Feels like there's a block between me and doing my work- is it normal?

Me three..

Autisician said:

if I don't fully believe in something I can't seem to commit to it regardless of who told me or needs me to do it.

This is insightful......definitely me too, on this point.

Would breaking down the task into component parts help, asking questions of the question stuff like that? If I was stuck with an essay I found this approach helped, some questions are really badly set and leave you looking at them and thinking 'eh'?

There two kinds of "stuck" for me ,

1. A delay or pause, Like I'm trying to drive off and the handbrake is on (I believe this to be autistic inertia)

2. Some kind of demand avoidance, if I don't fully believe in something I can't seem to commit to it regardless of who told me or needs me to do it.

Sometimes changing my view on why I need to do something helps, rather than thinking " boss told me to" , think "I won't be able to pay the mortgage if they sack me" for Example.

When someone figure it out let me know! 

Same for me as well.

Damn, if it's not "learned behaviour" then it is less likely to be fixable.

1. Demand avoidance and ADHD paralysis come to mind.

Not true, in my case, tbf.

Thinking about it a bit more, once you discover that try as hard as you might (with a good heart) you simply CANNOT meet your parents demands (Our primary role model for "Authority") then demands become "not real" and MUST be rejected as "madness" or impossible!!

You might the following info of help:

https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/demand-avoidance

miztwizted said:

Is this normal? This feeling of there being a block between wanting to work ane actually doing it?

Yes - for me this is my normal reality.  Frustrating, isn't it !  Pathological Disablement Actually.

There is nothing that I haven't been able to complete and submit....although it is sometimes a M O N U M E N T A L struggle to do so (with a correspondingly long wait to get it done).... unless, of course, the people for whom I am submitting the work loose patience and faith in me.  Generally, this latter scenario isn't common because my work-output is pretty niche in it's focus and execution......ie when it is finally done, it is almost always met with acknowledgement of it's inherent value and uncanny insight.

I suffer from either this, or something (very similar) myself. 

In the bad old days this was considered to be a major character failing, called "idleness", or "sloth", and a severe beating was often quickly administered to the child exhibiting it, in order to teach them "Self Discipline", along the lines of "find a way to get that done, or another beating will happen" and many children learned very quickly.

I did not find that I had much of that "self discipline" so I caught a lot of beatings as a child, and missed out on a lot of opportunity as an adult.

I've found some specific situations and workarounds that do work, such as "keeping ones eye on the prize" you may have to cross that barbed wire fence, but if your attention is focussed on WHY you are crossing that fence and what you expect to get at the end of it, you are less likely to focus on the fence itself. 

Let's see what the others have to say, but I'm inerested in working this problem with you, as I really need to get more or teh right stuff  done, and less "displacement activity"...

Some peoeple here will/may have solved the problem... IF we are lucky.