The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I mean, you’re showing up to your minimum wage job regularly, so you obviously have the capacity to keep up with obligations. Perhaps it’s just a habit. In which case, maybe your solution is pushing yourself hard for a few months to build the habits you need for success!
And this is probably 95% bullshit psychobabble, ignore me if this doesn’t apply to you, but as someone who struggled with procrastination I want to share my take.
Specifically, the fact that you struggle so much with school makes me think there’s something beyond just attention deficits that’s causing you to self-sabotage. My experience is that procrastination and self-sabotage comes from perfectionism and self doubt: in college I had no trouble completing easy assignments on time, but had a lot of trouble motivating myself to work on longform projects like essays, as I felt like I had to do them perfectly. I believe many problems with “self-discipline” actually boil down to feelings of insecurity and avoidance.
You’re obviously very concerned with not failing. Do you think maybe this contributed to your procrastination and avoidance? Were you so afraid that if you tried and failed, it would be a blow to your self-concept, and so you stopped yourself from trying and guaranteed a failure that you could say wasn’t because you were too dumb? Like, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt?”
From your post, you’re analytical and thoughtful — most people in your situation aren’t able to sit down and analyze it as you have, they end up kicked out on the street without realizing what’s going on. And because you’re here, it’s pretty safe to assume that you’re at least above average in intelligence. Are you afraid of disproving that? Are you concerned that doing your all and failing at your 4 year college would make you feel small and pathetic? Maybe you struggle less in your minimum wage job because you consider it below you, easy, and therefore unthreatening? You can imagine yourself being some kind of starving artist, an undervalued renegade, maybe?
Have either of your therapists talked about short-term vs long-term benefits before? Have you looked into what blocks you from doing things, what benefits procrastination provides you in the moment, like emotional relief, even if it destroys your long term goals? Or do you not even get to the point where you know you have an assignment due Sunday night and it’s Sunday at 3pm and you decide not to try?
What’s your associate’s in? What kind of program were you working on at the 4 year college?
More options
Context Copy link