Procrastination is a confidence drainer. Usually when one procrastinates it is because they do not want to challenge something they fear. Procrastination never goes away but you can alter the way you deal with it. Do you often find yourself with great intentions, and yet find it difficult taking any action? Well, as you probably have noticed by now, no amount of your intentions will ever give you deep satisfaction or fulfillment unless you align them with concrete action.
The longer you procrastinate, the less likely are the chances of any of your intentions ever seeing the light of the day. Procrastination has been known to bury the best of good intentions, because of its insidious characteristics which can eat away at you. Procrastination is avoiding or delaying important tasks and activities for work that has a lesser degree of importance or has no importance at all. Procrastination is not only a time waster; it also kills efficiency and ruins deadline management.
Overcoming procrastination and building your self-confidence is a combination of working on your mind set and taking action steps consistently. Working on both is the most powerful and effective way to see dramatic results in your confidence level.
● Few things that make us procrastinate are not even important if we look at it take for example;
We take out our laptops to do a very important task and then just leave to brew a cup of coffee or make a tea.
When we are just about to start our work, we end up going on a social networking website or end up checking our emails unimportant messages.
Right when we are starting, the telephone rings and we tend to speak for longer than required killing maximum minutes.
To avoid the harder tasks, we do the easier and smaller ones first, which are comparatively not as important as the hard task at hand.
Switch on the TV and start scrolling aimlessly through the channels.
Some of us even stare out in space for long even that seems more interesting than work!!
If any of the above situations seems familiar to you, you are definitely a part of the community called ‘procrastinators’.
My Personal Story
In my own experience with procrastination, my mind comes up with elaborate excuses to put off something and I believe it. But as time goes on I start to feel powerless and less capable of doing what I set out to do. My fears grow bigger and I become more lazy and fatigued about taking action steps.
Somehow what I originally wanted to do become much scarier than it did when I first set out to do it. I was listening to the radio the other day and the preacher said “when you confront something that you fear, usually once you take an action step it is not so scary anymore and the obstacles that were in your way before disappear.”
A lot of what causes procrastination is your mind and what it says to you which you are probably not even aware of. Unless you choose to focus on your mind thoughts and learn to let go of disempowering thoughts you will be slave to them, walking around unconscious not having much control over your life.
●What I have found to be a really good tool for overcoming procrastination is to take action steps right way.
The faster I act around the areas I have fear the easier it is to accomplish and do more. I also make quick scanning through my lecture notes to get prepared for the next day. That way it does not give them too much time become too bulky. You may think well what if I want to do something that takes a lot more than one action step.
For example, you may want to go back to school. Start with one step such as looking up different schools and getting some applications. Maybe you want to start your own business, research existing similar businesses and talk to self-employed people.
These actions will get you out of procrastination and create more opportunities for you to pursue your goal.
Here’s an example from my own life; I used to feel fearful and resistant to following up with my bulky lecture notes. I had fears they were too large and i would miss the information and won’t be able to remember them on the examination day. I would put off opening them for so long that it would get so bulky and I start having some many fearful scenarios running through my mind. I started to read them right after every lecture before I let them pile up and my mind talks me out of. I would always say to myself before the opening “what is the worst thing that can happen? I may not understand at the moment but I have senior colleagues who can put me through I can do this. My confidence would boost after I read the lecture notes and I would feel so proud of myself. Now I have little or no fear around calling prospects because I use those tools.
You may have thought, well that sounds easier said than done. It actually is pretty easy once you get started. Here’s what I do in my own life and teach to others: when I want to do something that I am scared of, my mind starts to think disempowering thoughts, I simply acknowledge the fear and that I need to take an action step right away. If not I will become a victim of an unsupportive thought pattern.
Another thing I do is if it requires continues actions I get support from others by telling someone what I intend to do and ask them to hold me accountable.
