Procrastination can have many negative effects on your life, but one of the most destructive effects of procrastination is that it makes you feel out of control. Procrastination is like an ‘invisible force’ that keeps you from doing the very things that you know you must do.
With the increasing demands on our time and attention, there seems to be an increase in procrastination, especially amongst those people that want to succeed the most. Procrastination usually sets in when you feel overwhelmed by all the ‘have to’s’ in your life and instead of making steady progress, you take on too much without ever getting any of it done.
Feeling out of control takes away all of your power to shape and direct your own life. It’s true that there are many things over which you have no control, but you always have full control over how you perceive what really happens to you.
Your reality is a mental process independent of the circumstances and events of the outside world – it comes from within you.
Being empowered means that you realise that you already have the power and this realisation also gives you the ability to take action.
Here are five empowering tips that can help you to reach this realisation and become empowered to effectively deal with procrastination and inaction:
Tip 1: It’s all inside
Procrastination is an internal process and although it might feel like it’s happening to you, you are, in actual fact, responsible for it. This procrastination tip can help to put you back in control almost immediately. Procrastination is not an external force, but an internal response and evaluation. The simple realisation that it’s ‘you’ that’s doing it to ‘you’, gives you the power to do something about it.
Tip 2: It’s all you
When procrastination drags you down, it’s all too easy to think that that’s just the way it is, and that there’s nothing that you can do about it. Although it feels like you have no control, you actually do. In fact, this is why you feel out of control – because you believe that there’s nothing that you can do about it.
There are two very important beliefs you need to develop to help you break free from procrastination. The first is that you CAN overcome procrastination and the second is that YOU can overcome procrastination. No one else can do it for you and because you created it, you can un-create it.
Tip 3: It’s all in your head
The reason why most people remain stuck in patterns of procrastination is because of fear. At the most fundamental level, all forms of procrastination come down to fear.
What you don’t face controls you. To overcome the fear, and the procrastination that comes with it, you need to confront and do the very things that you don’t want to do. The instant you do, you take charge and it no longer has any control over you.
The ironic thing is that fear only exists in your imagination – it’s always something that hasn’t happened yet. Procrastination is not real – it’s only the way you evaluate things in your mind.
Tip 4: It’s all about conditioning
The root of success at anything in life is consistency. The best of the best at anything are those who can repeat their greatness consistently. The way you get consistent is through conditioning. Your nervous system operates through conditioning. When you do something over and over again it becomes ‘normal’ and when it’s normal you don’t have to think about it – it becomes automatic.
The challenge we can face is that this principle works both ways. Whether your conditioned responses support you or whether they hinder you, your nervous system doesn’t make a distinction. If procrastination is your conditioned response, you will always feel out of control, simply because that’s what you’ve ‘learned’ to do automatically. You simply need to ‘recondition’ yourself to a new response; to teach yourself to respond in a different way.
Tip 5: It’s all about awareness
Procrastination isn’t all bad - it does serve a purpose, and a very important one. But only if you’re aware of the benefits.
We only procrastinate about those things that have value to us. At some level, either directly or indirectly, you believe that taking action will benefit you. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t bother you.
Be grateful for procrastination, and the lesson that it’s giving you, and use it as a guide to ‘know’ what you need to act on. Being aware of this fact, and developing an awareness for what you do and fail to do, can empower you to be in charge of yourself on a much higher level.
When you’re empowered you’re in charge, and even if things seem to go wrong on the surface, underneath you know that you have the power to deal with them effectively. Procrastination is disempowering and it takes away your ability to take immediate action and deal with any situation. Always remember that you’re ultimately in charge of ‘you’. Don’t delay. Act!
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