Stop procrastinating
Stop looking for things to "line up" and for other's approval
This post is going to be pretty raw today. I spent most of my life either waiting for approval from others or for “everything to line up”. What is this? This is fear of the unknown and letting other people and circumstances control how you go about your life.
I would like to think that more often than not, procrastination is linked to a lie based on our identity and purpose. I feel like when I’m writing about this topic, I am only really addressing a symptom and not getting to the real underlying issues. But lets look at this logically for a moment and try and address this procrastination.
From first hand experience to overcome procrastination I have tried to follow all sorts of ways to reduce it in my life, but for the sake of keeping it simple I am suggesting you try these 3 things first:
Identify it!
Recognise it for what it is based on!
Take action!
The first thing is identifying it, the second thing is recognising that it based on a lie, third take action because you know it will stop you living a raw life.
I wish I had applied this several years ago and have only recently discovered how to overcome it.
Identifying Procrastination.
From Britannica the meaning of procrastinate: “…to be slow or late about doing something that should be done : to delay doing something until a later time because you do not want to do it, because you are lazy, etc.”
Put in simple terms we can easily identify procrastination as you putting off something for any number of reasons including laziness, excuses or lack of interest. There could be an underlying hesitancy to get something done, because you’re unsure or because you don’t feel like you have the resources at hand. Or any number of other reasons.
An example I can share from my own life is delaying meeting with my wife every week to discuss our business, finances and household. Every time I put this off and I don’t make it the #1 priority for that day it comes back to bite me. Or another example is my hesitation to tackle a project for my business or launch a product. I have plenty of other examples.
One of the other examples was related to writing content and articles. I was so focused on getting the right information to people and making my articles sound as professional as possible that quite often I gave up. I have a stack of unfinished, half written articles and ideas. The best advice someone gave me is that you can just write like you speak and readers will understand you better and find it easier and probably more enjoyable to read. Once I grasped this concept I changed my approach to writing content that was straight from the heart and only had a slight filter through my head.
Recognising the lie
Before I mentioned that most procrastination is caused by a lie and now I’m going to unpack this a little bit.
When approaching any task in life there are several statements we live with everyday including:
“I’m not good enough”
“I’m not capable”
“No one values my work”
“This will be too hard”
“I don’t where to start”
“I can’t be bothered”
…
The list goes on and are personal to you and your journey. We are always going to be faced with these, but if you are able to recognise that all of these types of statements are connected to our identity and how we see ourselves, our purpose and abilities you will overcome most procrastination issues.
When we say or think any of the above statements we see it as lying to ourselves mostly. We are not being true to who we are and our identity and purpose. That is a whole topic in itself , trying to get to the root of your who you are and why you were put here on this planet at this particular time.
Another category that I’ll call “over commitment” are where we have actually said Yes to something that we deep down know we should have said "NO” to. Someone recently reminded me of this and it made me reflect on areas I had said Yes to, but couldn’t commit.
Start replacing the lies with truth. You are good enough for this task, you are capable and you can achieve! It takes a long time to break old habits, but once you have started to change your mindset from failure into a growth mindset you will start to see a massive change.
Take action
Nothing overcomes procrastination better than action. Even if you do something and it doesn’t turn out 100% this is better than achieving nothing. Also take responsibility for your area and if you can’t do something due to a skill limitation then either learn that skill or ask someone else to help and/or do it for you.
If you enlist another person to help you and let them know you are struggling with procrastination, I have found this works wonders. Quite often sharing your struggles with the right people who are more than willing to help solves half the problem.
There are plenty of resources I have used to take action. One of them is focus on one thing at a time and block out all distractions. Another tool is setting an appointment to do something in a calendar. And yet another is setting smaller achievable goals, that may or may not be linked to a larger goal. Bit sized chunks are way more satisfying as you get the feeling of having achieved something.
For now these are my thoughts on procrastination and look forward to feedback and hearing stories from others how they manage it.
Footnotes:
Procrastinate definition: https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/procrastinate