Overcoming Procrastination

Overcoming Procrastination

Procrastination is the biggest success killer out there and it is something I struggled with for many years until I finally worked it all out and kept my procrastination at bay.

I believe that procrastination is made not born. It is a habit and like any other habit it can be broken. Telling a chronic procrastinator just to get on with it is like telling a heavy smoker to just stop. It’s not going to happen. You have to understand why you are doing it.

People will always do things that are fun, easy and important to them. They usually put things off that are difficult, uninteresting or damn right boring. Some things can frighten us, are complicated or can even be distasteful to us. You have probably been in situations where you have felt inadequate or not up to the task. It is this kind of irrational fear that you must tackle. Procrastination occurs when you experience emotions that you don’t want to feel when you are thinking about doing something. We are all products of our own thoughts – so controlling your thoughts is the key to conquering procrastination.

When we procrastinate we make excuses to ourselves. How stupid is that! The most common causes of procrastination are fear, low self esteem, perfectionism, underestimating the time you have to do something, indecision, distractions and letting the past rule your future.

So what can you do?

The most important thing of all is your attitude towards doing something. I said before that we are what we think and you need to keep this uppermost in your mind. It’s all about converting from “must do” and “have to” to “want to” and “will do”. OK you are about to approach a task that you don’t even know how to start. You are instantly filled with fear as this is important and needs to be done. If the thought you have in your head is “I’ve never done this before and I don’t know where to start” change this to “I really want to crack this so what can I do to make a start” This will kick your subconscious into action and it will start to give you ideas. It will also calm you down which is extremely important. By replacing the negative thought with a positive one will neutralize any bad feelings you have, and enable you to focus on the solution instead of the problem. By focusing on the solution your subconscious will kick in and help you find answers. If you focus on the problem your good old subconscious will give you more reasons to worry about it, and strengthen procrastination within you to ease the pain.

I have used these thought neutralizing methods for some time now and although I still get feelings of procrastination occasionally these days it always works and I amable to break through it.

I have just relaesed a new audio program called “Murdering Procrastination” which hasn’t been released to the public yet. When I do release it in September it will be priced at $49 but you can get it for free just by registering at the self improvement giveaway site here:

http://www.selfmiracle.com/recommends/117SelfImprovementGifts

Enjoy

Sledge

Posted on July 28th, 2007 by Sledge
Filed under: Self Help