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TITLE
The Little Guide To Beating Procrastination,
Perfectionism and Blocks: A Manual for Artists,
Activists, Entrepreneurs, Academics and Other
Ambitious Dreamers
by Hillary Rettig, m

VERSION INFORMATION
Version 1.0 released 12/10/07
AUTHORSHIP
This e-book is adapted from my book The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World
Without Losing Your Way (Lantern Books, 2006). For more information on The Lifelong
Activist please visit .
I do life and career coaching that help activists, artists, entrepreneurs, students and other
ambitious dreamers break free of procrastination, perfectionism, fear, negativity and
other blocks to success so that they can achieve their life goals. I also help people
succeed at their job searches (that’s what the subject of my next book will be). If you like
the approach in this e-book, and think my coaching would be helpful to you, please email
me at You can also read more about my coaching and
workshop services at .
If this e-book has helped you, and/or if you have suggestions for the next edition, I would
welcome hearing from you. Thanks, Hillary.
WARRANTY
The information in this e-book is presented without warranty of any kind. It has helped
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many people, and it is my sincere wish that it help you, but I can’t accept responsibility
for any negative result you feel you may have obtained from using it. If you are suffering
from an intractable procrastination problem, or panic attacks, anxiety, depression,
addiction or any other psychological or physical condition, please seek professional help
before following the advice herein. - Hillary

7. Fear II. Fear of Failure
8. Fear III. Fear of Success
9. No Such Thing as Pure Failure or Success
10. Don’t Compound Fear With Shame
11. Fear Creates Obstacles to Success
12. The Most Important Thing You Need to Know About Your Obstacles
13. Non Obstacles
14. Beware Myths that Promote and Excuse Failure
15. Perfectionism
16. Negativity
17. Negativity II
18. Hypersensitivity
19. Panic: The Fear-Amplifier
PART II. THE SOLUTIONS
20. False Solution I: “Mean Mommy/Mean Daddy”
21. False Solutions II and III: “Selling Out” and “Stalling Out”
22. False Solution IV: Dithering
23. Solution I: The Three Productivity Behaviors
24. Practicing the Three Productivity Behaviors
25. Five Success Tips
26. Solution II: A Process for Overcoming Fear-Based Procrastination and Panic
27. Tools for Change I: Journaling
28. Tools for Change II: Therapy and Self-Care
29. Tools for Change II: A Created Community
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30. Finding and Cultivating Mentors
31. The Ultimate Solution (Solution III) to Managing Your Fears
32. Developing an Empowered Personality
33. What Empowered People Do
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procrastination: I’ve used these solutions myself with great success, and so have many of
my students and coaching clients. Moreover, these solutions work fast. Students who
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employ them often shoot ahead like arrows on their goals, even if they’ve been blocked
for years. I’ll explain why that is so later in the book. For now, just relax and read on,
and rest assured that, by the time you finish, you will be much more empowered to finally
defeat your procrastination problem and live the productive and happy life you’ve always
yearned for.
Chapter 2.
Things That Bump Us Off Our Path
Let’s say you planned to be at your computer, working on a project, at 10 a.m. on
a Monday morning, but you’re not. Why not? The answer could be one or more of the
following:
*Got up late.
*Quarreled with your lover last night, and keep reliving the quarrel in your mind.
*Are too tired – the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.
*Are too hyper – drank too much coffee and can’t sit still.
*Are distracted by the weather – it’s beautiful out and you’d love to take a walk
or bike ride.
*Are distracted by the weather – it’s awful and depressing.
*Got a call (or email or instant message) from a friend, who is depressed (though
not in crisis) and needed to talk.
*Got a call from a friend (or email or instant message) who is happy and wanted
to share good news.
*Are reading the newspaper – every last word of it.
*Are Web surfing or Web shopping.
*Are playing Solitaire.
*Just realized that it is highly important to work on some other project.
Or, if you work in a home office:
*Turned on the TV for “a minute” and saw that one of your favorite actors was