My life has always been full of passion and intentions which I constantly fuel from my inner being. Because I know exactly where to draw my passion from. This allows me to create abundance, immense joy and love which I can share in delight with others. I do this best by clarifying the purpose of my intentions and carrying out the purpose with excitement. Thus I enrich my life with vigor as I enrich those of others I live my vision by fully owning my intentions. Aligning your intentions with actions is partnering with the source of life and stepping forward. Taking actions is breathing life into your passion and expanding your world to become the reality you know it can be and decide it to become.
Invest the time in YOU. Get to know what excites you, what ignites your soul and makes you come alive. When you are in alignment with your true self, your intentions will naturally begin to align themselves with a life of pulsation and dynamic action.
The following tips can help you get out of your head and move you into action.
- Get very clear on your intention and the results you want.
- Ask for inner guidance and use your intuition to discern the right course of action for you.
- Make a binding promise to yourself to get things moving the soonest possible. If you wait until everything is fully planned out, you will never start.
- Give full attention to the result you want by fuelling it with passionate details.
- Fire your soul with strong uplifting emotions of joy and determination to empower and inspire you.
- Get out of your head by breaking down your action plan into easy to manage steps, in order to keep your spirits up and momentum going.
- Engage the support of one or two other persons- this could be a mentor, a coach or someone else appropriate to keep your focus and accountability.
Know this; the strength of your intentions is only as good as the action you’re prepared to take on a regular basis. Every intention is preceded by a thought. Your thoughts create your emotions and your emotions can prompt you to take the appropriate action. Provided you use them right.
Before you can back up your intentions with action, the first thing to do is to examine the intention. Do you absolutely want to carry it out and you are excited about doing so? Your answer to these questions determines the seriousness of your commitment to follow your intentions through with the necessary action.
Once the reason of procrastination can be identified, then there are ways to cure it too. Now to deal with these issues, mental co operation is key you have to prepare yourself mentally that are going to give your best to get over your procrastinating habits, which eventually deal to stress at last moment uncompleted deadlines.
The best ways to do is mental notes and speaking out your deadlines in front of dear ones. Through this you would be able to make a jot down list right when you’re starting your day and ending it too. For example, if I do my own laundry and pay some of my bills two days from now, I will plan my activities accordingly and make sure I don’t end up hanging out with my friends or going to movies thinking I will get done with my chores later. Keep reminding yourself that this task is important and its consequences would be unfavorable, such as an angry mom for delayed chores
So, step by step, it can be summarized as identifying why you procrastinate. It can due to lower level of interest in the activity, or no intrinsic satisfaction being derived through that work. Or even feeling that the task is way too complicated and should be left to be done later. As you understood what drives you to delay your work, get down on dealing with how to avoid it. If the work is boring and unsatisfactory, then think of making it enjoyable through several things. For instance, play your favorite music while doing it, so that you enjoy that time. Or reward yourself on the completion of that task. Or think of the consequences you will deal with if the work is not done.
Tasks which seem way too difficult to be completed can be done by making parts of it. As the tasks are broken down into simpler, smaller steps, it seems easier to go about and get done with it. The step by step process also holds a sort of sense of achievement as you simply go through up the ladder completing each small part of it.
Your assignment for this week:
Getting past procrastination is about being honest with yourself, acknowledge where you have been procrastinating. Remember that this is not OK with you because it leaves you feeling empowered and you want to build your self-confidence. Recognize that taking immediate action steps toward the things you fear is one of the best ways to prevent and stop procrastination.
Pick one area where you have been procrastinating in your life and commit to taking three action steps over the next week. Tell at least one person in your life about the three action steps you committed to taking. Ask them to hold you accountable by following up with you and supporting you.
Here are some quotes to get you on your feet;
“To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.” ~ Syndey Smith
“So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.” ~ Lee Iacocca
“A primary reason people don’t do new things is because they want to do them perfectly – first time. It’s completely irrational, impractical, not workable – and yet, it’s how most people run their lives. It’s called The Perfection Syndrome.” ~ John-Roger and Peter McWlliams