Procrastination can lead to a lot of negative feelings including hopelessness and helplessness. At the root of it, procrastination is this compulsive need to avoid things you know are important. You feel out of control when you continuously put off doing something with the intention that “tomorrow will be better” and yet things never change. With the increasing demands on our time and attention, there seems to be an increase in procrastination as a chronic problem, especially among those people that want to succeed the most. Procrastination usually sets in when you feel overwhelmed by all the have-tos in 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 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 what really happens to you, and what really happens to you is a mental process and independent of the circumstances and events of the outside world. Being empowered means that you realize that you already have the power and this realization also gives you the ability to take action. Here are five empowering procrastination tips that can help you to reach this realization and become empowered to effectively deal with procrastination and inaction
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 realization that it’s you that is doing it to you gives you the power to do something about it.
It's All You:
When procrastination drags you down it’s all too easy to think that it just is and that you can’t do anything 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 you can’t do anything 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.
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 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.
It's All about conditioning:
Success at anything in life relies on 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 is that this principle works both ways. Whether your conditioned responses support you or whether it pulls you down, your nervous system does not make that 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…
It's All about awareness:
Procrastination does serve a purpose – and a very important one as such, but only if you are 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 would not bother you, right? Be grateful for procrastination and use it as a guide to know what you need to act upon. Being aware of this fact, and developing an awareness of what you do and fail to do can empower you to be in charge of yourself on a much higher level.
Being empowered means that you have control over the situation, regardless of what’s happening on the surface. Even if it may seem like you have no power when calamity hits, there is a part of yourself that allows you to transcend these challenges. Procrastination is disempowering and it takes away your ability to take immediate action and deal with any situation. Always remember that you are ultimately in charge of yourself. Tomorrow will be today tomorrow. Don’t delay. Act!
