As humans, we are all hardwired to seek out the easy way to do pretty much anything that needs doing. Seriously, the pandemic ain’t the only reason that ordering your groceries online became a full-blown thing. And hey, I’m right there with ya. Give me a genius life hack to somehow make some task easier & I. Am. There. For. It…
NOT EVERYTHING COMES EASY
Unfortunately though, there’s not a “here’s a way to make this easier” hack for everything. That my friends, is the unsexy truth about procrastination…there’s no quick fix. It takes work. That is the only way to put an end to a habit that you don’t love so much. Hard work. Yes, I said habit. Procrastination is a habit. You are not a procrastinator, you simply have a habit of procrastinating. Like I always say, words matter. So stop talking shit on yourself. You are not a procrastinator, but you have developed the not so great habit of procrastinating. Major difference.
And it’s up to you to replace that habit with one that will benefit you instead of holding you back from whatever it is that you want.
THE TRUTH ABOUT PROCRASTINATION…AND BEING A GROWN UP IN GENERAL
I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid I seriously could not wait to be a grown-up. All of the magical awesomeness & sparkly unicorns that I could ever want were just on the other side of legal adulthood. I just knew that being able to eat all of the Hostess Ho Ho’s whenever I damn well pleased was going to be the best thing EVER.
While it’s true that I certainly could eat all of the Ho Ho’s if I so desired, what no one told me about adulthood is that with great power comes great responsibility. Spiderman got that advice, but I sure as hell didn’t. So imagine my surprise when I realized that no one was in charge of me…but me. That unexpected fact of life is true of pretty much everything in adult world. Including procrastination.
No one, and I repeat, no one is going to force you off the couch & into action. The truth about procrastination is that nobody else particularly cares if you get your thing done. Sure, if it’s work-related you’ll probably at some point have your boss on your back, but still…getting the thing done is all on you. Because you are a grown up.
With that being said, I want to share a pretty useful procrastination habit busting strategy that I picked up from one of my current favorite motivational humans, Mel Robbins. You can watch a short 3 minute video on the topic here.
- Trigger (stress) ~
When it comes to procrastination, some sort of stress is always the trigger. The stress of having too much to do, the stress of worrying that you’ll fail, the stress of having to stop your Nine Perfect Strangers marathon (okay, maybe that’s just me), but you get the idea. Stress is what triggers procrastination & since it’s not going anywhere procrastination is one habit that can’t be changed through removing/altering the trigger. - Pattern of behavior (avoiding the “thing”) ~
With procrastination, this is where you break the habit. Because like I said, in this case the trigger, stress, is kinda like a bad rash that pretty much never goes away. So you have to disrupt the pattern. How? First, recognize & acknowledge the stress. Then, interrupt the procrastination habit pattern by counting backwards slowly from either 5 or 3. The act of counting backwards itself forces the brain out of the pattern. When you hit 1, do just one little teeny tiny piece of whatever it was you were putting off. Just start. Once the task is started, believe it or not, the majority of people will keep on going. - Reward (stress relief) ~
Instead of the activity you do to procrastinate being the reward, now the reward is the stress relief that comes from actually making progress on whatever the thing was you were avoiding. And the momentum you create by actually getting started continues to provide the reward that you need to keep going.
I’ve tried it & this strategy has been effective for me…the girl who used to be the self-proclaimed master of procrastination. So, the next time you catch yourself getting caught in the procrastination cycle just stop, acknowledge, interrupt & start. Give it a try & let me know if it works for you!
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