I did not know I have an Instant Gratification Monkey until yesterday, when I was procrastinating doing work at work and came across an illuminating article that told me why I procrastinate. I can’t even remember how I got there. It was such an amazing epiphany that I just had to share it with others who may need to know about their monkey.
Do you have one?
The Instant Gratification Monkey Made Me Not Do It (But don’t let it keep you from reading this!)
Procrastinators love planning, quite simply because planning does not involve doing, and doing is the procrastinator’s Kryptonite.
According to the illuminating article—which you must read and I know you will because you are already procrastinating right this very minute, so what’s one more thing to keep you distracted from the thing you should be doing?—an Instant Gratification Monkey lives in the brain of a procrastinator. It can be distracted with High Self-Esteem Bananas. But that’s not good enough. I want my monkey permanently gone. I don’t want to be a procrastinator. I don’t want a permanent condition that requires me to constantly battle my brain monkey.
How can I kick the monkey out of my brain, forever? I don’t know. I do know that within 24 hours of gaining a newfound understanding of why I procrastinate, I already started making changes.
I typically do not schedule meetings early in the morning because I like wiggle room for potential late arrivals. Well, I’ve been taking advantage of that wiggle room and have had the best intentions to tighten up my schedule. I have not been successful. With my shiny new monkey awareness, I scheduled a few early morning meetings so that I have to arrive at work when I said I would. Granted, I may be “summoning” the Panic Monster. But considering to change my own unwritten rule, and acting on it, was certainly a very important “Ah ha, I get it!” moment.
I would say another win was writing this post instead of playing WoW. But I can’t. I couldn’t log in last night! Thanks for helping me out with my monkey Blizzard.
Soooo… perhaps the solution for permanently getting rid of Instant Gratification Monkey will be found in consistently making small changes. Five years from now, I’ll forget I ever had one! So that’ll be December 2, 2019. I should save a draft for that day.
But, I procrastinate blogging for so many silly reasons. To correct this, I have given my monkey notice that I’m calling the shots with this one. I want to write. I want to write in a place where I can talk about anything and Mama Druid affords me that opportunity. I’ll use this space to practice writing… with my monkey happily enjoying a High Self-Esteem Banana in the distance.
If you discovered you have a monkey, what did you name it? I named mine Pat. I don’t know if it’s a girl or boy.
Heh.
Mama Druid 