Identity · Who you need to become
Procrastination and Fear of Criticism: Why You Hold Back
By Editorial Team··Updated ·2 min. read
You hold back your results because sending your work is a different task from doing it. Once it's sent, you no longer decide what to make of it, so you keep polishing. A rough draft for one person shrinks your audience, and you can start before the fear is gone.
Why do you put off sending your work when it's almost finished?
Because the last step is a different task for you from all the ones before it. Up to that point you're working on a thing. When you send it, you put it in front of someone, and from then on you no longer decide what to make of it.
Take a quote for an important client. The figures are in place, the text is in place, and all you need is one click. You read it a fourth time, change two words and push it to tomorrow. The click takes a second. What you're paying for is what might come after it: a rejection, a follow-up question, silence.
Your standard for the result isn't the bottleneck here. Your bottleneck is the reaction you expect. A result nobody sees can't embarrass you. But it can't earn you anything either.
How do you tell whether your procrastination comes from the work or from other people's reaction?
You can tell from your last changes. If they change what your recipient can decide or do, the work is what's slowing you down. If they only change wording that hardly anyone but you would notice, the reaction is what's slowing you down.
I separate the two with a test: write down the one point that's still missing for your result to be usable. "The costing for item 4 is open" is work, and you get it done. "It still doesn't feel quite right" isn't work, because you can't say when it would be done.
Then imagine you were the only person who'd ever read the result. If you'd tick it off right away in that case, you know what's braking you: being seen.
Who do you need to be so that an unfinished result isn't a verdict on you?
You need to be someone for whom a result is a test bench, not a report card. A report card grades you. A test bench shows you what the thing still lacks.
You don't build this self-image by thinking about it, but through evidence. I've written elsewhere about the role you play when you aren't yet the person you want to be. Your smallest piece of evidence here is a rough draft for one person.
Pick someone whose judgement you value. Send them the quote today, exactly as it stands, marked "rough draft", with one single question: "Where would you drop out if you were the customer?" That way you aren't asking for a verdict on you, but for an answer about one spot.
You're thinking: that won't take away my fear. True. All it does is shrink your audience from everyone to one person. With your next result you show two people, and after that the customer. You don't have to get rid of the fear before you show your work.
A rough draft is your first piece of evidence. The order behind it is always the same at imprUvement: first become the right person, then do, then have. In the challenge you take the first step on this path.
Frequently Asked Questions
Because the click hands the judgement to someone else. What you're paying for is what might come after it, which is a rejection, a follow-up question or silence.