Bingo!

At last I’ve got it. It took me some time, but I have decided to embark on a new project entitled ‘my year of self-improvement’. This is not, I must say now, one of those finding yourself type exercises, where you get your chakras felt/read/realigned or whatever and embark on a spiritual/soulful/exploratory journey. Bollocks to all that. My mission (which I have devised and therefore accepted) is to stop procrastinating. Nothing more complicated than getting off my arse and doing all the things I talk about doing but never do and boy is the list incredibly long. I also want to improve my skills and learn about all the things I enjoy in life but haven’t yet tackled or in some cases, mastered.

It’s a classic issue amongst my female friends. We all want more hours in the day to cram things in, we’re forever busy and rushing around, cancelling meet ups, rebooking, cancelling again, promising to make dates and then totally forgetting and yet forever looking back at things and thinking ‘where does the time go’ with that handless, fatalistic expression suggesting we can’t and don’t control any of it.

I’m 36 years old and feel like a Janet of all trades, mistress of none. I’m clearly not stupid, as I have a degree and a good job. I am fluent in a language, have run a marathon and can turn my hand to lots of things from drawing to cooking and even a little DIY. What still feels wrong is the sense that I am missing out on other things that I can’t do and am never willing to do much about the things I can half do as I have such a huge fear of failure. I can’t drive. I really, really want to start driving lessons but am frozen with fear. My friend Gema did them a few years ago and since then has barely driven as London is no place to learn. So what’s stopping me learning in Rye when we are down for the weekend? Or going on an intensive course? I know the pitfalls but rather than find a solution I keep reciting the excuse. Because I can’t drive, K and I remain limited as to what we do at the weekends. He’d love to learn to drive now (like me, he didn’t do it at 17 and never got round to it thereafter) but can’t because of his eyes. The only thing holding me back is pure and simple fear. I usually trot out the excuse that I have poor spatial awareness when asked why I don’t drive, but that’s just a lie. I could learn if I wanted to but it’s been easy to say can’t rather than won’t until now. Now it’s holding me back and that’s what I identified as the one thing about me that I am drastic to change.

I discovered on the cake decorating course that my inability to ‘let go’ means I take a while to learn, but once I get it I am off like a train! Breaking through the fear barrier is the major part and as I’ve got older, rather than getting better at it I’ve become more adept at avoiding it. When I was a teenager and baulking at something, my mother would know full well and shame me/force me into it. This had the effect of a) making me do it and b) leaving me scarred such that I would avoid ever doing it again! She in turn spent her life cowering away from anything challenging and saw my participation as ‘making sure I didn’t make her mistakes’. I was effectively her ‘go to’ girl from an early age – hell I can remember being instructed aged about ooh, 10 to tell the Chairman of the local rugby club where my mother thought he could stuff her pay raise for doing the teas after the game. He was none too impressed at having his character read out by a child and I still burn with shame at the memory.

So I have spent the last 36 years ricocheting between being too shy and nervous to venture forth and trying to tackle these things head on, either because I want to or because someone has insisted I do so. I still make huge to do lists of things I need to deal with and people I need to call. Each thing stays on there until one of a few things happen as follows:
It could be left so long that it becomes a matter of urgency, in which case I pick up the phone deal with it and, more often than not, put the phone down and think ‘what was I stressed about?’
If I really can’t summon up the courage and it’s optional, I usually strike it off the list after it’s lingered there for a while. Cool – scary thing gone and another thing off the list. Result!

If I get offered a way out by someone seeing it needs doing and volunteering their services, I almost flatten them in my haste to pass the buck.

Whatever the outcome, nothing goes on and off the list in 24 hours. If it’s easy, it never even makes the list!!

What’s so bizarre is that many of my friends are utterly oblivious to this. They only know me as the person who emails with a dinner reservation, tells them the latest news from the events I’ve been attending and surprises them with a charitable act or somesuch which forms my latest challenge. If I told them how scared things made me they’d tell me it was bullshit. None of them know what courage I need to work up to get to these points and doubtless figure it just comes naturally.

Take arriving at restaurants/cafes and bars. I hate being alone. I end up feeling utterly self-conscious and never know what to do with myself (glance around at folk and outstare them, check my blackberry, fiddle with my glass and pretend to read a text message or newspaper oh God, what to do) and yet I hate being late, so, given that most people are not as ultrapunctual as me, I usually end up in this situation from my own making – ha ha. It never gets easier. Even when I’ve been somewhere a thousand times, all it takes is one person to make me feel uneasy and I am finished.

As for getting on and dealing with stuff – sure if it is for my boss I can tackle anything. Holidays, complaints to suppliers, travel plans, shopping, you name it I’ll do it. When it’s for me you can guarantee that I will put it off until the very last moment. Flat renovations, ISA applications, cleaner references all bring me out in hives. Each week I have a new To Do List. I try working from the bottom to clear some long-term stuff. If it’s been there a while, I’ll probably score it out and forget it. If it has a deadline I will see if it can be extended! The latest thing at the top is never going to be done on day one, so I can ignore that. If I am lucky by end of play Monday it is one thing less and I can consider that week’s list done!

So, time’s up. No more dragging it out until the problems are so ancient that they have solved themselves! Along the way I hope to create an informative blog of things I’ve done/am doing and how they’ve helped me fill my time since sobering up. They will all help me pass the time more constructively than when I used to fill it with drink. I’d like to include visits to museums, cool cafes and the like and plot the various ways of ‘filling in the blanks’. Here goes – nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh?