The Muslimah's Momentum Part 1- From Pause to Purpose

Ever found yourself dodging the harsh realities of your responsibilities, all in the name of avoiding discomfort? Join us on Muslimahs In Motion as we unpack the murky depths of procrastination and its sneaky impact on money management. This episode sheds light on the emotional rollercoaster that procrastination often entails, particularly within the realm of budgeting and spending habits. By acknowledging the emotional roots—beyond just poor time management—that drive procrastination, we can start transforming denial, guilt, and shame into actionable steps towards self empowerment. 

Balancing the joy of life's pleasures with responsible financial habits can feel like walking a tightrope. We tackle the struggle head-on, from the guilt of declining brunch invitations to the dread of facing unpaid bills. For those of us who are neurodivergent or grapple with emotional regulation, the challenge is even greater. Together, we explore personal insights and practical advice on maintaining a budget, cultivating self-awareness, and embracing honesty. The journey isn't about perfection; it's about progress and learning to confront financial realities with grace and accountability.

Chapters

• 0:00 Overcoming Procrastination
• 8:36 Navigating Procrastination Triggers and Solutions

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you ever found yourself reorganizing your entire closet just to avoid writing that important email? Or maybe suddenly you've developed an intense interest in learning origami when you really should be preparing for a presentation, like I'll have something scheduled on my calendar to be done by this date and this time, and the closer that deadline gets near, the more I seem to have to do. Yikes, and it gets frustrating. And then you tell yourself, well, I work better under pressure, so it's fine. I'm going to be quite honest with you, sis you don't work better under pressure. Things happen, life happens, and while there's nothing we can do to change that, the least we can do is prepare for it, the best we can. Salaam everyone and welcome to Muslimism Motion Professional Pursuits. I'm your host, hawa, and here we celebrate the achievements of young Muslim women while exploring strategies to balance the life you dream of with the life you're living today.

Speaker 1: 1:00

In this three-part series, we're diving deep into a topic many of us struggle with but rarely discuss openly procrastination. We'll explore how being honest with ourselves and holding ourselves accountable, all while extending grace, can help us overcome this particular challenge. In this part, part one, from pause to purpose, we're going to discuss procrastination and its true root cause, which might surprise you or not. Let's embark on this journey together. Now, when I think about procrastination, the first thing that comes to mind is money, namely budgeting. So and I feel like this is important to talk about, especially as women, because we're kind of conditioned to not really talk about money about, especially as women, because we're kind of conditioned to not really talk about money, whether it's what we get paid at at work or even our spending habits. We just kind of go through life, frolicking, putting ourselves in the hole, and we don't even realize it. And before you try to say, oh, brother, get off your high horse. I'm only saying this because I experienced this personally and I'm still working on it too a little bit, I honestly I reflect back on times like I would get paid and I honestly wouldn't even look at my account because I was not happy with the money from the bills leaving my account. Like I would see the money in my account and be really happy. And then I get really sad because I realized that money was not going to stay very long Because the thousands of dollars of bills was just going to make it disappear in one second. Or I knew I went a little too hard with the eating out that month, going to one too many brunches and one too many coffee outings, and I was just honestly afraid of seeing the consequences of my actions.

Speaker 1: 2:53

And yeah, it sucks, to be honest with yourself, because the truth is right, we all have egos and we would all love to believe that we're doing fine and dandy in life, especially when everybody else thinks so. So, as a result, you're kind of like living just like little la la land, delusion land and you're like, wow, like everything's great, everything's nice. And then your bank account is whispering from your pocket oh, what about me? And you're just like, uh, except that part, but we're living life, we, we're living a good life. But, to be honest, how are you actually supposed to improve in life when you aren't even really being honest with yourself? Are you going to live your life in false ignorance? Is that what you want? Would you rather let the void of guilt and shame grow and grow and consume you, because that's what's going to happen, not to scare you, though Obviously not trying to scare anybody but unfortunately, with these things, if you just ignore them, you don't magically get better, as much as we like to convince ourselves, and perhaps we all know this deep down inside. But regardless of that, you still have to face your problems. You have to face your mistakes and learn from them and grow.

Speaker 1: 4:08

So I want you guys to think and reflect on your life. Is there a thing, something or anything really it doesn't really have to be finances that you feel like you regularly push to the side under the guise of, oh, I work better under pressure or oh, you know, I can't really look at this right now or focus on this right now because something else has come up. Oh, I got to go do this thing, I got to go to work, I got to go to this thing, whatever, I want you to take the time and really be intentional. Let's think about and recognize these things and if you know, bad feelings of guilt and shame come up, just let them. Don't ignore them, but don't necessarily let them consume you either, but just feel them fully and allow these feelings to actually feel you right. We got to convert that negativity into actions that will actually bring positive impact to your life. You know, instead of allowing ourselves to sit in a negativity and, you know, almost beat ourselves up, basically, for you know, oh, why am I not good enough? Why am I doing this? I'm screwing up, so I might as well just keep. You know, let's not do that right. We got to turn these things into something that actually benefit us. Now how will we do that? We're actually going to discuss that in a little bit. So take a quick pause and actually think about the things that you know you're pushing away.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Now a lot of people believe that procrastination comes from poor time management or simply a lack of discipline. Oh, you just need to try harder. Or people might tell you oh, you just don't care enough, you need to give a darn about what you're doing. But that's actually not the case. You know. There's actually research and other empirical evidence that tells a different story. So procrastination is actually often rooted in emotional dysregulation. So how are you saying a lot of big words Like what does that even mean? Let me explain. So all I'm trying to say is procrastination is not whether or not you can do the thing or you don't care, or whatever it is. It's simply the feelings of shame and disappointment and sadness and guilt in yourself just really block your brain from allowing you to be great. So, whether it's ADHD, maybe certain mood disorders or simply just having a higher emotional sensitivity than the average person, when we have a hard time coming to terms with our negative emotions or just even processing them in general. Sometimes even the simplest thing like checking the mail or organizing your mail can just be a lot.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Now let's swing back to our previous example of financial shame and procrastination. Yes, we are not letting this go. Okay, so we're going to keep going. Financial shame, procrastination. So you don't want to look at your bills, you don't want to look at the transactions you've made in your bank account. You're just kind of ignoring, going through live, not checking the app, not reading your bank statements that they send you in the mail, nothing. You don't look at the notifications that your bank sends you when you spend money cash app you don't look at it. You're just living life. You know so the shame and feelings and bad, sad feelings that you were, we were just talking about. When those feelings even come up for a twinge, like you just feel like certain urge and maybe I should check my account, but then you kind of know deep down inside that when you check that account, whatever you find there is not going to be good. You're going to look for distractions, right? So our brains are going to look for dopamine-filled activities and things to make us and our brains very happy and shove this chain deep, deep down inside our gullets. Yes, I said gullet. If you don't know what that is, look it up. It's just your gut, honestly. Anyways. So, for example, anyways.

Speaker 1: 8:36

So, for example, the girls invite you to brunch. What time? What restaurant? Where are we going? You got invited to a trip to bali. Who needs to check your credit card balance when you are literally riding on elephants but also don't do that because it's not really ethical, okay, who needs to check your credit card balance when you're literally swinging in the trees dog? Let's ignore the growing debt and balances and let's just enjoy life, as they used to say back in the day yolo, there are literally memes about this stuff that you know. The memes where they're like you know you on your last, like five dollars, but then your friend invites you to go do a girl strip. You know, and don't get me wrong, the memes are funny, but the meme needs to stay where it's at, and what I mean by that is that it needs to stay a meme. It does not need to be reality.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Okay, not for you anyways, people who are actually used to being honest with themselves. First of all, before you go out anywhere or do anything, you should have some kind of budget to keep track of what you're actually spending. So, rather than just going through life saying, yo, let's go this, let's go that, let's go eat, let's go, before you spend money, you should have something that's actually keeping track of the money, so then you are able to make a decision whether you have any more money left to spend that you've allotted for that month for that particular thing. For example, you know you're going to spend $200 a month to go eat out and you know you've already spent $190 this month and we only at the 15th. Now that's none of my business, but the only thing is the only requirement is do not spend over $200 for the month.

Speaker 1: 10:06

Okay, you get a text, your friend. She said girl, I found this really great pho place. It's halal, it's 20 minutes away, let's go. And you know at least if you get one pho nice halal chicken pho is gonna cost you $15. Now what is 200 minus 190, 10? You know the pho is going to be $ $15. Now what is $200 minus $190? $10. You know the F is going to be $15, not even including the tax and the tip. Now you know the answer Do you go or do you stay, if you know you can afford it, but how will?

Speaker 1: 10:45

If I say no and then I come to terms with my state of financial despair, I will suffer from the big sad and I will ultimately feel like a failure. This is true, not you being a failure, but yes, you will feel the big sad feeling of shame and regret. Because the truth is, we are so afraid to come to terms with ourselves because we are afraid of that quote-unquote state of failure, and not only that, but the accompanying shame and negativity that comes with that, because we dropped the ball on this one aspect of life. Those of us who are neurodivergent or just have trouble regulating or coming to terms with our emotions might just feel like throwing in the towel altogether. So, for example, because you cannot get a grip on your finances, you feel like, okay, what's the point? I might as well live my life to the fullest, aka continuing my harmful habits and worsening my situation. That's not the answer.

Speaker 1: 11:42

Or because I wasn't able to organize this week's mail, or last week's mail, or even the week before that. Eh, might as well just make my little mail pile the cat is already napping on it anyways. It's not even that big of a deal. If there's a more important mail in there, it'll just. I'll just find it eventually and you don't.

Speaker 1: 12:02

I'm so sorry y'all, but this is simply not the way to operate through life. It is just not sustainable. I don't care if this is how you've gone through life this whole entire time, how long I've been through life, this don't matter. It does not matter. I promise you it's been taking a toll on you in some form or fashion. You just might not even realize it. It's like a catch-22, right. Like you're so unorganized that you don't even realize how unorganized and how deep you really are in right. It's like you're on a ship and it's leaking, and deep down inside you kind of know it's leaking. Like in the distance, far distance. You hear the ship's alarms. You hear the ship's alarms and you're standing on the deck and you're watching as the ship slowly sinks into the water. But then your phone pings and you get a text that says hey, girl, you wanna go to a brunch this Sunday. And then you text back, of course, and then you hop on the lifeboat and paddle yourself to brunch island, leaving the sinking ship waiting for you when you return. Do you want to come back to a ship that is sunken underwater, aka eviction notices, overdue bills, late fees? No, you don't, I don't care if you said, yes, you don't.

Speaker 1: 13:33

Even for myself, I just realized that, as much as it was easier in the short term to just ignore everything and just push all the negativity to the side, ignoring the important things and the urgent things doesn't reduce their urgency or their importance. It just prolongs the time that you actually address them. And it's funny because you don't really realize it until you've stacked up a bunch of things that you kind of just push to the side. Enough, and you realize you push too many things off to the side. And then enough, and you realize you pushed too many things off to the side, and then everything bad is just happening all at once. It just burns you out. And then, when you get burnt out from this and you still got to take care of all the important stuff, you almost feel like procrastinating in it again because you're like oh well, oof yellow, let me go to brunch, let me forget about my problems.

Speaker 1: 14:21

No, when I came to terms with my feelings and started asking myself like okay, what is the pattern here? Why does this keep happening and why do I feel so much shame every time I wanted to look at my budget, or inadequacy or anxiety, every time Like I wanted to plan my meals because I knew it just required making changes that I wouldn't necessarily enjoy. So, instead of just buying solutions or just finding band-aids like subscribing to the newest budgeting software or whatever, I just try to address the negativity and the fear associated with these actions of trying to improve my situation, rather than just trying to make it shinier, which is a temporary solution, doesn't really help with all the poo-poo feelings that you feel. And the thing is right, I think. Just, deep down inside, even though I needed to improve and do better, I just felt like it was easier to just keep doing what I was doing. Not that it would be good in the long run, but in the short term, it was just easier to just convince myself to just look at the app later or change my eating habits next week and enjoy the late night ice cream run now.

Speaker 1: 15:38

And it's hard, right, it's hard coming to terms with the fact that you're honestly betraying yourself and you're doing a future self a disservice. And you're not doing it because you want to suck in the future. You're doing it because your brain is screaming to get away from the notion of discomfort, the notion of suffering now to benefit later. Our brains don't like that stuff. So that's why it's up to us to reframe our thinking and help us come up with ways to just make these things better to deal with in the short term, little by little, so you can ultimately get what you need to get done.

Speaker 1: 16:12

Now, how will we do that? Well, in part two we're actually going to go through some examples for how to do that. So thank you all for tuning in today or tonight or whenever you're tuning in. We went deep into something real, those emotional triggers behind procrastination and realizing that we actually all struggle in many different ways, while it looks different to a lot of different people. We have to understand that, like this part, the why and the how is honestly the most important part to actually tackling the whole procrastination problem and making a change about it. Now the how will be in our next part Muslimah's Momentum, part 2, from Intention to Action. Thank you again for joining me on Muslimah's Emotion, professional Pursuits. May Allah give us the strength to push through our challenges one step at a time. Until next time, stay motivated and keep it moving forward. Asalaamu Alaikum.