What challenge or task are you putting off today for tomorrow?
Its no surprise that you along with 95% of the population will put off completing a challenge/task today in hopes of completing it tomorrow. Tomorrow, 20% of you will find another excuse so that you could put off addressing your challenge/task for another day. In fact, if you are among the 20% of the population that experiences chronic procrastination, you have tons of excuses to justify why tomorrow is better than today. Excuses such as: I don’t have enough time to successfully complete it today—I’m not feeling creative enough—I work better under pressure.
There are many studies on chronic procrastination--some studies show that procrastination is a behavior associated to perfectionism, while other studies show that procrastination is a behavior a person experiences if they fear success.
Procrastination is known to be a mechanism for coping with anxiety when having to start or complete any task or decision. For the purpose of this article, I will focus on the 20% of the population that experience chronic procrastination.
When a known procrastinator is faced with a challenge/task, they evaluate their capabilities, their level of confidence, and how successful they feel they will be in completing the challenge/task. If they lack confidence in self, or fear the outcome of the challenge/task, they are more likely to push out the date as far as possible. This is why New Years Resolution are made and just as quickly broken.
Often time decisions are made without proper forethought. A procrastinator is eager to be involved in many challenges/tasks, at work or at home, so that they can prove to themselves and those around them that they can be successful, proving their self-worth. Unfortunately, this impulsive behavior further strengthens the procrastinators mind set, creating new doubts and fear, while their level of confidence continues to drop.
Any distraction is a good distraction for a procrastinator whose level of anxiety continues to rise with each passing day. Emails, research, anything they could deviate their attention to so that they don’t have to think about what they agreed to do—whether it was an agreement made with self or to somebody else they feel possess authority, like their boss, parent or even their spouse.
With no confidence, negative self-talk and the fear of the outcome sets in-- you might or might not be consciously aware of it-- your inspiration and motivation did not come knocking today, but you hope that tomorrow will bring you exactly what you need so that you can kick-start the task at hand--your anxiety level rises as you divert your attention again.
Are you born with the procrastination gene or is procrastination a learned behavior?
Perhaps procrastination could be tied to a gene, or maybe it could be tied to your childhood and your immediate influencers. Perhaps you grew-up in a controlling environment where you were unable to develop some of the key essential life skills such as internalizing your own intentions and learning how to act on them. Maybe you rebelled against your parents during your teens not wanting to relinquish control.
6 Steps To Overcome Procrastination:
1. Write all the challenges/tasks you’ve been putting off for the fear of failure
a. Work Projects
b. Losing weight
c. Setting personal goals
d. Accomplishing house projects
2. For each activity you are afraid of completing, ask yourself the following questions:
a. What am I afraid of?
b. What outcome do I fear most?
c. What can I do to change the outcome so that it will be in my favor?
3. Create a plan
a. Breakdown your plan into manageable chunks
b. Create small tasks for each chunk
4. Replace negative habits with positive habits
5. Complete one task each day
a. Check mark the completed task in your plan
6. Monitor your progress within your plan as you build
a. Motivation
b. Confidence
c. Self-esteem
To learn more about Master Life Coach, Toronto Native Bruno LoGreco, visit www.brunologreco.com
5 comments:
I almost always never procrastinate ... tho sometimes I sit and think about not doing something .... for a long time
:-Daryl
i was going to work on my procrastination but think maybe i will wait until tomorrow.....
;-)
storm
To raise awareness that your own procrastination exists is a key step. Once you admit something inside, you recognize it exists and then, get mentally prepared to go through the process of change if you so choose.
I do procrastinate and have often wondered why. What you say is really interesting - thanks for the food for thought.
Sometimes the odd task will get us thinking - what's the point of doing this... It's normal Daryl :)
Did tomorrow come storm?
Once a person becomes aware of their procrastination, they are more likely to want to make the necessary changes mentally to address the task that they have been putting off - Thanks Liara!
Your very welcome gonebacksouth.
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