dogwater to diamonds

Some of you might empathize with the certainty I had in childhood of being gifted: that I would do extraordinary things in my adult life. These thoughts looked something like I'm going to go to Stanford and become a math super genius and invent more math and get paid billions of dollars for it. 

Unfortunately, at 23 I'm not a math super genius who's inventing more math and getting paid billions of dollars (working on it!). Instead, I’m a chronic procrastinator.

All good.

The fact that you're reading this post proves it’s not as bad as it used to be. I'm improving. Human beings like the feeling of improving, even if it’s only a little bit.

Modern research on procrastination says that it's less about being lazy and more about 'emotional issues'. Something clicked when I read about this. My whole life I had this vague notion that I was just chronically lazy. It was really hard for me to do anything about it. What I realize now is that it felt hard for me to get over this ‘chronic laziness’ because I wasn’t lazy. I was trying to solve a problem that didn’t exist!

Like the research suggests, it's an emotional problem. My tendency to procrastinate comes from the unrealistically high expectations I have of myself that date back to when I was a kid thinking I was god’s gift to academia. Procrastinating is my way of coping with the fact that I’m not god’s gift to academia. If I never fully apply myself, I’ll never have any personal accountability for my output because I can always fall back to the idea that ‘it’s not my best work’. I can live in the fantasy that if I fully applied myself nobody would stand a chance.

I've been hiding behind the emotional shield of not applying myself for all these years because my ego can’t take the consequences of applying myself and outputting anything less than perfect.

If I don’t apply myself, any outcome is ‘emotionally chill’ because it isn’t representative of my ‘actual capability’.

This is a problem that if left unchecked would lead to a lifetime of procrastination and never living up to my full potential. You hate to see that.

Here's the beauty of introspection: 

I've brought this roadblock to light. I understand why I naturally procrastinate. When you shine a light on these deep-rooted emotional roadblocks, the path to overcome them is clear. 

To become more prolific, I have to accept that not all my work will be great. In fact, chances are not much of it will be (this is the case for everyone). But here's the cool part: I know if I’m consistent with my endeavors, day after day, even when I'm not feeling like it, even when I know what I'm outputting is dogwater, eventually I'll do something great. And whatever great thing that is wouldn't have been possible without all the work that came before it.

Quality output doesn't matter, it's just output that matters (assuming you’re trying your best). 

You can’t go from 0 to 100. Nobody can, not even the people who are inventing more math and getting paid billions of dollars for it. Even they have to go from 0 to 1, to 2, to 3…