Self-worth theory: the key to understanding and overcoming procrastination | Nic Voge | TEDxPrincetonU

Nearly 80% of college students report that procrastination is a significant issue for them. Procrastination is not a matter of mere laziness; the solution is not simply better time management. Could it be that procrastination is actually a highly effective strategy for self-protection, and that’s why we continue to do it? In this talk, Nic unravels the surprising and perplexing motivational dynamics underlying our procrastination that so often lead to disengagement and burnout. Illustrated with examples drawn from two decades of coaching students, he introduces the self-worth theory of motivation, a powerful research-based conceptual framework for understanding and overcoming procrastination, avoidance and over-commitment.

Dominic (Nic) Voge is Senior Associate Director of Princeton University’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning and author of “Life Beyond Grades.” His work focuses on helping students truly thrive and achieve a sense of well-being, not only academically but in all realms of their lives. Nic is a founding member of The Resilience Consortium, the Princeton Perspective Project and Principedia - initiatives designed to deepen engagement and learning among students. He maintains a private consulting and coaching practice.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx.

About two decades ago,
when I was a PhD student at UC Berkeley,

I found myself in a seminar
taught by a psychology professor

who was renowned for his research
on self-worth theory,

on motivation, teaching and learning.

I'd no business being there;

it had nothing to do
with my research interests,

but I found it had everything to do
with my academic life.

What I learned in that seminar

and in the myriad of discussions
over the last two decades with Marty

has been a real gift to me.

It changed my understanding
of the human condition.

It made me think back
to those 20 years before that in school

where I'd mastered the craft
and art of procrastination:

the mind games,

the rationalizations, the justifications -

anybody know about these?

Oh, some experts in the room.

And so that gift is something
that I'd like to share with you today,

at least some of that.

This quote captures a certain perspective,
a way of thinking about procrastination,

lots of ways to approach it.

We can think of it
as a bad habit, for instance,

but I want to ask you to consider
more deeply, to introspect, look inside,

and look for the deep
motivational roots of procrastination

so that we can overcome that
and flourish and truly thrive

in our lives and in our work
as teachers and as learners.

So my hope for you is
that you'll take away from this talk

a very different understanding
of what procrastination is.

And this is important;

it's not just how we think about it

in terms of conceptual
frameworks and theories,

which I'm going to teach you,

but also to understand it
in a different ethical or moral sense.

I want you to think
that procrastination isn't shameful.

It's not a sign of weakness.

It's not a flaw.

It's actually pretty predictable.

It's something we can really expect

if we understand
the dynamics of motivation

and the circumstances
under which it arises.

It's not surprising that we see
procrastination a lot at Princeton

because you can't spell procrastination
without P-R-I-N-C-T-O-N.

Anybody notice that before?

So what is about a circumstance,

a place like Princeton
or colleges in similar circumstances,

that leads to procrastination?

Well, one is that we're highly selective.

And schools, all schools, evaluate us.

So it's an evaluative environment
where it's competitive.

We're often competing with one another.

Often, there's limited rewards
and recognition.

More people want A's
than can reasonably expect to get them.

In those circumstances,

we can fully expect that people
will seek to protect themselves,

the meaning of not getting that reward,

the meaning of not getting
that recognition

for their self-concept
and their self-worth.

It's not just the grade
that's on the line.

It's more than that, and I think
as we introspect, we realize that.

So today I want to explain that,

and, again, I want that
so you have an idea,

but I want you to apply it
to your own life

as I've applied it to my own.

Whether you're a teacher
or a student or a parent -

all of this can be helpful

in understanding the dynamics
that happen in schools and around schools.

So I want to tell a little story,

and if you procrastinate,
this will be a familiar scenario for you.

So here's the setting.

It's 11:00, you're in your dorm room,
and you have a paper due in a day or so.

And so, it's been
a kind of long, busy day,

maybe not too productive.

So you sit down at your desk,
you open up your laptop

to get started to tackle this paper,

and then you think,

"I'm going to check my email,
just for a minute,

get that out of the way."

Anybody ever done that?

So 45 minutes later,
you've checked a lot of email.

You've done a really good job of that.

But now you realize,
"You know what? I'm pretty tired.

I'm kind of exhausted,
as a matter of fact.

You know, tired, exhausted -
not conducive to writing a good paper.

What do I need?

I need to go to sleep.

