial in a kebab when I get hungry.

However, I can see now where I have been going wrong. Whenever I make these plans, I leave it for the ever resourceful future-Gregg to sort out. He’ll have the energy. He’ll have the tenacity. He’ll feel how I feel now, and know we can no longer feel like that.

In short, I’m expecting someone who isn’t me.

When the time comes to face a problem, it’ll always be me who gets there. I can’t expect me to be someone who rises to the occasion overnight. To become that person requires effort, it requires discipline, it requires sustained focus. It requires all the things I lack.

Worse, I’m arriving at these situations with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I’ve beaten myself into a hole. I’m piling on all the pressure I can – I have to do it this time, I will be that different person.

Problem with talking to myself about it is that it’s just talk. It’s not walking the walk.

I realised this was a problem well before anxiety came along and took my life for a joyride, but it’s through understanding anxiety that I’ve begun to realise just how powerful an effect procrastination has on my life. Given the choice, I always take the easy route. I’m not challenging myself. I’m not being true to myself.

When I pull back the layers, I see that same familiar beast of worthlessness staring back at me. It’s telling me that I won’t succeed, so what’s the point? It’s telling me that I’ll fail, so just avoid the problem until it goes away. In listening to it, I confirm the worthlessness. In believing that I can’t, I’m ironically setting myself up to fail.

If you don’t try, you’ve already failed.

A few months back, along with giving anxiety the finger, I decided to say fuck you to procrastination.

The approach has been similar to anxiety – you cannot expect to be a different person instantaneously. Instead, you have to challenge your behaviour frequently, consistently, and patiently. You have to build up a body of evidence that says you are a person who can get a handle on things. You have to walk the walk.

In this, I came up with a simple yet effective approach. Each time I’m in the situation where I can either drift or jump on something, I tell myself “just act”.

Whenever I’m dithering on whether to go to the gym or not, just act. When I’m sat in front of a blank page watching the cursor blink back at me, just act. When I’m lying in bed unable to grasp a handle on things, just act.

I’m taking the time I’ve been spending sitting around criticising myself, and kicking that into the future instead of the experience directly in front of me. I see the self-doubt, the self-criticism, the apathy all lining up to take shots, so I get moving before they get the chance.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The point here isn’t to beat myself up when I fail, but to celebrate when I succeed. I’m retraining myself, and that takes time. It takes patience. It takes a willingness to experiment, and to allow myself the opportunity to fail. It takes being challenged by every fucking thing that comes along looking to steal myself away from what I want to achieve, and saying “get fucked, I’m doing shit here”.

Leonardo Da Vinci – one of the greatest polymaths to have ever walked the face of the planet – once said “I have wasted my hours”. Not years, not days, but hours. At the time, I thought this incredible – how can a man who’s achieved so much believe he has wasted his hours? And should I be thinking in those terms?

I thought it was inspirational – a way to live my life by. Now I realise my folly. I’m judging myself on those terms. I’m spending my hours criticising myself and standing in my own way. What I should do is just act, and let the chips land where they may.

I don’t know if I’ll ever write that book, but I certainly won’t if I don’t put pen to paper. The probability is that I won’t be making the Olympics this year, but it’s certainly not going to happen when the only weight I’m carrying is my inaction. There’s a good chance I’ll never meet the woman of my dreams, but I’m damned sure it won’t happen while I’m curled up in a ball of self-doubt avoiding the world.

And it’s making the difference. This blog – despite its brief hiatus – is the most writing I’ve done for myself in years. I’ve got a copy of Ableton, and working on my first real attempts at making music. I’m hitting the gym three times a week, and feel stronger than ever. I tore into that project this week like a goddamn hurricane, and I’m just getting warmed up.

It’s a matter of perspective. It’s a matter of focus. It’s a matter of knowing what you want, and knowing that not working towards it will leave you feeling hollow, empty, and stressed.

Be brave. Take chances. Just act.

Sure, there’s other stuff I want to do, things I need to achieve, a life I want to lead just waiting for me to get my hands on it. But I shouldn’t expect or want it all to be done right now. After all, you’ve got to have something to do, right?

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Thanks for reading. As always, likes help me see my work is appreciated, will do my best to respond to any comments, and encourage shares in case my battle with anxiety can help others.

I’ll get onto those coping strategies next week. Or maybe the week after 😉