Stopping Your Success – Procrastination
Procrastination is an avoidance of a task that needs to be accomplished, people often avoid starting or completing an important task because of their negative emotion towards the task; guilt, anxiety, inadequacy or fear of the unknown.
Procrastination can stop you being successful
Many people avoid success, because they put obstacles in their own path, sabotaging their own efforts. This can include small task such as not paying bills on time, missing opportunities by not using a gift voucher by the use by date, leaving the Christmas shopping until the last minute.
You may be reading this and thinking “it’s not too bad leaving your shopping to the last minute or not using a gift voucher..” and I would add it’s not about missing just one opportunity, it’s about self-regulation which doesn’t mean procrastination is about time management, it means procrastinators is about your decision making strategy.
If you have a negative decision making strategy that you use throughout your personal life and your career, you will fail to gain any success
A life Coach can help achieve success
A person with a positive decision making strategy will feel good about their decisions, starting and finishing task, learning from any mistakes and having a positive approach to starting new opportunities.
Procrastinators often say:
- “I will do it tomorrow”
- “this isn’t important at the moment”
- “I work best when I’m under pressure”
Even thought procrastinators use these statements all the time, they often wake up the next morning without wanting to start yesterday’s task, they still feel the task isn’t important and they don’t work well under pressure. Instead they look for distractions and more excuses.
Procrastination will believe:
- If they ignore a task, it will go away
- Lesser standards are acceptable
- They can complete large task in a small amount of time
- Substituting a lesser task for an important task is acceptable, saying to themselves that the lesser task also needed completing
- Minor delays are harmless – so I can repeat them
- Spending more time on part of the task is important then completing the whole task on time, or dramatising the commitment to the task rather then starting the task
Overcoming Procrastination:
- Make a list of what makes putting something off painful for you – why do you hate putting tasks off
- Make a list of the benefits of starting a task straight away, why does it feel good when you get things done quickly?
- · Put yourself in a positive state, remember a time when you felt good, when you were feeling really keen to get on with things
- · Do the task NOW if possible don’t put it off
- · Be honest with yourself – if you can only spend a certain amount of time on task, admit it, as this stops GUILT
- · Brain storm what you need to do and how you can achieve it
- · Set Goals and reward yourself when you achieve them
- · Prioritise task
- · Start with an easy part of the task
- · Break any task down into manageable steps, allowing yourself enough time to complete each step or stage
- · Address any problems as they arise – get help from others when needed
- · Be reasonable with yourself, don’t think all task can reach ‘perfection’
- · Continue to start task straight away, with everyday (and all) activities, as repetition will turn your new positive decision making strategy automatic
By following these steps, putting yourself in a positive mood, breaking down each task into easy to manage steps and starting with a small task straight away will help you to quickly overcome procrastination, once you use these strategy for all task in your life and career you will soon see the difference in your attitude and how others view you
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