Self-compassion for productivity (and wellbeing)
From June, 2022
I have a confession. I’ve been struggling with writing recently. I felt a bit stalled on OCD Together class materials and on writing deep or meaningful blogs. Moreover, I noticed myself strongly resisting using the self compassion techniques I teach my clients.
As someone with ADHD, I have periods of extreme productivity where it feels like I can’t stop producing content or coming up with ideas. The flipside of that however, is it sometimes I have to cope with a pronounced lull in productivity when my attention simply cannot be shifted back to what I wish I could shift it to. This is where I’ve been stuck.
Self-compassion is HARD work
Where I’ve noticed resistance is in assuming that there’s a good explanation for this lull. I chuckle a bit when I try to think about me as though I were my own client. When I force myself to do that I can list off factors that may contribute to getting less done:
Kids just started summer break and I’m their driver.
Summer break transport is harder than I remember it being.
I’ve been sick with non-COVID colds with my preschooler, who has missed several days of school in the last two weeks and he is NOT cool with me working. I HATE being sick. It’s the worst (ok it’s really not but I am the worst patient ever).
What if my motivation NEVER comes back?
This worry about motivation never returning is one I see in myself at these times and one that I regularly talk about with clients, especially perfectionistic folks. We ask ourselves questions that are logically impossible to answer:
How can I be sure that my motivation isn’t lost forever? (You can’t)
How can I know that I’m not in some kind of irreversible cognitive decline? (Again.. can’t)
What if I let myself off the hook, and that makes the lack of productivity even worse… forever?
Yet, our experience tells us that resisting the uncertainty of motivation’s return is causing suffering. Whipping ourselves into work has proven to be ineffective. The only way to get out of the cycle of suffering is to stop trying to control the experience and to allow it to resolve itself.
Run an experiment!
I ran one of these experiments on myself in May when, on vacation, I brought my laptop thinking that I was going to get a lot of writing done. When I arrived in New York, writing sounded exhausting and I had nothing to say. I spent my rest time watching junk television. But at that point, I had the flexibility to say to myself “That’s interesting. I wonder how long it will take for my motivation to return?” About halfway through the trip, I had a bunch of blog ideas and got an opportunity for an NPR interview. Perhaps relaxing into that demotivated state was made easier by having fewer tangible stressors, away from my kids, on vacation. This time around, I’ve been sick myself, taking care of a sick kid, in a heat wave, with a broken air conditioner, and I’ve had my older kids home for summer with their incessant bickering in the background.
Can a loved one snap you out of it?
I think it was really my husband who broke the demotivation cycle for me this time by insisting that he stay home from work yesterday so that I could not fall further behind on work. Sometimes, you need someone who knows you better than you know yourself to say “Perhaps have you tried asking for help?”
I’ve shared all of this to emphasize how self compassion and rest are not just nice things to do to help yourself feel better. I tell my clients this all the time but it’s hard work to slow down (if that’s not your default mode). Self compassion helps with productivity in the long run, is psychologically healthier, is a great antidote to perfectionism, and often benefits others beyond the person trying to practice it. So next time you feel like you’re stuck in a demotivated place, consider just going with it and watching to see when your motivation will return. If it takes a long time, perhaps you were really in need of a rest that you weren’t giving yourself.