It is great to have goals that you want to achieve in your life. But do you set great goals and then find yourself surfing social media, playing video games, etc. Is it time to overcome whatever is causing you to avoid what you want to create in your life? Procrastination, and avoiding what we want to do can waste so much of our lives. Here are 10 ways to overcome procrastination.
Not making ambitious goals because you fear that you will not achieve them keep you stuck where you are! A byproduct of your fear is that instead of taking action, you sit in various procrastination stages. Instead of taking action to produce excellent results, you find yourself playing video games, speaking of which, I will be right back! (Just kidding)
Procrastination can be a noticeable problem and stop you from achieving what you want. It’s essential to learn to quickly recognize when you are procrastinating, and know ways to overcome procrastination so that you can take action and create the life of your dreams!
Below you will find 10 points to help you overcome the procrastination habit!
Be Clear About What’s Important.
Take time and determine what you want in life! What is it you want out of this life you have? Do you want more free time, an abundance of money, better health, feel better about yourself and your relationships, increase your self-esteem and confidence, have a career that you enjoy, or maybe start your own business? Before you can take action, it’s essential to be clear about what you want6. Set both personal and professional goals.
Something that helps you move forward is being clear about your goals. It’s hard to motivate yourself when you don’t have a good idea of what you want to accomplish. When setting your goals, focus on both the short and long term. A good method to incorporate is the S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting strategy. S = specific M = measurable A= Action R = Realistic T = Time based.
When you procrastinate, it’s often because what you want to create is not aligned with who you are (at this present time (I’ll come back to this)
Take care of your physical and mental well-being.
If you want to change the world, it’s beneficial to have the energy and health to do what you need to do! If you don’t take care of your physical and mental health, it’s unlikely you’ll have the energy you need to achieve your dreams. Make your physical and psychological well-being the priority. Being healthy will help you have more energy and provide more clarity of thought to support you in achieving your goals. It’s likely a good time to take up meditation in other ways that will help you to strengthen your mind!
Understand procrastination
Your procrastination doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You will come to understand that your procrastination is trying to tell you something!
It’s essential to understand the two facets of our minds, the conscious and subconscious processes. A fundamental problem with procrastination is that your conscious mind wants to do one thing, and your subconscious mind disagrees!
If you’re procrastinating continuously, you likely have a conflict between your conscious and subconscious minds. To take action, you will need to start programming your subconscious mind with positive thoughts and ideas about your new goal.
Understand procrastination can be sneaky
We, humans, are amazingly clever. We can come up with an amazing number of ways to avoid doing something, and all too often, we rationalize them to ourselves. It’s important to make the reasons for getting something done far outweigh any reasons for avoiding what you want to accomplish!
In the first couple of weeks of starting a project, become more observant about how you spend your time. Make a list of ways that you avoid taking action towards your goals. FOr example, instead of writing a report, do you pop on social media? Do you spend all your time on your cell phone? Do you spend too much time in the kitchen? Do you watch TV? Do you spend all day on the phone instead of writing a business plan?
Again the mind is tricky, and it’s vital to become more aware of ways you avoid doing what you need to do to transform your life!
Visualize your life WITHOUT Procrastination.
A great way to get your subconscious mind on board is to begin visualization. Visualize yourself in the future as if you’ve already created the results you want! Make this a regular habit until you feel the procrastination evaporate and you find yourself taking a lot more action!
See and feel the benefits in your life if you had moved forward toward your goals! What is your life like now? Visualize yourself taking action and receiving the benefits of that action! Write down, draw, and imagine your life as one of action. Support this visualization with the use of affirmations to help you.
Control your negative self-talk
We all have that little voice that runs in our heads in the background! The little voice suggests playing video games or going to Facebook instead of calling the banker. It can make suggestions that keep you stuck, such as “I don’t feel like doing this,” “I don’t have time,” and “I can’t do this.”
Become aware of your inner dialogue! When you hear yourself making comments which will keep you in the procrastination cycle, stop yourself immediately and say “Cancel, Clear” and replace this with him taking action now or something else that supports you moving forward! It’s vital to interrupt old patterns and stop running on autopilot. Becoming more aware of your self-talk and changing it will help you overcome your procrastination.
Overcome Your Propensity to Say No
Starting immediately, start saying yes to everything that supports you in achieving your goals! Initially, you could get overwhelmed, but this will quickly transform into you taking and developing an ” action-based mentality.” Identifying what is most important to you and only focusing on those areas that will make the most significant difference to your life will enhance your focus and motivation.
Prioritize Your Goals
You likely have many things you want to get accomplished simultaneously. Some can be personal, and some might be professional. The real key here is to prioritize. Identify what will make the most significant difference in your life right now and focus on this!
Develop a plan or schedule to help you reach your goals beginning with those you deem most important. In doing so, you will start to identify whether some tasks need to be added or enhanced or even dropped altogether.
Make it a habit of revisiting your goals at least once a month! Review them and modify or drop various options, if appropriate. Just because you have written down a goal does not mean that it is set in stone or that it will be a permanent long-term goal!
Chunk down on your goals
Once you’ve prioritized your goals, divide them into smaller chunks. Sometimes, you may procrastinate because a project seems large and you feel overwhelmed. It can feel so large that you may not even know where to start. The feeling of overwhelm can put you into a temporary form of paralysis – you don’t know where to start, so you don’t start at all!
It is vital to make a habit of approaching each project – especially the large ones – in an organized method.
Reward Yourself.
To help you stay motivated, it’s important to take in the wins! You need to acknowledge what you accomplish in the process and be proud of your progress! Once you begin and complete tasks, it’s essential to reward yourself by giving yourself something you want. This can be something as simple as congratulating yourself! For example, if you’re going to do something like going for a run, complete a task toward your goal first, go for your run after and make it a reward for you.
Start! Now!
The time for excuses is over!
The time for procrastination is also over!
From now on, a new habit to ingrain is taking immediate action.
Don’t wait until you’re “in the mood,” as that may never come! It is a clever camouflage and a delaying tactic. What you resist persists! Start with what is easiest to experience immediate success, which will give you the fuel and motivation to upgrade and take on larger projects.
Summary
As mentioned, procrastination is generally a byproduct of any conflict between your conscious and subconscious minds. It’s essential to get your subconscious mind on board so that you can work congruently towards your goals.
Procrastination is simply a habit that doesn’t serve you.
Start becoming aware of what triggers procrastination. i.e., what triggers you to avoid doing what you need to do?
One thing that will also help overcome procrastination is by understanding what you get from the habit. If I procrastinate here, what will I gain, and what will it cost me? If you consciously appreciate this, it will help you make better choices.
Incorporate the suggestions above until you have overcome this potentially debilitating habit, and you’ll be well on your way to Kicking the ProcrastinationHabit.
And if you’re procrastinating implementing any of the things on this list, then remember that life is the most critical deadline of all-and it’s finite!
NOW, Get off your butt and get going!
