Everyone has procrastinated at least once in their life and putting something off is part of being human. But sometimes procrastination can become a nasty habit and really start to affect your personal and professional life. I know plenty of people who come into my office with stories of how overwhelming fear has led them to constant procrastination, paralysing them from achieving what they want.
Don’t Be Afraid
Procrastination is simply the fear of failure; people are afraid that whatever work they are planning on doing is not going to be good enough so they say to themselves, “I’m better off not doing it at all”. This is something that people have to get over; you cannot allow the fear of failure to hold you back. The only way people grow is through accepting failure and learning from the mistakes they make.
Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and learn from your failures. One of the best things you will find is that you are never as bad as you think you will be, and most people won’t belittle you for failure.
Write It Out
Writing can be one of the most therapeutic ways to identify and fix your problems. I find it works especially well to retrain yourself to not procrastinate. One of my favourite sayings is: “Your thinking creates what you are feeling, and what you are feeling creates what you do”. Writing out how you feel and what you may think is wrong can help you to identify what’s holding you back and help to start fixing the problem.
Procrastination can be a tricky habit but it can be easily resolved. You just have to remind yourself what is the worst thing that can happen? Keep motivating yourself with positive reinforcement and soon enough you will feel the procrastination fade away.