Why Wait: The Psychology of Procrastination

As you find yourself beginning to read this are you doing so because you are putting off something else? The next task at work, a difficult conversation you have to have, or some housework even? Did you somehow end up reading this article on your way to something else entirely?

Whilst everyone may find themselves procrastinating from time to time, not everyone is a procrastinator. So why do we procrastinate in the first place? Well the short and simple answer is that when we undertake some tasks we can experience a negative emotional reaction. For example at work there are perhaps tasks that you do not enjoy or want to do, or if the laundry is piling up but the sun is shining for the first time in weeks. Thus we manage these negative emotional reactions, that we may not even be entirely conscious of, using an avoidant coping strategy…..procrastination. Essentially, you experience a small amount of anxiety about your upcoming task and in order to reduce that anxiety you go into an avoidance pattern. However, the fact that some of us indulge in procrastination even when it comes to enjoyable tasks that we think we would like to do, suggests that the psychology behind procrastination may be a little more complex than that.

The good news is of course that procrastination is a learned behaviour and not something we are born with. Meaning  that we can take steps to unlearn this way of coping with unpleasant emotions.

Procrastinators might try segmenting tasks into smaller pieces so they can work through a more manageable series of assignments. Furthermore, setting meaningful personal deadlines may also help to improve your ability to complete a task. Granted they are not as effective as imposed external deadlines, but they work better than no deadline at all. If you can also work with your procrastinating mindset then you may have at your disposal one of the most effective coping strategies yet. For example try to accept that any suffering or unpleasantness is in fact inevitable, thus putting off beginning the task seems like a less sensible solution. Moreover, if you can try to dig a little deeper and find some personal meaning or worth in the task then that will help you to overcome the initial hurdle of starting.  

Independent Dependence: On Being A Trailing Spouse

What are your immediate thoughts when I say I am an ex-pat? Perhaps adventure, courage and ambition are the words that come up in your own mind. What about if I tell you that I am an ex-pat wife, what do you think now? An easy life of coffee mornings, yoga and socialising are perhaps more the connotations. Ex-pat wives are commonly thought of as being privileged as they do not necessarily have to work for the financial stability of the family. Of course both of these are both stereotypes but the reality is that being an ex-pat and being an ex-pat wife are two very different roles and experiences.

When I moved to Stavanger five years ago I was the trailing spouse and my husband was the ex-pat. Whilst there are many expats who might recoil at being described as a trailing spouse, for me the term captures well this new state of being. I went from being a woman with a promising career and a sense of independence to a dependent within the space of a short plane journey. This was a huge transition of role for me having been anything but dependent in my previous life. At times, particularly at the beginning, I felt incredibly vulnerable, isolated and bored. I often felt lost, invisible even, and struggled to find, and be comfortable with, who I was in this new role. An important part of my identity was undoubtedly lost through the career that I had left behind and the social structure in which I previously functioned.

As a psychologist I began thinking about how I might find meaning in a life that I had not, and could not, have planed for. I often contemplated what happens to our identity when we move to a place where we have no previous history or experience? What happens to our identity and sense of self if we cannot make use of the skills we valued previously? There were times I would find myself caught in self-doubt and struggling with my own self-worth.

After the first year I knew that I was not one of the trailing spouses who was satisfied with coffee mornings and knew I needed to upgrade my status from dependent to independent. Fortunately I was not alone in this and many of the friends that I had surrounded myself with were struggling with the same issues and trying to become the new generation of ex-pat wives…the independent dependents! In 2015 a study by Expat Insider reported that 84 percent of trailing spouses are women, 50 percent hold postgraduate degrees, and yet only 24 percent were currently employed in their host country. Whilst the reasons for such a significant group of highly educated women not to be in employment vary hugely from person to person and country to country, from my own personal and professional experience, neither trailing spouses, nor their career plans, are typically considered at the beginning of the expat journey.

For some trailing spouses however, moving abroad brings the opportunity for reinvention, either into a new career or down a new educational path. For me this was exactly the case and five years on I find myself not only working as a psychologist but also running my own business in a foreign country. A place I could never have imagined myself at the beginning of my clinical training. So whilst I wouldn’t necessarily term myself as entirely independent, nor would I want to, I have at least dropped the “trailing”.

Why Absence Can Make More Than The Heart Grow Fonder

Like many of you I tend to binge on my favorite shows, consuming two or more episodes - sometimes entire seasons - at a time. But after a little research I’m beginning to realise that by living this way and making these choices I am cheating myself out of happiness.

New research in the field of positive psychology demonstrates that by indulging in life’s little pleasures in smaller doses, or even giving them up for short periods of time, can significantly increase our enjoyment of them.  

Perhaps not surprisingly we tend to get used to sources of happiness quite quickly and therefore take it for granted. The result being a loss of gratitude and difficulty savoring what we once were overjoyed to experience. Whilst this may seem obvious, we are generally quite unaware of this happening within our own lives. We mistakenly come to believe that the more of something we have in our life the more happiness we will experience. What the research in this area points to however is the happiness paradox, in which happiness is connected not to abundance but to our ability to recognise and appreciate what we have.

For some people the month of Lent let’s them reflect on the ideas of abundance and moderation. At a time when science and religion struggle to find a common ground, it is interesting and encouraging to see both ideologies validating the same basic, and perhaps counterintuitive, message….sometimes the key to happiness is less and not more.