by Brianna Cheney, M.A.
Over the past couple of months, I struggled with serious procrastination while attempting to write part of my dissertation. I noticed myself choosing to do just about anything, from cleaning –which I typically loathe- to scheduling random, unneeded medical check-ups in order to avoid writing. On most occasions when I had free time to allocate toward my dissertation, I told myself that I did not have the mental energy to do so. And on occasions when I was able to motivate myself to start writing, I found myself deleting and re-writing nearly every sentence until giving up. The decision to avoid working on my dissertation was followed immediately by relief, but subsequently by increased anxiety and agitation with myself for not making the most of my free time.
Finally, I took a closer look at what was thwarting my productivity and realized it was not a lack of mental energy or capability to write, but my anxiety-producing, irrational thoughts! After applying REBT to my procrastination problem, I realized that my discomfort tolerance and perfectionism beliefs were the culprits. Each time I decided that I did not have the mental energy to start writing, I was telling myself “I am physically incapable of working on my dissertation right now.” And in each moment when I was compulsively re-writing sentences, I was thinking, “This is a doctoral dissertation so it should be really, really good – if not perfect.” Both of these thoughts increased my anxiety and, in order to temporarily reduce my anxiety, I was choosing to avoid writing altogether!
Once I was aware of these thoughts and their emotional and behavioral consequences (anxiety and procrastination), I was able to see that the thoughts were both unhelpful and inaccurate. To challenge my discomfort intolerance beliefs, I now remind myself that “Yes, writing can be difficult, but I have written dozens of papers and I can write one more!” To challenge my perfectionism beliefs, I remind myself that “I would prefer to write flawlessly, but I do not have to do so in order to complete my dissertation. The worst that can happen is that I will receive critical feedback from my supervisor — which I can live with!”
I continue to struggle with urges to avoid working on my dissertation, but I can proudly say that my new beliefs helped me to complete a first draft of my dissertation proposal and I even lived through receiving (lots of) revisions from my supervisor!
