Rethink Procrastination in 5 Empowering Ways to Reach Your Goals

One of the most destructive effects of procrastination is the fact that it makes you feel out of control. Procrastination is like an ‘invisible force’ that keeps you from doing the very things you know you must do. Increasing demands on our time and attention  seems to add to our procrastination tendencies to become a chronic problem. Procrastination usually sets in when you feel overwhelmed by all the ‘have to do’s’ in life. There are different kinds of procrastination. What they have in common is that they hinder you from of making steady progress and finish tasks on time.

Feeling out of control takes away all your power to shape and direct your own life. It’s true that there are many things over which you have no control, but you always have full control over what really happens to you – and what really happens to you is a mental process independent of the circumstances and events of the outside world. Being empowered means that you realize that you already have the power, and this realization also gives you the ability to take action. Here are five empowering procrastination tips that can help you to reach this realization and become empowered to deal with procrastination and inaction.

It’s all Inside
Procrastination is an internal process and although it might feel like it’s happening to you, you are in fact responsible for it. Procrastination is not an external force, but an internal response and evaluation. The simple realization that it’s ‘you’ that are doing it to ‘you’, gives you the power to do something about it.

It’s all you
When procrastination drags you down it’s all too easy to think that ‘it just is’ and that you can’t do anything about it. Although it feels like you have no control, you actually do. In fact, this is why you feel out of control – because you believe that you can’t do anything about it. There are two very important beliefs you need to develop to help you break free from procrastination. The first is that you CAN overcome procrastination and the second is that YOU can overcome procrastination. No one else can do it for you and because you created it, you can un-create it.

It’s all in your head
The reason why most people remain stuck in patterns of procrastination is because of fear. At the most fundamental level, all forms of procrastination come down to fear. What you don’t face controls you. To overcome the fear and the procrastination that comes with it, you need to confront and do the very things you don’t want to do. The instant you do, you take charge, and it no longer has any control over you. The ironic thing is that fear only exists in your imagination – it’s always something that hasn’t happened yet. Procrastination is not real – it’s only the way you evaluate things in your mind.

It’s all about conditioning
Success at anything in life relies on consistency. The best of the best at anything are those who can repeat their greatness consistently. The way you get consistent is through conditioning. Your nervous system operates through conditioning. When you do something repeatedly it becomes ‘normal’ and when it’s normal you don’t have to think about it – it becomes automatic. The challenge is that this principle works both ways. Whether your conditioned responses support you or whether it pulls you down, your nervous system does not make that distinction. If procrastination is your conditioned response, you will always feel out of control, simply because that’s what you’ve ‘learned’ to do automatically. You need to ‘recondition’ yourself to a new response; to teach yourself to respond in a different way.

It’s all about awareness
Procrastination does serve a purpose, and a very important one as such, but only if you are aware of the benefits. We only procrastinate about those things that have value to us. At some level, either directly or indirectly, you believe that taking action will benefit you. If it didn’t it would not bother you, right? Perhaps we can be grateful about our procrastination, because we could use it as a guide to ‘know’ what we need to act upon. Being aware of this fact and developing an awareness for what you do and fail to do, can empower you to be in charge of yourself on a higher level. 

Procrastination is disempowering and it takes away your ability to take immediate action and deal with any situation. Become curious about the reasons why you procrastinate? What are the underlying beliefs you have? What feelings are involved when you are procrastinating? Where in your body do you store those feelings? How do you feel when you have completed the task? Always remember that you are ultimately in charge of you. 

Photo by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash