“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” /Douglas Adams/
The 25th of February was my (semi ? ) official deadline for another post on my newly born blog. For this very post, to be precise. Before I took my first wobbly steps as a blogger, I’d been looking for some advice, inspiration, kick-in-the-butt things to get me started and keep me going. Some of the most reoccurring tips I’d seen were creating accountability and setting deadlines. I totally get it- tell people what you’re doing and when you’re intending to finish it, so when you don’t deliver, you look like a plonker. Or whatever… And deadlines will keep you on track. Maybe. Or maybe not. Well, it’s kind of not working for me as I’m writing now to ‘meet’ the deadline which whooshed past weeks ago.
But actually, it doesn’t really matter what I’m doing now- this whole idea of a ‘deadline’ let me have a closer look what’s happening to me when I even think about a ‘deadline’.
1. Understanding. I do understand what deadlines are for, especially at work, and I appreciate that they have their place. But then, step 2 comes along…
2. Deflation. An idea of having ‘have to’ do something by a specific date deflates me. Even when I was excited about something, deadline seems to be pulling a plug and I feel as if air was slowly escaping from me and that sooner or later I’ll end up on the floor, flat and lifeless. The excitement is gone. The anticipation is gone. The joy is gone. All is left is…
3. Anxiety. It’s where my ‘have tos’, ‘musts’, ‘ought tos’, ‘should tos’ are arriving uninvited, as on cue, as if they somehow heard that now is the time to party in Karina’s head! And they make an extra large space for my Inner Critic to have a ball. A Very Special Guest. As my uninvited guests are partying away in my head, feasting on my braincells and energy, I’m looking for an escape route. And then it is- the magic door which will lead me out of this mad party in my head – it even has a plaque on it which reads…
4. Procrastination. Oh, procrastination, we know each other very well. Too well, if you ask me. We’re bosom buddies, besties, BFFs or whatever other stupid description of a friend there is these days. We eat together (too much sometimes), we watch videos, photos, text, write emails, staring at the wall together…. Procrastination is a good friend- she wants to keep me happy and shield me from the anxiety. It works. Till it doesn’t. Because then…
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5. My Inner Critic decides to have a short breather from the party and decides to have a serious, face to face chat with me. So here I hear about ‘you can’t’, ‘you won’t’, ‘ you’re not…’ , ‘you are….. (insert any kind of negative adjective you can think of) and blah blah blah blah. So then I feel even….
6. More deflated. And sometimes I move the deadline (if possible), abandon the whole idea, pretend (yes, sometimes it’s true) that I’m no longer interested in whatever I was doing. And then I’m ready to curl on a bed in a foetal position and suck my thumb. Ok, not literally.
But I know that…
7. Feeling sorry for myself and making myself into a victim of my own Inner Critic isn’t healthy or something that I agree to do anymore. I chose not to. That’s it.
It was a very strange feeling I had yesterday that got me to go back to this post after all that time and to actually finish it: I hadn’t had internet for a couple of days or so and during these two days I noticed that now I felt like writing- exactly when I couldn’t. I got curious about this feeling and started observing what was going on within my body and mind. I noticed I missed writing. I noticed that I wanted to write something- whatever that would be- just wanted to write. And as today my internet is back , this familiar thought popped in ‘hey, now you have the internet, you don’t have to write today…’.
But today, right now I’m not listening- I’m choosing not to listen to that voice, so it may be 10 weeks and 1 day past my original deadline, but here I am, choosing to share this very post. No deadlines.
