Procrastination is one of the most significant epidemics today against personal and professional development and well-being in general. In this article, you can learn how to overcome procrastination.
If you procrastinate, you do not grow. If you procrastinate, the opportunities are gone. If you procrastinate, your relationships get worse. What is the use of procrastination then, let everything you deserve to escape?
Surely they have already told you many times: you are procrastinating.
And you have gone to Wikipedia and discovered that this word means the classic “leave for tomorrow what you can do today.”
And no, you’re not alone in this either. The vast majority of people procrastinate (more or less, a little or a lot).
However, as much as they explain what it is to procrastinate and tell you that you are doing it, they have not answered fundamental question:
Why do we procrastinate if it gives us such bad results?
How to overcome procrastination?
If you have several tabs open in your browser, you are ready for procrastination. If you want to take a step forward, forget those tabs and find out several steps that lead you to procrastinate.
I am going to give you the 3 GREAT KEYS that lead you to procrastinate, and above all, the different actions that will transform you into a proactive, entrepreneurial person of action.
Are we going for it?
Procrastinating is your master strategy to get away from everything you want and deserve.
FIRST KEY: Procrastinating is not fun
The problem of short-term motivation
Procrastinating is practically an epidemic. We procrastinate because, in part, we defend procrastination.
We believe that procrastinating is fun and that it supposes “personal freedom,” or in other words, it is a way of “flowing.”
In other words, we do not like to plan, establish objectives or priorities, because we feel it is much more fun and rewarding to do what we want at all times.
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And of course, it’s rewarding. It is comforting to do what we supposedly want, although, in reality, all we want to do is avoid facing that task or action that can change our lives. This is how procrastination works.
When you act based on beliefs that support procrastination, as our way of understanding freedom (which is a compelling belief, because they support fear and justify that procrastination), we have attitudes and behaviors that they are gratifying in the short term since they help you to escape and entertain you.
But that passing fun is not that funny.
The problem is the short-term motivation: we are human beings, and we still think more about the super experience (although we have all the security of the world) than what we want to achieve in the long term. The mind wants to economize and focuses on the easy, the immediate.
That is why procrastinating is so common. You procrastinate to obey your short-term motivation, which tells you that it is better to entertain or lie on the couch than to go towards what you want since the results will not come today but within time. Therefore they will not give you immediate satisfaction.
If you focus on the experiences you live and the results you get, you will observe the following: you feel that you “lose” time. Take more time to get what you want. The results are not what you expected you feel anxiety when you arrive on the last day to perform that action.
The only thing that activates us is the panic to fail (again, the motivation out of fear).
Procrastination not only worsens your results and experiences but also harms your relationships. People who want to be in any relationship with you are also subject to poor planning, disorder, short-term motivation, anxiety, and panic.
Is it so fun and so rewarding?
Maybe in the short term, yes, but it’s a passing diversion that does not justify what we finally get. We know that passing fun is not so fun. We know that this fun is only, in reality, an escape.
So how to overcome procrastination?
SOLUTION: long-term motivation.
Long-term motivation is achieved first with vision, clarity, and a totally clear focus on what you want, also counting on your talents to achieve it.
And above all: you will have to have a 100% committed action plan where you have clear actions that take you to your best version.
Anyway, short-term motivation is not the only explanation for procrastination … we come to the second key.
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SECOND KEY: we learned to procrastinate
Maximum times vs. minimum times
There are several explanations for procrastination.
The first is biological. Our intuitive and reptilian brain is used to receiving short-term rewards and does not understand the long term. Therefore, we tend to satisfy the moment and leave what is important for later if we find an excuse to leave it. And no, this is nothing “spiritual.”
When Buddhism talks about being in the present moment, it does not mean surfing YouTube or Wikipedia instead of going towards your goal, or entertaining yourself with parallel projects that do not have a real impact on what you need or watching TV instead.
Buddhism talks about being alone in the present. When you procrastinate, you are not in the present, but fleeing from it. The part of your brain that leads you to short-term rewards is not the conscious brain, but the unconscious.
In conclusion: it is easier to be motivated in the short term than in the long term.
But the easy thing is not always what gives you better experience or learning.
For this reason, people motivated in the long term achieve real personal or professional development and become the best version of themselves.
Find sufficient reasons to be in the present moment
Be focused on the most vital task, plan, and choose your objectives, prioritize, and know how to manage your time. Do not entertain yourself, but find genuine moments of fun when your goals are achieved or on the right track.
You will find much more free time to be with your loved ones or to practice your passions (sports, art, literature, whatever).
The second explanation is cultural. Since we are children, we have been taught to operate with minimum times. What does this mean? They told us that we had to study at least two hours before we could leave the room. And what did you do? Spend two hours looking at the book, waiting for that desired moment.
In short: you were rewarded for spending time.
We can see examples throughout our society: 6 hours at school, 8 hours at work, long times to present papers or projects, four months at the University to learn short content, etc.
Our society and culture teach us to be mediocre. If the University gives you four months to learn a subject before an exam, what time does a person use to learn that subject? It will use nothing more and nothing less than four months. And using the night before the exam, of course.
How to overcome procrastination a solution to this significant problem, and that does not mean changing our entire social and cultural system and that you learn with maximum times.
Maximum times means: I know my goal, I set my goals and my best schedules, and I have a maximum time to get it. When that time is over, the result does not matter: you will not be able to continue. Your only task will be to enjoy. If you establish this rule, I assure you, little by little, you will be more productive and efficient, and you will get more in less time. If the first day you do not reach your goal in 2 hours, but it stays at 75%, I assure you that the next day you will get it to 80%. Your attitude, thanks to the maximum times, will be more and more concentrated, and you will be more effective.
Organizing your day to day is essential for this, in addition to working for objectives and not for time.
The third explanation is personal. We have learned to be procrastinators. Society and our culture have taught us, our brain has become accustomed to being lazy and scattered, and you have decided to accept it. You can learn everything in life.
So no, we are not born procrastinators even though the vast majority of people procrastinate.
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THIRD KEY: the opposite of procrastinating is …
Different actions
There are many ways to stop procrastinating, or rather, to build a proactive, free, and effective personality. But there is no magic formula for all human beings since the only magic formula for you is learning.
To stop procrastinating, you need to learn how to be proactive. It is learning to make decisions. It is learning to plan. Establish objectives with the time and conditions that you need to achieve (what to achieve, how to achieve it, when, with whom, where, in how much time). Find your real motivation and learn to be true to it.
I give you a clear example: it took me approximately 50 minutes to write this article. At other times, it would have taken almost 2 hours. It took me only 50 minutes because I made a promise: I’m not going to procrastinate, and I have a maximum of 60 minutes to write it.
I have left all the fun and short-term motivations behind, and I am in this right moment. I have achieved my goal, I have had much more fun with this than with any of these other amusements, and I get more free time for myself.
As you see, they are all advantages.
In conclusion: the magic formula for you is that you unlearn what you have learned. Learn a new system that will lead you to the results you want and to the life experiences you deserve and take you to your best version. Start a process of personal development that is real, committed, constant, and determined.
What do you think you should learn to overcome procrastination?
Learn to plan?
Are you learning to manage your time?
Find your motivation?
Be able to design a clear, deep, and realistic PLAN OF ACTION?
With what can you commit to being the best version of yourself instead of procrastinating?
You have the solution in front of you. You have to make a decision.
What decision are you going to make?