Yeah, that's what I'll do.

I'll go to sleep, get rested,
wake up tomorrow refreshed,

tackle that paper, ready to go."

So what do I do? I set my alarm.

I feel kind of bad, so I overcompensate:
I set it especially early, right?

to make up -

(Laughter)

You're thinking right now,

"How did he know? Does he
have a camera in my dorm room?"

(Laughter)

This story's about me. That's how I know.

And so I wake up extra early -

or I shouldn't say I wake up extra early -
the alarm goes off extra early,

I hit the snooze,
and while I'm laying there,

I think, "You know, the whole point
was to be refreshed, and I'm not.

I'm tired."

Not only do I hit the snooze again,

I turn off the alarm
because I need some sleep.

Because if I'm going
to be productive, I need my rest.

And so time passes.

I wake up an hour before my first class,

and I think, "You know what?

That's not quite enough time
to get started on this paper.

What can you get done in an hour?"

So what I start to do, I think to myself,

"You know, I have that thing to do;
it's really important.

I need to do it now.

And I really just need something
to cross off on my to-do list

so I can feel that satisfaction."

Sound familiar?

So I knock that off my list
just in time to get to class.

I have a full day, maybe
a little longer lunch than I should have.

That conversation
in the hallway goes a bit longer,

and I find myself back
in the same spot, at the same time:

it's 11:00, and I haven't done
anything toward my paper.

So now, not only have I not made progress,

I'm behind, and I feel
pretty bad about myself.

But nonetheless, I know what I have to do:

make that sprint
into the wee hours of the night

to finish this paper.

And at some point, I just say to myself,

"You know what? I just
have got to get this done

because if I don't, that's bad.

The humiliation of not completing it

is worse than not writing the best paper
my professor has ever read."

So what leads to these dynamics?

We could look at the surface level,

but I want to look more deeply,
what's going on underneath.

And self-worth theory
of achievement motivation

gives us a tool for doing that.

So self-worth theory asserts,
or posits, first and foremost

that the paramount psychological need
that all of us have

is to be seen by ourselves and others
as capable and competent and able.

So in a school environment, that means
we need to be thought of as smart:

as good at math if that's our identity,

as the excellent writer,

bound for science.

If we're a valedictorian,
we come to expect that.

So self-worth theory says

we need to be seen
as capable and able and competent.

That's what we need to do.

And because it's the primary
paramount need,

we will actually sacrifice
or trade off other needs

to realize or achieve or meet that need.

And that's where procrastination comes in.

So here's a way of thinking about it

that kind of captures
some of the dynamics,

a simple model.

Now, first I want to say
that this is a model of people's beliefs

about performance and ability,
self-worth, achievements.

I'm not saying that this
is how we should be;

I'm saying that this is what
we've discovered through research.

Basically, we have
this kind of simple model in our head

that my performance determines
my ability for the most part.

Effort has a role in it,

but ability, my innate capability
and skill and knowledge -

excuse me, not knowledge -

my innate skill at doing something,
largely unchanging,

that's what determines
my achievement level, my success.

And those achievements,
those successes or not,

determine my sense of self-worth,
how I think about myself.

So in a sense, then, these things
become equated with one another.

So people who are
particularly fearful of failure,

people who procrastinate a lot -

I put myself in that category,
at least in the past -

have a kind of simplistic
equation in their mind.

Their performance is equal,
or equivalent, to their ability,

which is equal, or equivalent,
to their worth,

their self-worth as a person,
as a human being.

So we go from a grade on a test
to ourselves in the world

and to the people we love and care about,
our teachers, our friends.

So with that understanding,

we can see how procrastination
isn't just a matter of a habit,

"I don't like this activity
or this assignment."

"I never liked physics
although I'm a physics major."

That's probably not the case.

Often, people procrastinate
about things they love.

They're fascinated by physics,

but when it's 11:00,
and the piece is due at midnight -

you're not loving that.

You're just trying to get it done.

So it's important to understand

a couple of things about procrastination
in this simple model.

One of them is that we can't simply forego
the opportunity to achieve.

We can't just pick easy tasks and say,

"Well, I've achieved.
That's great. I feel good."

So what this model shows
is a key insight from self-worth theory.

We used to think, in psychology,

that if you really wanted
to achieve, say, for success,

then you would not automatically
really want to avoid failure.

But in fact, that's not the case.

So not one dimension, one spectrum;
there are actually two.

You can approach a task,
really want to do a task,

and at the same time
really not want to do a task.

You can want to succeed on it;

you can also really fear
failing on such a task.

So these are actually
two different dimensions.

And many people at Princeton,
and at Berkeley,

where I used to work and where a lot
of this research was done,

actually are high on both dimensions.

We really, really want to achieve.

It's very important to us; we're driven.

Maybe you've heard that word
used to describe you.

But we're also fearful of failure
and what it means.

So we have two sources of motivation.

So, in fact, procrastination,
in many cases, and the cause of that

is we're overmotivated.

We're overly striving
both away and towards something.

And that's what we've learned,

that procrastinators

are actually not less motivated
than the average person,

although that's what they say

or "I'm lazy" or
"I don't have time management."

Those are really not typically the causes.

What it is is a feeling of stuckness,

two countervailing forces:

we are driven towards success
on the one hand,

but we are strongly
and powerfully motivated

to avoid failure on the other.

And we feel this stuckness,
these countervailing forces.

And many people describe procrastination
as being stuck or against a wall,

an obstacle they can't get over.

Does that sound right to you?

The phenomenon of it:
what does it feel like?

We are often agitated.

We can't sleep, but we can't work.

Right?

So we have these countervailing forces,
and we're unable to move forward.

Until some moment
where we have this insight,

and we say, "If I don't start now,
I won't get this done."

And the fear of not getting it done -

I see the nod -

exceeds the fear
of doing less than perfectly

or to an exceptional standard

or to as good as I did it last time.

Because those of us

who are perfectionists and procrastinate,

we've often excelled
at high levels in the past,

and we can begin
to internalize those standards

and feel that we must meet them each time.

It's important, then,

that we come to think about
procrastination in different terms.

So self-worth theory

looks at procrastination
with just a different lens.

So a common way that we hear
procrastination discussed

is as self-sabotage.

We're handicapping ourselves;
we're sabotaging ourselves.

You can see from
a self-worth point of view,

it's not self-sabotage;
it's self-protection.

We're trying to protect ourselves,

our sense of our self as able
and capable and worthy human beings.

And we're willing to sacrifice
our performance to do it.

Because self-worth
is the paramount human need.

Make sense?

I want you to think
about procrastination,

think about procrastination
actually as a strategy,

a really nearly perfect strategy
for protecting ourselves.

If we procrastinate on a task
that we value and care about

and then we don't achieve very well
at a high level, if we fail,

we have a built-in excuse.

Right? "I couldn't have achieved that,

I only had two hours
before the exam to get ready."

And you hear people doing that.

Think about when you're standing outside
of the lecture hall before an exam,

what are people saying?

"I only studied three hours."

"I only studied two."

"Yeah, my computer froze;
I didn't get a chance to do that."

Everybody's explaining
how they're not ready.

Why?

Because if they don't achieve,
they have this built-in excuse,

not only for themselves but for others.

But it's a brilliant strategy
because if you succeed -

you get that A on that physics test -

then you can conclude,

"I'm really smart.
Smarter than I thought I was.

I thought I needed three hours;
I only needed two."

So procrastination
as an avoidance strategy

is nearly perfect in its outcome
in protecting our self-worth,

even as we jeopardize our performance.

We increase the chance
that we're going to need that excuse.

Right?

But we have it ready.

So what our preparations
and these tests are testing

is not so much our knowledge and our skill
but really our brinksmanship,

our ability to pull off stuff
at the last minute.

If that's not the definition
of a Princeton student,

I don't know what is.

(Laughter)

How do we overcome procrastination?

What a lot of us to do is we try
to talk ourselves into getting started

by saying, "If I don't do this,
I'm not going to get into med school."

"Oh, this is going to harm
my GPA, my transcript."

We're actually increasing fear.

And there's not a surprise
that it doesn't really work very well.

There's actually some counterintuitive
other kinds of strategies

that we're going to recommend.

So there's three broad categories.

There's many, many, many more,

but these three come from,
or really follow from,

self-worth theory in particular.

So I want to underscore these.

I want to do so first by talking about
developing awareness.

We know, from the research
on procrastination and overcoming it,

that gaining knowledge, being aware
of self-worth theory and these dynamics

helps people overcome these things.

To understand the roots of procrastination

helps us weaken it.

