You'll Know Victory When You Overcome Procrastination

Give Up Procrastination

When tasks feel overwhelming or provoke anxiety, they are often avoided. Women put off tasks because they do not believe they will enjoy them and want to avoid making themselves unhappy, or fear they will not do the tasks well.

Definition from Oxford Languages https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

Procrastination is a barrier to self-improvement.

You will start the diet tomorrow. You will set boundaries after this next family vacation. You will change your negative habits when you have more money, time, or a better life situation. Procrastination becomes your habit.

When you realize how it happens you can replace it with a better habit. This is the key understanding to help us overcome procrastination and other obstacles that life brings us.

“Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem,” said Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor of psychology and member of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Procrastination is fear dressed up. You do not embark on a self-improvement course because you fear that you will fail. You do not like getting your hopes up for naught, so you do not do anything.

Maybe you are worried that you will become the object of criticism or that you will get spurned by those you care about if you alter something about yourself. If you give in to procrastination, it means you are leaving your success story on the back burner.

You might think you are not making a choice one way or another, but you are. Not making a choice is a choice. So that point that you want to better yourself? Stop pushing it off.

Your lack of action is eating away at your self-confidence. It undermines your success, and you were meant for more in life than what you have allowed yourself to have.

Do you know why you procrastinate? It is because of wherever your focus is. When you focus on why you cannot change things or why it might not work, you see hurdles the size of mountains. Instead of focusing on all the ways the change will make your life better, you see possibilities.

People sometimes procrastinate due to their tendency to engage in self-defeating behaviors, which means that they actively try to sabotage their own progress.

There is a variety of ways to stop procrastinating:

Define your goals - Be sure the goals are significant enough to persuade you to make meaningful progress.

Make a to-do list - A tool to overcome procrastination is designing your future actions ahead of time.

Take baby steps - Another way to make tasks easier to get done is by breaking them down into small, actionable pieces.

Eliminate distractions - Turn off gaming and social media apps on your phone and laptop. 

Celebrate - Reward yourself after achieving a goal or making progress, no matter how small.

Practice self-compassion - treat yourself with kindness and understanding. 

Enlist external help - work with someone who will help you create your goals and hold you accountable.

Use those tips to leave your procrastination habit behind once and for all. By overcoming your tendency to stall, you can improve your mental and physical well-being. 

"Go move your mountain!"- Tamara Lowe