What can you do if you've tried all the usual tips to stop procrastinating and still had no success? If YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH of starting new projects, usually with buckets of enthusiasm, thinking this time things will be different; only to find yourself right back in that place of inaction, feeling defeated and totally frustrated yet again, then it's likely you've been misinformed about how to deal with this problem. Fortunately the three steps I'm about to share with you will have you turning this around in no time at all. Follow and commit to these steps and not only will you learn how to stop procrastinating forever, but you will find it possible to achieve all those important outcomes in your life which till now you have been struggling to make happen.
What is Procrastination? People procrastinate when they put off activities that could and, in many cases should, be done now. Procrastinators defer the activities until a later time. The term does not apply to people who have two equally important things to do and must pick one to do first. Rather, it applies to people that have tasks or activities with clear priorities and put off the most important task or activity needlessly for the purpose of delaying it.
Take the right action.If you've taken action before without getting long lasting results then it's very possible the action you took was not appropriate. For instance to stop procrastinating you may have gotten more organized, broken larger projects down into more manageable pieces, reasoned with and rewarded yourself, as well as tried to make unpleasant tasks more fun.Nothing wrong with the strategies mentioned if your goal was to be more productive generally, but ineffective for ending procrastination in the long term. Possibly it may have appeared as if things were improving when you took these actions, but this would have just been temporary masking of the condition. It's a bit like telling a manic depressive to go and see a funny movie as a cure. It's simply not going to do the job, just as being more organized won't stop procrastinating. I'm not suggesting procrastination is as serious as manic depression but it's not nearly as simple as being disorganized, overwhelmed or distracted either.
To be successful you have to deal with the underlying way in which procrastination works. You procrastinate because of the way you are wired biologically. Everything you do in life is driven by your desire to gain pleasure and avoid pain. You will also do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. So if you link any pain with taking action, even in order to gain pleasure, your association with the pain will stop you from taking action and you will procrastinate.To stop procrastinating there's no point in focusing on the pleasure you will get from achieving your goal instead of the pain to get there because you already know your drive to avoid pain will always win. Rather you must compare the pain you link with taking action to the pain you will feel if you don't take action.
One of the most common reasons why people procrastinate is perfectionism. These people are so afraid of making a mistake that they avoid doing the task at all. Their way of thinking is that if they don't do it, they won't have to face any mistake that they have made.Fear is another reason why people procrastinate. If someone is put outside their comfort zone, they avoid it. An example of this would be asking someone to write a speech to give in front of a group of people.
Then I asked her to tell me what came to mind when she had to exercise. She told me it was hard, she hated being out of breath, was sure people were laughing at her and she didn't want to have painful muscles the next day. No wonder she couldn't stop procrastinating! Like all of us, she is wired to avoid pain first, so even though she wanted to lose weight to experience all the pleasurable benefits she had given me, skipping the exercise because of the pain she linked with it was the greater motivator. I asked her to tell me what would happen if she didn't exercise. "I'll stay fat." she said. "What will that mean?" I asked. She said she would continue to feel unattractive, her clothes would cut into her skin because they were too tight, people would snicker behind her back whenever she was out to eat and she would possibly get diabetes. I wanted her to stop procrastinating so I asked whether she would rather experience the pain linked to the exercise or the pain linked to staying fat. There was no hesitation. The pain linked to staying fat would be far worse and more permanent.
She agreed that whenever she felt tempted to skip exercise from then on she would immediately interrupt that pattern and focus her thoughts on how it would feel to stay fat versus how she would feel doing exercise. I knew if she could do this that it would cancel out the debilitating pain she linked with exercise and she would STOP PROCRASTINATING. Last I heard she was still exercising every day. If you follow the above process you too will be able to determine the right action to take to interrupt your own procrastination habit. Review your results and act.Once you have spent some time approaching your situation differently you must notice whether you are getting different results. Are you procrastinating less, maybe completely? If so you will have found a way that works to help you too and you will know what to continue doing. But what should you do if you have followed these three steps and you have still not found a way to stop procrastinating?