present themselves. So, for instance:
*Your elderly parents could probably find someone else to mow their lawn and
pick up the groceries - like another family member, or the high school kid down the block
who needs a few extra bucks. Or,
*Your spouse and kids could probably survive on take-out (or cook their own
food!) a few nights a week. Or,
*Your friend who needs a lot of support could find others - friends or even
professionals, such as a therapist - to help provide it.
If you didn’t have an ambitious dream that you were pursuing on top of life’s
ordinary demands, then maybe you could get away with mowing the lawn, cooking all
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the meals, and talking for hours each day with your friend. But once you own up to your
ambitious dream, you are essentially declaring that you will be very particular and self-
directed in how you spend your time, because you need to reserve as much time as
possible for your dream. This is in direct contrast to most people, who let others -
including loved ones, friends, neighbors, coworkers and corporations - control their time
for them.
Almost all ambitious dreamers, for instance, need to reduce the time they spend
on tedious household chores to as close as possible to zero, so that they can use the
reclaimed time and energy to work on their dream. Okay, if you enjoy gardening and it
feeds your soul, then don’t give that up. But laundry? Yard work? Mopping floors?
Standing in line at the grocery store? To the extent you’re able to, find someone else to
do it. Send your laundry out to be done, hire someone to maintain the lawn (or get your
spouse or kids to do it), buy a floor-mopping robot, and have your groceries delivered. If
you feel funny doing any of that, get over it: reducing your housework burden is an
investment in yourself. Besides, it’s unrealistic to think that you can spend your time the
same way non-ambitious dreamers do and still accomplish your ambitious dream.
None of this should be taken to mean that you abandon your family or friends. It
just means you invest your time judiciously. Even though you’re not mowing your
parents’ lawn, for instance, you could still be taking them to medical appointments: that’s

shallow.”
Many procrastinators lead a double life, pretending to be happy and productive
while really feeling besieged. Their boasts about their huge workloads, ability to work
under pressure, and constant need to pull all-nighters are often just a cover for shame and
desperation; and often, when things get really hot - when they are about to miss a serious
deadline, thereby revealing their true, “shameful” nature - they cut and run, abandoning a
project, course, job, relationship or other commitment.
Often, procrastinators become depressed almost as soon as they wake up because
they know they are destined to procrastinate that day. Procrastination can also feel very
confusing. At bedtime, you look back on the day and can’t figure out where your time
went. You remember reading the headlines, drinking a cup of coffee with your
officemates, watching some television, and surfing the Web, but those random activities
couldn’t possibly have filled the entire day, could they? But, of course, they did. That’s
what Charles Dickens meant, in David Copperfield, when he had Mr. Macawber call
procrastination, “the thief of time.” To a procrastinator, it really does feel as if his or her
time were somehow stolen.
If a procrastination problem is serious enough, and lasts long enough, it is often
called a “block,” as in “writer’s block.” Anyone can be blocked, and many people,
perhaps most, are. Sometimes, blocks last for weeks or months, but often, tragically, they
last for years, decades or even entire lifetimes. Being blocked is one of the worst feelings
in the world; it drives some people to absolute despair.
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Wait - There’s Good News!
But wait - there’s no need to feel ashamed or despairing! When one of my
students confesses to a procrastination problem, I congratulate her. Yes, congratulate.
Here’s why:
*Procrastination is an affliction of ambitious people. If you don’t believe me, do a
Web search on procrastination: you’ll get links to hundreds of pages advising you on how
not to procrastinate when writing your novel or thesis, pursuing a fitness program, or
looking for a new job. These are all ambitious endeavors, and people who pursue them

