It's the month to find your mojo!

To do list... 

Friday night

“Procrastination. Pro-cras-ti-na-tion. A Latin creation. Pro\(forward)-crastinus\(of tomorrow). The act of forwarding or deferring something to belong to a tomorrow.”

Wait…what?! The Romans thought of this. Man, I need to ponder this.

Actually, this coffee has me completely zonked. I’m going to bed.



There are 24 hours in a day. That’s a whole lot of minutes of opportunity right there. And yet, often we just watch the hours float past us without doing the things we tasked ourselves to do. 


Is that a bad thing? Instinctively we want to scream “Yes!”

But let’s think this through…Honestly, if the Romans, who did a lot of profound things, felt the need to fling together a lengthy word to describe the intentional avoidance of a critical task … Who are we to be so critical of something they recognised as being part of daily life? 

Is it possible that generating negative, critical energy within ourselves, at ourselves, is just pushing the completion of what is actually an important task (otherwise you wouldn’t care about just doing it) further away from being done? 

Yes, go ponder that one for a bit… (coffee break!) 

Okay great, you made it back. 

Listening to Dr Anja (Nanna) Venter’s talk, we are struck by her statement that the first step to understanding and dealing with procrastination is the act of acceptance. 

This simple truth is a reminder that we are first and foremost here to experience being human. We are not robots that will execute Task X at Date Y between times A and B. And so, the idea of “delay” exists within living things. Things with soul. 

Spring does not always, like clockwork, start on 1 September. Well our Johannesburg chapter might disagree but in Cape Town we are a lot more flexible with our four seasons in one day vibe. Even so, we do not criticise Spring for being late or delaying its arrival. We accept that the weather will change in time. 

In time…A concept that most of our Western society does not digest well. However, any creative, no matter where they are socially situated in the world, has to learn to embrace the human ‘creative’ process.

What does this process look like?

Julia Cameron (one of Nanna’s favourite authors) in ‘The Artist’s Way’ explains that “In order to create, we draw from our inner well.” 

Basically, the act of acceptance of procrastination is the acceptance that we are not superhuman. Oh but of course, we are super in our humanness. But that’s the key. Our humanness. We need to take responsibility for our energy which means - You create your reserves. You fill the reservoir. You will find your mojo.

Acceptance 101

So when we accept that procrastination is a decision to live in time and delay doing something, we recognise in ourselves that we just don’t have the mojo to do it right now. This flows into opening up time for another critical task which is discussing with ourselves two important questions:

1. Where on earth did our mojo go?

2. What do we need to do to find it again?

Losing your mojo can happen in so many different ways but it never quite just falls out your pocket on your way to the shop to buy a carton of milk. It rather quietly detaches and goes and hides in your blind spot corner, ready to be seen when you have found your way back. 

Dr Venter gave us five main reasons that we may have lost our mojo and some tips on how to find it:

We feel intimidated 

Let’s be frank that the big things you choose or the small things that choose you are all challenging in their own rights. And so we freak out a little. More at the internal confusion as our souls scream “Do it!, while our minds are nervously whispering “Oh heck..” and our bodies are like “So… what do you want me to do?” 

• Allow yourself adequate preparation time to tackle the task. 

We feel overwhelmed 

Life never quite allows you the time and space to just focus on one thing at a time. Naturally, we all have a lot going on and each of those to-do’s are trying to win the race to priority in our minds. You will get to all of it but some tasks are chunky and feel too heavy to tackle. So we just don’t.

• Frame each task into bite-sized, easily digestible bits. 

We lack confidence 

Another critical thinking dilemma. We all expect ourselves to know right away how to do everything. Julia Cameron also says that “In order to do something well, we must first be willing to do it badly.”

• Learn how to fail and you will never fail to learn. So trust your soul (and Nike) on that one - Just do it!

We (think we) are bored or lazy 

Sometimes we just need a break and somehow when we procrastinate one task, we ultimately end up doing another thing. Nanna suggests that we practice externalising our to-do list by creating commands (tasks) for our future selves. The same way in which we would listen to a teacher or mentor tell us we need to do something. You just need to figure out how you want to create this “Commander list” in a way that works for you.

• Schedule your procrastination and free yourself to just be.

We need (to understand) motivation

We can only manage that which we understand. So understanding why we are motivated to do one thing and not another is a key component in being able to tip the scales to tackling something with passion or shying away from doing something due to some kind of manifestation of fear.

We delved into this reason a little bit more and found that Nic Voge, a founding member of the Princeton Perspective Project and keen academic on the psychology of self-worth suggests that the reason we procrastinate is because we have been taught the mental model that our self-worth is directly linked to our performance and ability. 

This is quite a scary thought for those of us that procrastinate more than others. The idea that we have attached to our sense of self a condition that if we are not able to complete a task or perform excellently at it, then we are not worth even attempting it.

It’s like you sign up for the course in “How to set yourself up for failure and be okay with it 101”. 

Voge’s study of the Self-worth theory has led him to conclude that procrastination creates the perfect mental storm. If the ship sinks, well you didn’t have enough time to fix it properly. If the ship makes it out alive, or even without one broken part, then well, aren’t you a great builder of ships indeed. 

We need to break the mental model and re-wire ourselves to remember that our worth derives from who we are not what we do.

• Create a motivations to-do list outlining why you actually do want to do the task, highlighting the positive energy, growth or opportunity that it represents. If you can’t find any motivation, maybe you need to ask yourself how this landed on your list of to-do’s in the first place.

And alas, when you do find yourself under pressure on a Friday night (because it happens) and you holding that cup of coffee waiting for the inspiration to strike, think of this beautiful quote gifted by our Turin chapter:

“When a window of opportunity shrinks, improvisation and spontaneity might unfurl like a flower in a time-lapse video blooming at super speed, a confetti cannon of petals bursting in full color.” 

“Write CMCT blog”. Tick. Well, till next month… 

See you soon - a many happy tomorrows!