I find it very interesting reading the self-help blogs out there, especially since so many of them also focus on productivity hacks - getting things done more effectively. I became something of a specialist in that field myself mostly because I was so bad at getting anything done.

As a young boy at about the age of eight I got given the label, “Quitter,” after one small incident, which annoyingly stuck in my mind and those of my family for many years. At about the age of seven, I joined my local cub scout troop and I applied myself with gusto to passing proficiency tests and getting the levels of bronze, silver and gold arrows. I also become a seconder (second in charge of a group of six) and then a sixer (in charge of a group of six). I had so many proficiency badges that I ran out of room on the sleeve of my jersey to sew anymore on. I would say that in cub scouting terms I had a shining and excellent record and that I could consider myself 95% successful. However, on one occasion, on a Saturday morning, I was supposed to attend an organized session to get yet another proficiency badge, this time for the ‘Home Help’ badge. I didn’t have a strong interest in this badge and on TV that morning was something that I dearly wanted to watch and so I chose not to go and get the badge. My mother and my brother berated me to go but I chose not to go. That one occurrence blighted me in the eyes of my mother and brother from then on. I became in their eyes a “Quitter” and of course, because they believed it and looked for repetitions of it, conveniently filtering out occurrences that could prove them wrong, then over time it became a self-fulfilling label.

As a result of this small thing a turning point occurred in my life and I learned not to value the things that I could do nor to feel pleasure from them. I came to the conclusion that I had to be perfect or else I was nothing. Now, how was that for setting up impossible standards that would drain all the joy out of life? I guess that members of my family meant well but they misguidedly didn’t know that such ridiculous standards and beliefs would blight my development for years to come.

As a youngster I often tried new things and due to my youth, lack of maturity, lack of good examples, lack of education in what it takes to make good decisions and to stick with something, I soon quit (like most other children). Each time that I quit I got the reinforcement of being a quitter and I felt ashamed and often worthless. Fortunately I did not give up my curiosity nor my willingness to take risks. Instead I became incredibly secretive. I told no one of my intentions or of my interest and pursuit of new things. I became very selective of what I would commit to and told no one about it until I had established a commitment and some worthy initial results. The scorn and contempt of my brother eventually became a cause for me to pursue things with vigour and not to quit but that in itself caused lots of problems later on (see When It’s Okay to Quit for how I finally derived more sensible conclusions to dealing with difficulties).

Endless Frustration

On the one hand I had impetuses from my family and from myself to do well and to excel and yet on the other hand I was labeled a quitter. Logically it became almost impossible to reconcile those two things and become deeply perplexed in trying to do so. I ended up lazy but highly ambitious and an arch fantasist to boot. These conflicts caused me massive internal struggle and conflict. I had enough intelligence and character to develop good abilities in many things but I was forever overreaching myself. I ended up wasting decades beset with procrastination and indulging in all manner of distractions to avoid facing up to the truth that I was nowhere near the person I imagined myself to be and that I really didn’t have the ability to do the things that I wanted to do.

I kept on trying because I didn’t like where I found myself and I had a strong conviction based upon simple logic that I could excel and make a wonderfully contented and satisfied life for myself if only I could put myself into order. I would work in jobs until I had enough money to take a break and go off and pursue my other interests. I traveled extensively and lived in many foreign countries hoping that I could find a place where things would work for me but in the end I recognized that wherever I went the same kinds of problems cropped up for me. I had the good sense to realize that it was me who needed to change, not the outside world, but I still remained pretty clueless as to what to do about that. I read dozens of self-help books, psychology books and philosophy books looking for answers but I only ever found occasional temporary relief and never a permanent end and solution to my internal struggle.

Things got so bad that the only way I could make progress was to leap out of bed as soon as I awoke and get on with things without consciously weighing things up. This worked until I reached an obstacle and then I would often fritter the day away until the next morning. If I did weigh things up then I would get snagged by some internal conflict and I would get nothing done until another day had gone by (or sometimes, if I was lucky, after one of the naps that I would invariably take as a distraction). It felt pretty hopeless and I raged against my impotency but I could not find a way to stop it. I became something of a specialist in productivity hacks because I felt like I needed them so badly to shore myself up against massive wastage that procrastination caused me.

The Final Breakthrough

It would have been easy just to give in and accept a limited life but the high measure of personal frustration that I felt meant that I could never rest easy. I simply had to find a way to deal with my struggle and conflict and to make good use of my one, precious life.

In the middle of 2006 I came across the concept of blogging and how it can create income. I was on the verge of another break from working life to yet again see if I could overcome my struggles and make good and so I decided that I would quit work and create a blog. In June of 2007 I started writing full-time but immediately I came up against my internal struggle and massive indulgence in procrastination and distractions. I knew that I must get to grips with this problem or else I would be doomed again to failure, to frittering away my savings on indulgences and to feeling wretched and in contempt of myself.

I knew that if I could find the root cause of the problem that the symptoms (procrastination and indulgence in distractions) would vanish and so I spent many days and weeks thinking about the root cause. A breakthrough came when I realised that indulgence in distractions is not a symptom, it is a response to a symptom. That meant that procrastination is a symptom and so I had to think deeply about what caused procrastination. Finally, by taking note of my primary reactions when I wanted to turn away from tasks that I set out to do, I heard the real response: “I can’t do this!” That was all that had ailed me for all of those decades. It was simply that in the moment of wanting to do something if it proved personally impossible to do in that moment then I would turn away from it. To vanquish procrastination I simply needed to make all of those little impossibilities along the way become possible. That seems blindingly obvious but prior to that I had always set goals and simply felt lousy when I couldn’t do them. I ended up creating a new mental model of how the mind works based upon careful control of the desires that we set for ourselves and accepting and then dealing with the impossibilities that prevent us from fulfilling small desires.

In doing this I have gotten to the root cause of many common emotional and behavioral problems and simply eradicated them from my life. The great thing is that it was easy. Before I was like a man pulling on a series of doors that opened by pushing. It took tremendous strength to rip those doors off of their hinges to make a passage through and I often failed to do so and always ended up exhausted. Now that I understand the mechanisms involved, I know that I only have to turn the handle and push the door and I can go through it. The understanding that I now have has made that kind of difference - I still find it truly phenomenal.

How I Used to Be Part II