may 20, 2023
Procrastination is the habit of unnecessarily delaying an important task, usually by focusing on less urgent, more enjoyable, and easier activities instead. It's how we're wired. We want dopamine hits as often as possible and as easy as possible.
Procrastination is different from laziness, which is the unwillingness to act. Procrastination allows us to avoid things that a big and scary and difficult - note that some of these things we avoid could have AMAZING results for us, but because of the size, challenge and unknown, we avoid and procrastinate.
Due to the above, procrastination can restrict your potential and undermine your career and your important goals in life. This is why I often refer to procrastination as a SABOTEUR, because it causes you to self-sabotage - which it not cool!
Whilst procrastination often gets a bad rep for it's tendency to sabotage us, if you do it, you're doing it for a reason. There's something you're getting out of it... This can be quite confronting, because many people think procrastination is out of their control, or at least, that's what we want to believe sometimes. Unfortunately and fortunately at the same time, procrastination is in your control.
I help clients to uncover what this reason is, before they make a decision about overriding procrastination or not. The following three questions are part of what we work through together.
Read, pause and consider these 3 powerful questions:
1. If you didn't procrastinate, what would be possible for you?
2. If you said "no" more often (and "yes less often), what would that enable you to do?
3. If you prioritised your big goals, what would happen?
I asked these recently in a Masterclass and here's what attendees told me would be possible for them:
- self growth, self improvement
- explore opportunities to create a side hustle and/or passive income
- declutter and organise the house
- more time for myself
- meditation, yoga
- drawing
- read more books
What an incredible list! What about you? What's on your list?
If you need some guidance and support when it comes to overriding pesky procrastination so you can get on with achieving your goals in your life and career, I'm here to help!