without getting sand castle block, and ministers can pray over the sick without getting
holiness block, the writer who enjoys his work and takes measured pride in it should
never be troubled by writer’s block. But alas, nothing’s simple. The very qualities that
make one a writer in the first place contribute to block: hypersensitivity, stubbornness,
insatiability, and so on.”
Gardner considers those characteristics virtues, and so do I. (What he calls
“hypersensitivity,” however, I call “sensitivity.” I define hypersensitivity differently and
see it as a problem, as discussed in Chapter 18.)
Let’s also not forget that ambitious dreamers choose to pursue exceptionally
difficult goals - otherwise, they’d be UNambitious dreamers, right? “Ordinary life is
pretty complex stuff,” says writer Harvey Pekar, but in addition to the complexities of
ordinary life, ambitious dreamers can expect to face financial risk - if not probable
impoverishment; emotional risk and rejection; lack of support from family and/or society;
and stressful working conditions. And that doesn’t even count the inherent difficulties of
the goal itself - i.e., the need of the artist to perfect her craft and sell her work, or of the
academic to finish his thesis.
Many people flee from these kinds of stresses, and I, for one, can’t blame them.
The problem, however, is that in doing so they also flee from their dreams. Whenever I
teach, I remind my students - who are often deeply ashamed of their procrastination
problem - of the many people who have given up on their dreams. We all share a
moment of sadness for those people, and then I quietly congratulate my students for
persevering in their own dreams despite all the difficulties and barriers.
I would similarly congratulate you.
Chapter 4.
The Problem You Think You’re Solving
Look, you’re a smart person. A creative person. A dedicated person. I’m pretty
sure about all of that, or you wouldn’t be an ambitious dreamer, or reading this e-book.
So, how come you can’t solve a little procrastination problem?
If you’re like many of my students, that question has haunted you for years. One
of the most frustrating things about procrastination is that it seems like it would be the

Moreover, the field of “expectations psychology” has shown us that people often
live up or down to the labels others stick on them; so that if someone repeatedly calls
you, or you repeatedly call yourself, lazy or uncommitted, you are likely to live “down”
to that label. I’ll have a lot more to say about labels in Chapter 17, but in the meantime-
stop negatively labeling yourself!
******
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The Myth of Laziness
Think of yourself as lazy or uncommitted? In a book entitled The Myth of
Laziness, learning disabilities expert Mel Levine, M.D., discusses how many cases of
“laziness” can be traced to undiagnosed or untreated learning disabilities, teaching
failures, physical problems like bad eyesight or motor control, an inadequate physical
environment, or a chaotic family life. Once these causes are diagnosed and addressed, a
person’s supposed “laziness” often evaporates. Levine’s approach highlights how just
important it is to characterize your procrastination problem properly.
******
Chapter 5.
The Problems You Should Be Solving
“More often than not, solving, or resolving, a problem is a rather trivial exercise - once
we know what the problem is.”-Gause and Weinberg, Are Your Lights On? How to
Figure Out What the Problem REALLY Is.
Treating procrastination as a symptom of laziness or a lack of discipline doesn’t
work because those are not the causes of procrastination. Rather, they are symptoms, just
like procrastination itself is a symptom, of a deeper problem. That problem is usually
either:
1. You were never taught the habits of productive work. Since nature abhors a
vacuum, this probably means you’ve instead learned the “default” habits of low
productivity or non-productivity. This results in what I call Behavioral-Based
Procrastination. Or,
2. Fear: of change, success, failure, etc. This results in what I call Fear-Based

