WHO'S PROCRASINATING - NOT ME, THEN WHO???

Hey folks,

Welcome to my next blog. It seemed to me that I was procrastinating about doing these blogs and then I thought well since I am coaching myself, I might as well share the insights with you all. Because lets face it, if you think you have NEVER procrastinated, then I'd suggest you are seriously delusional ;)

We have all done it (whether we care to be honest with ourselves or not)!

But the REAL question is, is this a bad habit that is getting in the way for your success???

Research shows approximately 20% of the population consider themselves chronic procrastinators. Whenever I coach clients, 100% of those clients have been procrasinating about their goals or actions. So I would suggest the general public may not be as honest as they could be with themselves!


So what exactly is procrastination? The most helpful definition I can come up with is - a conscious decision/choice to put tasks off to the last possible minute (or not at all) for NO valid reason!

We procrastinate when we put things off that we think we should be focusing on right now, usually in favour of doing something that is more enjoyable and LESS important or that we’re more comfortable doing.

We have all INTENDED to do something and either put it off or not done it at all. Procrastinating is one of the most common negative self-defeating behaviours us humans have. And it is so acceptable in society that it seems to be a behaviour that most of us generally accept in ourselves and others! Furthermore, we talk about it as though it is perfectly natural!!! No wonder only 10% of people achieve true success! When 90% of the herd are happy to reinforce negative behaviours in each other. Think about it!

In any case, continuous patterns of procrastination can be a significant issue for individuals, keeping them trapped in a negative psychological cycle for months, years and I’ve known people to do it for decades!

Procrastination can be on minor things, but more often than not it is the big ticket items which can adversely affect your career and your personal life. It is worth remembering that procrastinating is NOT laziness! Laziness is you can't be bothered. Procrastinating is thinking about doing the task or actually starting to do the task and then choosing not to do it or complete it in favour of something else!

It is also worth remembering that procrastination IS NOT one of the key traits of highly successful people.

Procrastination is a self defeating behaviour, plain and simple! It is more often driven from negative self beliefs and/or trying to act outside of your true values.

Procrastinating creates a pattern of negative side effects such as frenziness, last minute dashes, adrenaline rushes, extra/late hours, stress, whingeing, beating ourselves up, feeling overwhelm, resentful and most commonly guilt. Many of us have unconscious belief systems that need to feel these negative emotions to prove a point to ourselves.

Guilt is the key outcome of procrastinating. Because the feeling of guilt can be quite painful to most of us, we do all in our power to pretend that we are not experiencing it. The best way to do that is to justify our behaviour to ourselves and others by making up excuses (whether they appear legitimate or not). Even if our excuses are based on some element of truth! Making up excuses makes us feel justified, therefore we feel better and therefore in the moment we pretend that we aren't guilty! YAY! PHEW!

But then sometime later we do feel guilty about it. And so we remind ourselves of our excuses to justify ourselves. And the cycle continues over and over again. Do you ever feel like one of them little mice on a running wheel?

So why do we do procrastinate? Sometimes because the things we are procrastinating about are things of little value to us, but big to someone else. Let’s face it, if you REALLY wanted it, you’d overcome your FEAR and just do it!

Sometimes we like to torture ourselves by fantasising about dreams that we would like, but don’t have the courage nor the true intention to do WHATEVER it takes to go after the dream and therefore we let FEAR overtake us! We then end up procrastinating and telling ourselves and others all sorts of stories and excuses to help us feel not too bad about it all!

Procrastination can be triggered for all sorts of reasons. Procrastinating habits and triggers are personal to you! So trying to do blanket tips is not going to work for you for serious procrastination issues or the long term. If procrastination is a real issue for you, coaching may have phenomenal impact on your life.

However, I will provide some generic tips on the next few blogs to help you on your short term quest.

The 7 steps to overcoming procrastination are below. I will discuss these in the next three blogs.

Step 1: Recognise that you're procrastinating
Step 2: Uncover what you are getting out of procrastinating
Step 3: Get clear on your TRUE values
Step 4: Develop a compelling vision and goals
Step 5: Understand the cycle of procrastination
Step 6: Recognise the reasons you CHOOSE to procrastinate
Step 7: Take action to overcome your self-defeating beliefs and behaviours

Stay tuned in a couple of days for Step 1. And trust me, because this is public, I have a huge incentive to deliver and not procrastinate :)

REMEMBER MY MANTRA - Life is not about NOT about finding yourself, it's about CREATING yourself :)