So to stop procrastinating we must first set goals in our lives. We need to figure out what it is that we want to achieve, and then make a list of goals. They need to be realistic goals that we can achieve. If we set them too high we are setting ourselves up for a disaster.After we set our goals we need to commit to doing them. That is the hard part, but if we can understand that we are procrastinating and why, it will be much easier to learn to stop procrastinating.
What is Procrastination? People procrastinate when they put off activities that could and, in many cases should, be done now. Procrastinators defer the activities until a later time. The term does not apply to people who have two equally important things to do and must pick one to do first. Rather, it applies to people that have tasks or activities with clear priorities and put off the most important task or activity needlessly for the purpose of delaying it.
Take the right action.If you've taken action before without getting long lasting results then it's very possible the action you took was not appropriate. For instance to stop procrastinating you may have gotten more organized, broken larger projects down into more manageable pieces, reasoned with and rewarded yourself, as well as tried to make unpleasant tasks more fun.Nothing wrong with the strategies mentioned if your goal was to be more productive generally, but ineffective for ending procrastination in the long term. Possibly it may have appeared as if things were improving when you took these actions, but this would have just been temporary masking of the condition. It's a bit like telling a manic depressive to go and see a funny movie as a cure. It's simply not going to do the job, just as being more organized won't stop procrastinating. I'm not suggesting procrastination is as serious as manic depression but it's not nearly as simple as being disorganized, overwhelmed or distracted either.
To be successful you have to deal with the underlying way in which procrastination works. You procrastinate because of the way you are wired biologically. Everything you do in life is driven by your desire to gain pleasure and avoid pain. You will also do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. So if you link any pain with taking action, even in order to gain pleasure, your association with the pain will stop you from taking action and you will procrastinate.To stop procrastinating there's no point in focusing on the pleasure you will get from achieving your goal instead of the pain to get there because you already know your drive to avoid pain will always win. Rather you must compare the pain you link with taking action to the pain you will feel if you don't take action.
One of the most common reasons why people procrastinate is perfectionism. These people are so afraid of making a mistake that they avoid doing the task at all. Their way of thinking is that if they don't do it, they won't have to face any mistake that they have made.Fear is another reason why people procrastinate. If someone is put outside their comfort zone, they avoid it. An example of this would be asking someone to write a speech to give in front of a group of people.
Then I asked her to tell me what came to mind when she had to exercise. She told me it was hard, she hated being out of breath, was sure people were laughing at her and she didn't want to have painful muscles the next day. No wonder she couldn't stop procrastinating! Like all of us, she is wired to avoid pain first, so even though she wanted to lose weight to experience all the pleasurable benefits she had given me, skipping the exercise because of the pain she linked with it was the greater motivator. I asked her to tell me what would happen if she didn't exercise. "I'll stay fat." she said. "What will that mean?" I asked. She said she would continue to feel unattractive, her clothes would cut into her skin because they were too tight, people would snicker behind her back whenever she was out to eat and she would possibly get diabetes. I wanted her to stop procrastinating so I asked whether she would rather experience the pain linked to the exercise or the pain linked to staying fat. There was no hesitation. The pain linked to staying fat would be far worse and more permanent.
She agreed that whenever she felt tempted to skip exercise from then on she would immediately interrupt that pattern and focus her thoughts on how it would feel to stay fat versus how she would feel doing exercise. I knew if she could do this that it would cancel out the debilitating pain she linked with exercise and she would STOP PROCRASTINATING. Last I heard she was still exercising every day. If you follow the above process you too will be able to determine the right action to take to interrupt your own procrastination habit. Review your results and act.Once you have spent some time approaching your situation differently you must notice whether you are getting different results. Are you procrastinating less, maybe completely? If so you will have found a way that works to help you too and you will know what to continue doing. But what should you do if you have followed these three steps and you have still not found a way to stop procrastinating?
So to stop procrastinating we must first set goals in our lives. We need to figure out what it is that we want to achieve, and then make a list of goals. They need to be realistic goals that we can achieve. If we set them too high we are setting ourselves up for a disaster.After we set our goals we need to commit to doing them. That is the hard part, but if we can understand that we are procrastinating and why, it will be much easier to learn to stop procrastinating.
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