I’m a little foggy today from the bug that I’m fighting. So I went to Promptosaur and got a prompt to help kickstart my foggy brain.

You can see in the above screenshot that my prompt was to confess to something.…

So here goes…

I confess to being a horrible and hopeless procrastinator! It’s a personality flaw that gets worse with every passing year.

Some things do not improve with age.

The reason I bring this up is that we are coming to the end of the Nanopoblano blogging challenge month. I’m a little worried about not having that motivational tool to kick me in the butt.

I looked back and last year I posted like five times. That’s really a bit pathetic.

But even as I dictate this… (I dictate everything because my coordination is too crappy to type)… I’m realizing that my lack of attention to this blog is probably 50% procrastination and 50% imposter syndrome issues.

I’m really not anxiety prone. I don’t worry or fret every time I post. But… When I feel less sure of myself, my tendency is to avoid. It’s not even a conscious decision. It’s more like a vague undercurrent. So my lack of confidence as a writer contributes to my procrastination.

I actually think that this blog prompt is becoming a bit therapeutic! I’m realizing that this lack of confidence is almost always coupled with my horrible procrastination.

I do it every year with my taxes. I get worried about whether or not I’m going to gather everything up thoroughly and appropriately. So I put it off and off and off. And then, when I finally do it, it all works out and I wonder why I made myself miserable for 2 1/2 months.

I did the same thing in college. My sophomore year English professor was a wonderful guy. I just loved him. He told us on the first day of class that we would have a 20 page research paper due at the end of the semester. He said that no late papers would be tolerated. He outlined the steps that we should take and he encouraged us to get busy very, very early. I really liked the guy and I wanted to do well. But, I was also worried about my ability to do well. So I put it off and off and off.

It was even on a topic that I was very interested in. At that time in my life, I wanted to work in the prison system. I believed in rehabilitation. And I believed that our prison system needed to change drastically so that it could support the idea of rehabilitation rather than just punishment. Without a significant cultural shift towards rehabilitation within the prison system, recidivism rates skyrocket. And, by the way, 30 years later, this is still true!

You would have thought that this whole experience would’ve been completely enjoyable. The chance to research and learn about something of my choosing… who wouldn’t love that?

But… My fear of disappointing one of my favorite professors attached itself to my procrastination defense mechanism, and I was basically hogtied. I got the books from the library and they collected dust on my desk!

Then, at the end of the semester, I wrote that paper in about three days… Including doing the research.

I got almost no sleep. I lived on caffeine and M&Ms. I would allow myself short cat naps and then I would get up and be right back at it.

This particular story does have a happy ending. I handed the paper in on time and received an A-. But seriously… The things we do to ourselves without even realizing it… And I’m still doing it.

I guess this is what blogs are for in the first place. It’s about connecting with other people, and realizing that we are more similar than we are different. So I’ll try to worry less about my writing… And will instead try to continue to focus on sharing thoughts and feelings and experiences that will hopefully continue to connect us…

How about you? Do you have any long-standing habits that no longer serve you? Things that you might want to focus on releasing as we move toward the new year? Feel free to start a conversation below. I would love that!

I’m glad you’re here.💜

****This post is part of the 2022 Nanopoblano November writing challenge. We commit to writing a blog post every day if it all possible and to supporting each other in our writing endeavors. All of my cheer pepper friends would appreciate your support. You can find all of their blogs HERE: