Do it Messy, Do it Scared, Do It Unprepared: the ways we get ‘motivation’ all wrong

Do it Messy, Do it Scared, Do It Unprepared:

The ways we get ‘motivation’ all wrong

By: Lexie Beckstrand

(Estimated Read Time: 3 - 5 minutes)

I am in a parasocial relationship with a woman named Christi Newrutzen. I do not know Christi Newrutzen and cannot imagine why I would ever meet her, but she persistently occupies some bit of my brain acreage, and I’m always delighted whenever I see her pop up on my phone (it’s all a very one-sided ordeal). 

I am only one of Christi’s nearly 500,000 followers on Instagram - I don’t use TikTok, but a quick Google search tells me her presence is just as big there. Christi is not an actress or musician; she’s not demonstrating a 12-step skincare routine or proffering advice on how to get a fit bod or dream career. Nope: Christi became a social media sensation for asking and answering one simple question on repeat: “How long does it ACTUALLY take to do this thing?” 

The content is simple: Christi identifies a chore she has been procrastinating on and then documents herself completing it. In a recent post, Christi films herself sitting on top of a massive suitcase. She’s sporting crew socks, a messy bun, and sunglasses. Talking into a long skinny microphone à la Bob Barker (or for the young folks, Drew Carey), Christi tells us that this very suitcase has been an unpacked tripping hazard, a tangible symbol of procrastination on the floor in her bedroom for an entire three weeks since she returned from her trip. Christi then hops off the suitcase, turns on disco music, sets some mood lighting, and gets to work. Total expenditure to unpack the suitcase and put everything away properly? 18 minutes, zero dollars. 

For whatever reason, knowing the punchline to all of Christi’s videos doesn’t make me sick of the joke. I’ve watched her clean out the garage, help a friend update her resume, complete a meal prep for a fancy chicken pesto recipe that would feed her for two weeks, and much more. Guess what? The tasks that looked unapproachable at the outset were all totally (sometimes laughably) conquerable. Christi just needed to get started. 

As an aside: Christi’s content is a masterclass in what behavioral psychologists call ‘habit pairing’. By coupling a task she doesn’t want to do (e.g. unpacking her suitcase) with something she enjoys doing (making content for social media) she is reducing her reliance on needing to feel motivated in order to accomplish something. Unpacking a suitcase? Boring. Unpacking a suitcase to disco music for half a million people on TikTok? Party. 

Why We Procrastinate (even when we care): 

So- let’s talk about what keeps us from ‘just getting started’. Feeling motivated is- like all feelings- only a temporary state. Often, it eludes us when we most need it. When we’re in a motivationless doldrum, procrastination becomes an efficient coping strategy. This isn’t laziness, it’s biology: our nervous systems aren’t wired to account for the big picture. At a physiological level, we are prone to decision-making that prioritizes immediate relief over decision-making that might better benefit us in the long-term. So if a task 

• Is ambiguous (I feel uncertain about how to start), 

• Is emotionally loaded (I feel anxious about not doing this perfectly), 

• requires substantial effort (I feel overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done), or

• Is not immediately rewarding (I feel tired/unmotivated and don’t need to do this now) 

then avoiding the tasks that elicit those feelings is a method of regulation. This is negative reinforcement in action: if walking away from something provides relief, you’re teaching your brain that avoidance = reward. 

The Price of Procrastination: 

Avoiding something distressing provides immediate, short-term relief, but it can also create patterns that have a higher cost. Avoided tasks tend to feel more aversive over time. Your sensitivity to the discomfort of something you avoid tends to increase the longer you avoid it. 

Further, self-efficacy can begin to erode. It may be easier to believe that not only do you not want to do the task, but you may also be incapable of doing it. 

Finally, unfinished tasks often create a kind of background noise or tension that increases cognitive load and contributes to higher levels of baseline stress. 

Creating the Conditions for Motivation: 

Let’s bring this back to Christi, and what I would call the ‘thesis statement’ of her Instagram and TikTok content: action creates motivation. Christi shows us in her videos, time and time again: once you begin a task, feelings of uncertainty narrow, a sense of mastery and competence begins to surface, and then (the most powerful shift of all): dopamine surges when there is any sort of noticeable progress. These regulatory shifts create the conditions for motivation. When your brain associates behavioral action with these rewards, it becomes much easier to just…keep going. This is perhaps best exemplified by Christi’s puzzle post. In a cheeky-but-illustrative jab at her followers, Christi upends a 500-piece puzzle on her dining room table. She films herself, head in hands, staring absolute daggers at the puzzle- as if she’s willing the puzzle to complete itself with her mind force. “When you wait for everything to be exactly, perfectly, just right before starting, this is what you look like,” says Christi (she looks silly). If you’ve ever done a puzzle, you’re likely familiar with the small but significant rush you get when two pieces come together. It probably convinces you to keep sorting through the mess - at least for a little while. But in order to feel that rush, you must pick up the pieces and begin. 

Interventions for your Toolkit 

1. Name the Procrastination Loop: Before you try to “fix” procrastination, it’s important to call it what it is. Labeling emotions is a good way to activate the decision-making part of our brains. Making the procrastination loop a conscious system won’t eliminate avoidance immediately, but it allows us to respond with intention later on.

   • Ask yourself: 

     • What does doing this task bring up for me emotionally? 

     • What discomfort am I trying to reduce? 

     • At what point will avoiding this task feel more stressful than completing this task? 

2. Reduce Barriers to Entry….Aggressively: Instead of making a goal to workout for an hour, write an entire blog post (ahem), or clean your whole apartment, you can say: I’m going to put on my workout clothes, I’m going to write down two ideas I have for my blog post, and I’m going to clear one visible surface in my home. Remind yourself that once you’ve taken a first step on a task, you are allowed to stop. The intervention here is initiating action, not task completion. 

   • Try this: 

     • Identify one task you’ve been postponing. 

     • Define the smallest visible action item on starting this task (as a guideline, this first action item should not take you more than two minutes)

     • Complete that action item, and know that you are allowed to stop after you’ve taken the first step. 

3. Track Starts, not Outcomes: Instead of checking off items once you’ve completed them (this reinforces ‘perfectionist’ thinking), note and celebrate the times you’ve started or made progress on a task. 

   •  Try this:

     • Make one note at the end of each day about things you’ve initiated. If you set small, sub-2-minute goals and complete those, mark them as tasks completed. 

Credit to: @christi.newrutzen (Instagram) 

About the Author

Lexie Beckstrand is a Licensed Professional Counselor who sees clients based in Washington, D.C., and Virginia. As a therapist for couples and individuals, Lexie employs curiosity and unconditional positive regard in her work: she encourages clients to uproot old patterns that no longer serve them and to cultivate a value set that enables them to lead lives with intention and purpose.