How to feel sure of yourself in a world that tells you not to

Please can we normalise being normal?

Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash

Earlier this week I was scrolling through Instagram - I know it’s not the healthiest, but the algorithm is now firmly focused on serving me purely dog content, so it makes me feel good about life. In between the five puppies rescued by a lovely man in Thailand, and a spaniel’s increasing frustration that a statue wouldn’t throw his ball, my eye was caught by a piece of ‘promoted’ content. A smiling immaculately groomed woman was promising me that my terrible procrastination ‘disease’ could be cured instantly thanks to her reasonably priced course of hypnotherapy. Lord be praised! What good fortune was mine! Oh happy day.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been targeted with a procrastination ‘cure’. Over the last three months or so, I’ve noticed procrastination emerging as the latest trend of mental health problems to treat. The solutions offered range from AI-powered diary management, to food supplements and now - apparently - hypnosis.

My response to this was the usual. How do they know my dirty procrastination secret? Do I have a problem? Is this really a disease and not me being lazy? This explains everything! How do I get treated??

And, of course, this is how I am supposed to react. Marketing and advertising professionals have worked tirelessly over the years to understand how people think and how to prompt exactly this response. When I started working in PR in my 20s I was devastated to learn the true machinations behind how the women’s magazines I loved were actually created. Step 1: create a problem people don’t know they have. Step 2: make them feel ashamed about it. Step 3: sell them the solution.

The self-help industry has been doing this for years. Go to the self-help shelf of any bookstore and you will find a myriad of solutions for problems you never knew you had - carefully packed to make you think that maybe this THIS is the missing piece to create the life you want! Podcasts do the same - every expert has a certain (often simplified) view to sell - be it diet, sleep or getting up at a torturously early hour every morning. Don’t get me wrong - I love a bit of self-help; I’m a total sucker for it. And, for everything I’ve read or heard that’s a load of bollocks, there’s an equal amount I’ve read that’s incredibly helpful and incisive. It’s by no means A Bad Thing.

But an attempt to medicalise procrastination? Is this going… well, just a bit far?

While I accept that excessive procrastination is an issue and can be an indicator of wider conditions such as ADHD, for a lot of people it is just a part of being a human. We are not robots. We cannot be “on” the whole time without some pretty catastrophic results and/or a massive cocaine habit. Sometimes our brains want to do things - sometimes we’re easily distracted. That urgent desire to alphabetise your underwear draw in lieu of giving feedback on a Powerpoint deck about widgets is one familiar to most of us - and, I would argue, a fairly normal human response. In a world where we are not fighting for food or shelter, our brains can afford to be a bit lazy.

I’m yet to meet to a person who doesn’t recognise their propensity to procrastinate (especially anyone working in a creative industry - you’d be amazed how many excuses I can find not to write this column!) but now this perfectly normal human attribute is being packaged back to me as an illness that can now be cured.

When did it become not ok to be a human? Part of me thinks this is a good sign. For most of human history we have had bigger problems to worry about that self-improvement and whether putting off tasks means we need urgent hypnotherapy. For all the misery and doom reported to us on a daily basis, I feel we can take heart from this. If we live in a world where procrastination is a thing we’re being told to worry about… well things can’t really be that bad.

But it also concerns me that self-help has reached such a saturation point that people are looking for things that are part of the human condition as a hook from which to sell. While I appreciate hypnosis lady’s got to make a living - and frankly who wouldn’t like to have the procrastination gremlin removed - it feels to me like every time something is labelled a ‘condition’, it’s another strike against our ability to feel good and confident about who we are. It’s a death by a thousand cuts - a thousand micro-criticisms about how we live our lives - a thousand more things to feel crappy about. At best it’s demoralising - at worst it’s dangerous.

So where do we draw the line? How much life-improvement advice do we need? When it ok to have flaws - and when do they become a problem? How do you reach the point of being happy with who you are - when the world is constantly telling you every part of your personality is a flaw in need of fixing?

Last year at work, I discovered the joy of the ‘done’ list. The concept was simple - alongside my ever expanding to do list, I started writing down the things I had completed (often very different from the things on my actual list, and usually requested at the last minute by important people). This exercise was incredibly helpful in making me realise that, despite the fact my to do list never seemed to shrink, I was in fact getting stuff done. I was not as useless as I thought I was.

Perhaps the same approach should be taken to ourselves. We know we can do always do more, but every once in a while maybe it’s healthy to look at what we’re ok with about ourselves. What doesn’t need fixing. What’s fine as it is. This might actually make us feel a little better about ourselves - and free up time to focus on improving the areas of our lives we’d like to, rather than being pulled in all directions by slick marketing ploys.

Trying to do this now, my mind is - tellingly - going blank. I’m trying to think of one facet of my personality I don’t think needs improving, while my inner critic shrieks at me not to be so conceited. So for now I will start small; I have written this article DESPITE a propensity to procrastinate. So maybe I don’t need hypnosis after all. Sorry Instagram lady - jog on and find somebody else.

Perhaps we will soon enter a post self-help world of gurus telling us nothing is wrong with us. Maybe that’s a job vacancy I can fill. Although it might not be a best-seller.

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Happy Sunday team! As ever, I’d love to know if this resonates. Do you feel you’re told you’re broken? Also here’s a fun game… can you think of anything you’d openly say you’re happy with? Please share it here if you’re brave enough… I really hope you don’t all find it as hard as I do!