workload and more employees to manage.
*If you are in a bad relationship, FBP helps ensure that you never leave it. This, in
turn, helps you avoid the risks of loneliness, economic decline (if your partner is helping
to support your lifestyle), rejection by potential new lovers, or a future worse
relationship. Or, if the relationship is salvageable, FBP helps ensure that you do not go to
couples therapy or take other positive steps, thus helping you avoid the vulnerability and
risks inherent in true intimacy.
*If you’re stuck in a bad job, FBP helps ensure that you either never look for
another one, or look ineffectually. This, in turn, helps you avoid having to do a full-bore
job search (a highly stressful experience for most people), possible rejection, or the
chance that you’ll wind up in an even worse job. Or, it helps you avoid the consequences
of success, including finding a job that might be better in many ways, but that also
involves more responsibility and stress.
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Fear-Based Procrastination’s Stealthy Nature
Remember all those “bumps” we discussed in Chapter 2 - personal calls,
newspapers, Web surfing, brooding about relationships or the weather, etc.? As you now
know, those aren’t the actual cause of your procrastination - the cause is fear - but they
are the activities we turn to when we are afraid, and they serve to distract us from both
the fear, and the guilty knowledge that we are procrastinating. Procrastination has, in fact,
an amazing ability to disguise itself: that is one of its most powerful weapons. What
could be the harm in talking to Jane for ten more minutes, especially as she’s having
such a rough day? we tell ourselves. Or: Wow, the living room rug is really filthy! It will
only take a few minutes to vacuum it Or: Oh, there’s my favorite actor on that TV show
– it can’t hurt to watch for just a few minutes. Or: No point in even getting started before
I’ve had my coffee. It all sounds so plausible - which is why procrastination, especially
after we’ve practiced it for years or decades, gains such a tough hold on us.
At its most insidious, procrastination disguises itself as a slew of productive-
seeming, but not actually productive, behaviors that suck up a lot of time and give you
the illusion of progress, but bring you no closer to achieving your goal. So, you spend a

our interest to be scared of certain risky situations.
The problem is when our fears are excessive, irrational or otherwise an
impediment to our growth and success - or, when we respond to fear in a suboptimal way
such as procrastinating. Fear is one of the strongest emotions: scientists even believe that
there is even a kind of early warning system in the amygdala (the part of the brain that
governs emotion) that allows us to experience fear before we’ve consciously become
aware of the thing we are afraid of. It makes sense: if a leopard is about to eat you, it’s a
good idea to feel fear, and react to that fear, as quickly as possible.
This early warning system may be the reason fear is such a difficult problem to
overcome, and why it can be so disabling. It’s hard to do anything when you’re afraid
other than to try to escape the thing that is frightening you.
If you have tried repeatedly and without success to break your procrastination
habit, then there is a good chance that fear lies at the heart of your failure. Furthermore,
you are unlikely to make much progress unless you first deal with your fear. The good
news is that, once you do that, progress can happen very quickly!
Below, and in the next few chapters, we examine the three most common fears at
the heart of procrastination: fear of change, fear of failure and fear of success.
Fear of Change
A key difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful
people initiate and control more of the changes in their lives. They decide where they
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want to be today, this week, this month, next year, ten years from now, and thirty years
from now, and take actions designed to achieve that result. Unsuccessful people tend to
be more passive: they take what life, and other people, hand them, and consequently
often lead unhappy, embittered lives.
Of course, someone who is afraid of change is going to have a harder time
initiating and controlling it. That person may be a super-cautious or even pessimistic,
“devil you know is better than the devil you don’t,” “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke,” “leave
well enough alone,” “let sleeping dogs lie” kind of person. Moreover, he may have
perfectly good reasons for that mindset: people from troubled or deprived backgrounds,

