"I doubt it."
"Why?"
"Don't know. Just do. I don't believe it. It'll get better. Anyway, if it doesn't, I'll do something about it then."
Sally has the shillyshallies. She is a doubter; a procrastinator. She pushed her decisions and actions to tomorrow and when tomorrow came it was today so she pushed it again and again. That's what the shillyshallies will do to you. Before long, you accomplish nothing but say you will - tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I will pay more attention to my wife; my children. I'll play catch with my son. Tomorrow, I will get really serious about losing weight and lowering my blood pressure. Tomorrow, I'll start reading that book that has been collecting dust on the bedside table. Tomorrow, I'll get that knee pain checked out. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. To whip up the sticky sweet elixir of the shillyshallies, mix the powerful pleasure of the present with a good dose of a diluted future.
Procrastination is the result of perceived importance or salience. The higher the salience, the more likely we will choose a course of action and procrastinate less. Salience is a function of four variables and can be expressed with the following formula derived from expectancy theory:
Salience = (E x V) divided by (S x T)
E stands for Expectancy; the chance the outcome will happen with a pleasing result while V stands for Value or how pleasant the outcome is. If you offer me a hot fudge sunday or a root canal, I will choose the hot fudge sunday. There is a very high probability that I will enjoy the Sunday (the value of E) and the value of the sunday to me is also high (that would be V). Basically, I will choose something I feel I will enjoy. I know I will not enjoy a root canal no matter how hard you try to convince me otherwise.
S stands for Sensitivity to Delay. How willing are you to wait for a positive outcome? T stands for Time or how long the delay will be for the result. If I am impatient for a result, then I would have a high sensitivity. This is why people join health clubs and quit within 90 days. They are impatient with the lack of results (S) because it is taking too long (T).
Motivational research tells us that people who have the shillyshallies generally doubt their or others performance abilities, have lower self-esteem and have higher levels of fatigue. They do not believe they can (low expectancy), do not think they are worth the effort (low value) and do not have the energy anyway (which means they will not tolerate waiting very long for the outcome. They do not have the endurance).
Here is how it works. You have a dull, throbbing pain in your knee that comes and goes. You have had it for years. Yet, you have chosen to do nothing about it even though you talk about it weekly. Why?
Self-esteem means to hold your self in high regard. We tend to take care of the things we love. I know people who take better care of their automobile than they do of themselves. Disregarding messages from your body is one form of low self-esteem. As hard as it may be to accept, you do not care enough about your own knee to take action. If your knee were a friend, it would have abandoned you years ago for lack of interest.
Your expectancy is low. The outcome you desire is for your knee to quit hurting but thus far it has not. You do not expect it to because you have no reason to think otherwise (Freud said it best in 1925 in his paper on Negation. We first deny reality, choose the worst scenario then seek evidence to support the choice) and the pain is not yet bad enough. You choose things that you can more easily obtain over things that require more effort. Every choice has a pay off. You choose to talk about the pain instead of taking another action because it pays you back in some way that you value (percolate on that one for a while and I believe you will find it to be a truth).
If you have the shillyshallies, it's time to shake them. Today. Not tomorrow. To shake the shillyshallies, the first step is to accept you are your most important asset. Remember, we care for the things we love and love is a choice not a feeling. Second, to raise the salience, think about the pay offs. What are you choosing to do instead? Why? What does it give you? A temporary, warm glow that fizzles with the first rain? Fight the temptation to run from the truth. Look at it straight in the eyes and say it out loud. "I choose to watch TV because it's easier than reading with my daughter and I'm tired and I need a break". That would be the truth and how does it sound to you? Still want to watch TV?
Oddly, the shillyshallies, as with nearly every human dysfunction, is an intergenerational and a transgenerational one. We pass it on to our children and they to their children. Why? Because the dysfunction is subconscious. We do not even know we have it until you read something like this essay when suddenly you feel the resonating chord in your soul and silently whisper, "That's me." And if you are unaware, you will never change it. And so it goes...
Make today a shillyshally shaking one.
Doug Kelsey
Author. Teacher. Therapist.
