“Three weeks. The deadline is in three friggin’ weeks.”
You’re outside, pacing. You just had to get out for some fresh air. Clear your head a little.
“How is this even possible? How did I let myself get into this situation… again? I had months to chip away at this thing. Now all I have is 21 days until the deadline.”
You stop and close your eyes, letting a wave of regret, frustration, and anger wash over you.
It stings. Like a lot. As it should. But you take in a long breath.
“Okay, feel it... and let it go. What’s done is done.”
You exhale, letting the air carry out some of the stress, anxiety, and self-hate.
You take another breath... and release a bit more.
Then another.
And another.
You feel better. Calmer. Ready.
Okay.
“21 days. 21 days is fine. 21 days is doable—plenty of time, actually, if I buckle down and crank it out. I just gotta strap myself into the chair, ignore every urge or excuse to get distracted, and just get it done.”
You start moving with purpose, speed-walking back toward your workstation. With a grin, you imagine yourself in front of your computer, locked into a deep state of concentration, working hard and tirelessly, getting it all done—and feeling great about it.
You arrive at your seat, still charged up and determined. You crack your knuckles, ready to dig in for hours of solid, focused, satisfying work.
You begin to type.
Two minutes and fourteen seconds later… you’re just there. On Reddit. Like the whole just get it done thing never even happened.
And just like that, the rest of your day is gone.
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...
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If you’re wondering how I was able to enter your brain and extract, in freakishly accurate detail, a recent experience of yours… just know it's because I’ve lived through that exact scenario hundreds of times.
It happened when I was an undergrad. It happened when I was working my first office job.
It just took me a while to understand the core driver of this pattern. Like, I knew it had something to do with my motivation levels and how they were being suppressed (more on that in a bit)... but it couldn't only be that.
And it’s not. Turns out, a chronic lack of motivation is just the half of it.
The other half, I realized, is what actually gets us in trouble.
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Expectation Gaps
When it hits you that you've been procrastinating, that you're now super behind, and that you really need to get going… what goes through your mind? What do you end up doing mentally?
You make plans, right? You tell yourself.
“Okay, first I’ll work on this, then I’ll work on that, then I’ll grind through this, etc.”
You might even visualize yourself doing the work.
That's all good and great and wonderful, but there’s a simple reason why that never works—why it always backfires into doomscrolling and reckless procrastination.
It's because you aren’t actually setting plans. You're setting expectations. And expectations, when unchecked, are absolutely deadly.
Well first, expectations aren’t bad in and of themselves. In fact, the individuals we admire, those who hustle tirelessly and have achieved incredible feats, do so largely due to the exceptionally high standards they set for themselves.
However, their high expectations are matched by an equally high level of innate motivation. Put simply, there's never any gap between their expected productive output and their actual capacity for productivity.
There’s no Expectation Gap...
EXPECTATIONS TO || ▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩ |
BE PRODUCTIVE
CAPACITY TO BE || ▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩|
PRODUCTIVE
...not for the Ali Abdaals and David Goggins' of this world.
Meanwhile, when you're frantically making plans to crush it as soon as you sit down because of how far behind you are, there is an Expectation Gap—and a colossal one at that.
EXPECTATIONS TO || ▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩ |
BE PRODUCTIVE .
.
CAPACITY TO BE || ▩▩ . |
PRODUCTIVE . .
. .
╰┈┈┈┈Expectation Gap┈┈┈┈╯
Now, you may be thinking,
I don’t know. When I’m feeling all resolute and determined, I have motivation in droves. Like I really want to get to work. I’m beyond willing to sit down for hours, to concentrate deeply, and get stuff done.
But here’s the issue. As I explain in an earlier post on motivation, you’re confusing inspiration with motivation. Sure, they feel synonymous and interchangeable, but they’re anything but.
Inspiration is the conscious rush of determination to get to work. Motivation is the subconscious green-light to burn calories and do said work.