it a “success.” If not, we call it a “failure.” The trouble comes when we over-identify with
our projects, conflating their success or failure with our own as human beings.
Unfortunately, many people, and especially many procrastinators, do this all the time.
So, when our projects succeed, we don’t just tell ourselves, “Wow, I did that so well!”
We say, “I’m fabulous, brilliant, queen of the world!” And we frequently do feel like
queen of the world, at least for a little while.
Now, I don’t have a problem with that. Most people spend way too much time
criticizing themselves, not to mention being criticized by others, and could use some
extra self-praise. The more, the merrier, as far as I’m concerned: just keep it to yourself
so that you don’t alienate others.
No, the problem isn’t when our projects succeed; it’s when they fail. Then the
reverse happens, and we don’t just tell ourselves, “Bummer. I guess I’ll have to do better
next time,” but, “I’m such a loser. How could I possibly think I could own a business?
My folks were right - I’m just lazy and stupid.” Such negative thoughts are crippling, and
in many cases we are so terrified of the possibility that they are correct - that we really
are stupid losers – that we don’t even dare to attempt our dream.
As Steven Pressfield puts it in The War of Art, “Resistance knows that the
amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its
success and over-terrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes
him.”
Many procrastinators, in fact, have it even worse: they are comfortable taking
credit for their failures, but not their successes. So, failure is due to the person’s own
limitations or ineptness, while success is due to luck or the supposedly “trivial” nature of
the challenge. (If the procrastinator succeeded at it, after all, it must be trivial.) Can you
imagine a more disabling attitude?
Most young children don’t have this problem. A child whose tower of building
blocks falls down will cry, “It fell down!” not “I failed!” If anything, she is likely to
blame the blocks themselves, or some other kid who happened to walk too close to her
tower, which is why her disappointment is likely to be only temporary and she is able to
return happily and confidently to block-building the next day.

*Get a new job and you’ll have to master a whole new set of relationships,
information and skills.
*Get a new relationship and you put your heart on the line.
Success also always comes coupled with a new possibility of failure. There’s no
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guarantee, after all, that you’ll prevail at your new challenges; and you could fall flat on
your face.
Success also puts you in the line of fire. Artists and academics both have to
endure their work being judged by experts and, sometimes, the wider community. And an
activist who succeeds at a campaign is likely to become a target for the opposition.
Finally, and perhaps hardest to take, is that your success may spark resentment
and even hostility from family and friends who don’t support your goals, or who remain
stuck in their own ruts. Don’t underestimate this: rejection by, and alienation from, loved
ones is a common, and often very hurtful, consequence of success.
Success, in other words, is stressful, and sometimes greatly so. Children raised
with kindness and insight become resilient adults who can manage this stress, but many
of us were not treated so kindly by parents or others, and cannot. And so, we don’t even
attempt to succeed.
If success is so risky and stressful, why even bother going for it? In On Becoming
a Novelist, John Gardner says: “Nothing is harder than being a true novelist, unless that is
all one wants to be, in which case, though becoming a true novelist is hard, everything
else is harder.” Same for all the other types of ambitious dreamers.
On a more prosaic level, success usually brings monetary rewards - even for the
activist, who may finally have a shot at getting a coveted full-time job in his movement.
Then there are the social and spiritual benefits of success: one of the best situations
anyone can find themselves in is as part of a community of successful ambitious
dreamers. So, while your new successful life may be busier and more stressful than your
old one, it will also be richer (in every sense), more interesting and more fulfilling. Your
new friends and colleagues will not only support you through the stressful times, but
encourage you along to even greater heights of success and happiness.

Stephen Pressfield tells a wonderful story about failure in The War of Art. After
seventeen years of trying to break into the movie business, he finally wrote a screenplay
that got produced, for a movie called King Kong Lives. (If you haven’t heard of it, you
can probably guess the rest of the story . . . .) “We were certain it was a blockbuster,” he
writes; and he and his colleagues arranged for a fancy party after the premiere. No one
came to the party, however, and the next day the reviews were scathing. Pressfield writes:
“I was crushed. Here I was, forty-two years old, divorced, childless, having given up all
normal human pursuits to chase the dream of being a writer . . . .I’m a loser, a phony; my
life is worthless, and so am I.” However, he was quickly set right by a wise friend, who
said, “Be happy. You’re where you wanted to be, aren’t you? So you’re taking a few
blows. That’s the price for being in the arena and not on the sidelines. Stop complaining
and be grateful.”
One moral of Pressfield’s story, and my own, is that there is no such thing as pure
success or pure failure. Every experience, including my business and King Kong Lives, is
a mixed bag. (Now you know why I frequently put the words “failure” and “success” in
quotes throughout this e-book.) Of course, success is better than failure, but most
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successes contain some element of compromise or failure, and most failures contain some
element of success, even if that element may not be immediately apparent. So the line
between the two is not nearly as clear as many people think.
No Regrets
In my coaching, I regularly run into people who feel a deep shame for some, or
many, of their past actions. Sometimes, the “sin” is having dropped out of college, while
other times it is having remained in an abusive relationship, spent one’s twenties drunk or
stoned, or committed a crime (or crimes). Often, the “sin” is something most onlookers
would consider relatively minor, or not even a sin at all - like my student who had to stop
doing volunteer work at her church when her child became ill. (Believe it or not, she was
deeply ashamed of this.) Many people are filled with shame for things they did back
when they were teenagers or even younger, or for things that other people did to them.
And in many cases that I see, people’s shame and regret are keeping them

So stop blaming yourself for your fears and start asking yourself this question
instead: How should I respond to my fears?
Steven Pressfield tells how the late actor Henry Fonda suffered from extreme
stage fright throughout his long career. In fact, he got so nervous before every stage
performance and film shoot that he threw up. That’s forty years of throwing up.
And after every episode of throwing up, he proceeded to give his performance.
That’s how to respond to fear: not by letting it paralyze you, and not by wasting
time blaming yourself for it, but by doing your work and making progress toward your
goals.
******
Exercise: Experiencing Fear Without Shame
Take two or three tasks you have been procrastinating on and for each write a list
of the negative consequences of accomplishing it. If, for example, you’ve been
procrastinating on visiting a doctor, your list could include, “It will cost $100,” “She’ll
give me a shot,” and “She might discover something seriously wrong.”
After doing this exercise, two things might happen:
*You might find yourself becoming more understanding about, and forgiving of,
your procrastination. (“No wonder I keep putting this off!”) This is a much better
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response than criticizing or blaming yourself.
*By writing down the negatives, you may defuse them, so that they seem less
scary. You may even feel motivated to go ahead and do the task. If that’s the case, go for
it! But don’t feel bad if you don’t experience that motivation, or if it quickly goes away
and you’re back to feeling stuck again.
Whatever you do, do not put yourself down for having fears and anxieties.
Everyone has them, including highly successful people who often consciously or
unconsciously develop skills and strategies for coping with them. That’s what you’ll
learn to do in future chapters of this book.
******
Chapter 11.

time management, organizing your office, buying some new equipment, taking a class,
and setting up regular consultations with mentors.
Once you commit to overcoming a logistical obstacle, it is often not difficult to do
so. If you do have trouble overcoming yours - if you seem to lack the “willpower” to
make the solution work, or can’t even find the time to think about the problem - then you
probably also suffer from fear-based procrastination. (This will be the case for most
people.) You’ll probably have to deal with the fear first, using the techniques described
later in this e-book, before you can move on to the more superficial logistical fix.
There are also what I call Situational Obstacles, which involve other people or
other circumstances outside your full control. A tough day job, heavy family
responsibilities, and an unsupportive spouse are situational obstacles. So are a disability
and serious health problems.
Situational obstacles are often the toughest to overcome. Their solutions often
involve major life changes such as switching jobs, leaving relationships, altering
lifestyles, compromising on one’s cherished goals, or committing to individual or
couple’s therapy. Like logistical obstacles, situational obstacles usually occur alongside
fear-based procrastination, and so you’ll first have to deal at least partly with your fears
before you can effectively start changing your situation. But even once you work past the
fear, you are still left having to deal with some very tough circumstances.
Chapter 12.
The Most Important Thing You Need to Know About Your Obstacles
The most important thing you need to know about your obstacles is that all of
them can be overcome.
It doesn’t matter who you are, how you were raised, what race, religion,
nationality or sex you are, or how much money you have. All of your obstacles can be