Have you ever heard these quotes?  “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well.” –Mark Twain. “Procrastinate now, don’t put it off.” –Ellen DeGeneres. Or some of these sayings?  “I work better under pressure.”  “I’ll feel more like it later.”  “I still have plenty of time.”  Instead of giving in to these sayings, we will investigate how to avoid that dreaded procrastination. 

Why Do We Procrastinate? 

The number one enemy that is working against people is procrastination.   So why do we procrastinate?  The main reason according to psychologists is because of self- criticism.  We can say unkind things to ourselves and let our thoughts dictate our actions. Have you heard words like I won’t be:

• good enough
• smart enough
• brave enough
• able to succeed

What Is Procrastination?

• It is intentionally delaying what we know we should be doing. I know I should cook a healthy meal, but I am tired and exhausted. So rather than preparing that meal, I will order take-out and read a book.
• It is creating things for yourself to do so that you can do those things to feel productive. You know what you need to do but want to avoid it because it is hard, painful, frustrating, or takes too much time and energy. So rather than preparing a healthy meal, you look at social media or emails.  We allow ourselves to engage in trivial activities because we lack the intention to make the meal.
• We let non urgent activities fill our time, we get distracted on the goal. We have too many things on our plate, and it lessens the importance of making a healthy meal.

It’s easier to move towards the path of least resistance and towards what is convenient and comfortable.  Picking up the phone and ordering Uber Eats is easy.  

Discipline

Discipline is a dominate tool for achieving our goals.  Discipline is doing the things you know you should be doing even when you don’t feel like doing them. That is a powerful definition and if we can create the habit of discipline, then we can achieve anything.   

We can make the hard path to our goals seem effortless.  It is all in our minds and the self-talk or narrative we say to ourselves.  Instead of saying this task is exhausting and takes too much effort, we need to reframe our mindset and what we say about the task.  We all have challenges and some of these challenges we would prefer to avoid.  However, procrastinating usually makes it worse.  We do get to choose how we react to our challenges.

A rule to think about is that difficult short-term choices lead to easy long-term consequences.  So, if I am uncomfortable in the short-term then I will reap the benefits and rewards in the long-term. The opposite of this statement is also true.  If we procrastinate and think about the easy short-term choice, this can lead to hard long-term consequences.  It may be harder now but easier in the long term.  We make the sacrifice now and it has an impact on the long-term success.  In other words, we take the time to make the healthy meal, we feel good about ourselves, and set ourselves up for a healthy lifestyle.  

So, to answer the question of how to avoid that dreaded procrastination, we change our mindset, self-talk, and find the discipline.   Do the hard work up front and now, to reap the future rewards.