We know where it comes from:

"Ah, I can be aware of and see
these dynamics happening in front of me."

But another kind of awareness

is to gain awareness
of what we're feeling.

What do approach motives
feel like versus avoidance?

We know when we're cleaning
the fridge in our dorm room

the night before the final exam

that that's procrastination.

But there are other times
it's not so clear.

Is checking your email procrastination?

Is studying or doing the task
on the low-important item on your list -

is that procrastination?

A lot of times it is.

So the more we know,

the greater awareness we have
of our tendencies and our motivations,

we're more likely to overcome them.

So we want to cultivate a stance,
an observer's stance,

and say, "What does this feel like?

What am I experiencing?

What am I thinking?"

So that we can then actively choose
what we want to feel and think

and what we're motivated by.

And these next few strategies
tell us how to do that.

So the first one is to learn
how to tip the balance

away from avoidance motivations
toward approach motivations.

So a lot of people think,
"I'm not motivated to do this."

Often, that's not the case.

It's simply that their fears dominate
or overwhelm their approach motives.

There's a reason
you signed up for that class.

There's ideas you want
to take away from,

skills you want to learn.

There are benefits beyond school
of doing well on this activity.

But we're not thinking of that.

They're not in our minds,
and so they don't affect us.

Motivation can only operate on us
if we're thinking of it or feeling it.

Because that's the nature of motivation.

So how can we bring them
back into our consciousness?

How can we shift or tip the balance
toward approach motives?

We can stack them up;

we can think of all the reasons
why I want to do this task.

That's not to pretend
there aren't reasons not to;

it's simply so those come to predominate
over these reasons I might avoid.

So what are some ways of doing that?

I'm going to show you an example of my own
so that you can see that.

That says, "TEDx."

This is my motivational to-do list

because, believe it or not, I was scared
when I was getting ready for this talk.

I was anxious.

Am I going to blow it?

Is it going to look bad?

So what did I do?

I started writing down the things
I wanted to keep in my mind.

First, I wanted to think about this
as an opportunity

and as a way to experiment.

So I wasn't thinking,
"Hey, this should be perfect.

It's an experiment -
I'm going to try it out."

It's a little different way of talking.

It lowers the expectations
and it lowers the stakes.

Another thought was,

"You know what?

Maybe I can see this as not about me

but as a service
to the Princeton community.

I'm helping people."

For me, my motivational profile,
that motivates me,

takes the pressure off me:

I want to be helpful.

A third idea that was
really important for me was,

to tap into a deep, abiding,
enduring motivation was,

How does this fit with my mission?

So I see my purpose in life,
my mission in my work,

is to reduce suffering,

specifically of students

so that they can be more engaged
in their academic work, in their lives,

and to thrive and flourish.

And, in fact, that's a reminder
that I have on my phone,

and every day, I see it:

"Reduce suffering."

Another idea was to make it small
so it feels manageable, right?

My thought about the whole thing:

it felt too big.

This may be familiar.

We say, "Slice it up into pieces."

But make it small
to make it feel manageable.

And so I started to do that.

One way I did that was
instead of writing out the whole script,

maybe I can make a very simple outline,

and that gives me a sense of the whole.

So those are some techniques
that helped me overcome,

not entirely - I'm still
pretty nervous right now -

but to get moving, to get started,

to make progress.

And to enjoy it so much more.

The last way we can tackle procrastination

is by really challenging this equation
that we carry around in our head:

it's flawed.

Right? Our performance
is not equal to our ability.

There are lots of times

when our performance was less
than our capacity to perform.

It's simply not representative.

Sometimes it's another way round.

Some of you had good
reputations in high school;

you got an A when you didn't deserve it.

So either way, that breaks
the A and the P association.

But more importantly, your ability
is not equivalent to your worth.

Think about the people you love
and who love you,

people you value and care about.

It's not because of their GPA
or their transcript.

That is not the case.

Our worth derives from our human qualities
of kindness, thoughtfulness

and our vulnerabilities,

which might be thought of as a weakness.

So I want to leave you with one thought

from Nelson Mandela.

And he said,

"May your choices reflect your hopes
and not your fears."

This is absolutely approach-avoidance
motivation theory, right there.

Can we be motivated
by those things we aspire to,

not by pretending we don't have the fears

but despite them?

Thank you.

(Applause)