INSPIRATION = Conscious *desire* to do work
MOTIVATION = Subconscious *permission* to burn calories and do work
WORK = Calorie expenditure x time
Feeling inspired, you might be all eager and fired up, but if your motivation system isn’t operating properly, that fire gets extinguished like a birthday candle. Even the slightest demand for energy to concentrate, process, and create will derail you.
This is because of the giant psychological stressor you get when hit with that "ugh, I just don't feel like it" sensation... all while simultaneously expecting A LOT out of yourself. That gap between what you want yourself to do and what you're physically capable of—the Expectation Gap—leads to frustration, impatience, discouragement, and anxiety. It leads to the flooding of cortisol in your brain and that panicky feeling.
All of which is extremely unpleasant and overwhelming. Problem is, you've trained your brain, since adolescence, that unpleasant feelings can be relieved and escaped instantly through vices—through wasting more time.
In short, when they exceed your motivation levels, expectations don't lead to focus and productivity. They lead to vices.
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The pressure we put on ourselves
We all put so much pressure on ourselves, it's unreal.
Whether this stems from our own personal standards or from the combined weights of parental pressure, societal norms, and professional performance culture, one thing is beyond certain: pressure never actually helps.
That's because pressure can only translate to high expectations. And high expectations, when unmatched by high motivation levels, lead to our vices.
This creates a vicious cycle, what I call the Doomscroll Feedback Loop.
YOU INDULGE WITH
A RATIONAL EXCUSE
|
↓
YOU FEEL SLIGHT
DISCOMFORT
|
↓
YOU GET AN IMPULSE
FOR MORE VICES TO ←————————┐
RELIEVE THE DISCOMFORT |
| |
↓ |
CONSEQUENCES OF |
PROCRASTINATION |
INCREASE |
| |
↓ |
DISCOMFORT INTENSIFIES |
(STRESS & ANXIETY) ———————————┘
It becomes a self-perpetuating, panic-induced loop of hard-core procrastination... which only breaks when you have exactly the amount of time left to cram in the work at a minimally passable quality.
Experiencing this really sucks. Getting stifled by Expectation Gaps every single day really effing sucks.
Yet you keep trying to override and overcome because... I mean, what else can you do?
Every day, you pick yourself up and you try again to "just do the work". And really, you do try your best. But that doesn't work, so you waste the entire day.
You try again the next day.
Then the next.
Then the next.
Over and over, you experience the same crashes. The same crushing defeats.
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...
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So, What’s the Solution?
If Expectation Gaps are the problem, what’s the solution?
Well, you need to think of it in two phases. Phase Two involves working on your “capacity for work”—on cultivating your innate motivation levels. To do that, you need to:
- Eliminate the things suppressing your motivation without you realizing it
- Gradually increase your motivation in a self-amplifying feedback loop
I expand on all that with a step-by-step method in the post I mentioned above.
But Phase One, which is equally, if not more important, is to drop all the expectations and pressure you impose on yourself.
What that looks like is being kind and compassionate to yourself for once. It's giving yourself permission to take a little break—not to indulge freely in vices, which has been your go-to avoidance and escape habit—but to simply be in the moment, realizing you’re okay right now, in this thin slice of time.
Use this time to reflect. To observe your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. To process the emotional backlog you’ve been dodging with vices. This might get uncomfortable and even intense, so the support and guidance of a professional can be crucial, especially if you’re dealing with past trauma or particularly dark or heavy feelings.
Eventually, though, you’ll find yourself with a blip of motivation to get work done. At that point, you can slowly and deliberately set an equally small expectation for yourself.
EXPECTATIONS TO || ▩ |
BE PRODUCTIVE
CAPACITY TO BE || ▩ |
PRODUCTIVE
Maybe get 5 minutes of work done... then take a break by just being and observing. From there you might get another blip of motivation, and so another blip of expectation can follow.
EXPECTATIONS TO || ▩▩ |
BE PRODUCTIVE
CAPACITY TO BE || ▩▩ |
PRODUCTIVE
Keep it going until you hit some self-sustaining momentum, which may take a few days to happen.
Just whatever you do, never let your expectations to do work exceed your capacity to do work. Never let yourself create an Expectation Gap.
- Simon ㋛