Procrastination is not what you think - 6 steps to overcome it
Amy - my client - is a successful CEO. She is amazingly effective in most areas of her life. However, in certain cases she is procrastinating. She wants to get coaching and advice on how to improve her priority management. She is using multiple tools and apps to keep herself on track and is seeking a time-management expert to help her overcome her laziness. She tells me that she is on a quest to increase her productivity to the next level and she wants to outcast all and any unproductive moments from her life. She has been determined to get rid of her habit but somehow it is creeping back. She is increasingly anxious and angry with herself as she is delaying the start of a key project, that she is personally very passionate about yet unable to start. The project has great strategic significance and could lead improved relationships with key customers. She tells me she cannot stand her “laziness” around this.
However, at its core procrastination is not about productivity as Charlotte Lieberman elaborates in a recent article in the New York Times. It's about the inability to cope with challenging emotions and regulate negative moods, so it can't be overcome by downloading an app or learning new strategies to self-control. The notion that procrastination is linked to laziness and bad time-management is a misconception. According to scientific research, it has to do more with our moods and regulating difficult emotions such as anxiety, low self-esteem, insecurity and self-doubt around a task we're supposed to do.
When we procrastinate, we’re aware that avoiding the task in question is probably a bad idea, and yet we do it despite our better judgement. Put simply, procrastination is about being more focused on the immediate urgency of managing negative moods than getting on with the task. But, of course, this only compounds the negative associations we have with the task, and those feelings will still be there whenever we come back to it, along with increased stress, anxiety, low self-esteem and self-blame. So, this is a catch-22.
The reasons behind our reluctance to get on with what we’re supposed to do can be various. It might be because there’s something inherently unpleasant about the task itself, like having to stand-up and leave the meeting room early while your boss is still sitting there, or it might be the product of deeper feelings such as self-doubt, low self-esteem, anxiety or insecurity operating on a subconscious level. So instead of writing that report you have to hand in to your demanding manager in two days, you start cleaning up your mailbox.
Putting off the task provides relief from facing up to uncomfortable feelings, so you feel ‘rewarded’. And we know from basic behaviorism that when we’re rewarded for something, we tend to do it again. This is precisely why procrastination tends not to be a one-off behavior, but a cycle, one that easily becomes a chronic habit. You get your fix and you stick to it.
Research has also shown that over time chronic procrastination not only has a detrimental effect on our productivity, but on our mental and physical health too. To overcome procrastination, we have to address the root cause of it, therefore the solution is to change your “inner game”, or mindset. Here is a set of 6 steps that you can use the tackle your bad habit.
The following process builds on our latest understanding of how our personality consists of multiple parts that have different conscious or unconscious intentions. Instead of being one unit the human “psychic space” can be understood as a system of parts that have been built over a period of your lifetime. Research even shows that you can inherit a “trauma” or fear which has nothing to do with actual events in your life instead it is connected to something your parents or ancestors have experience.
1. Take a break and reflect. Admit that you are in fact procrastinating. As you do welcome the “internal part of you” that wants to protect you from some kind of negative experience. We are afraid of what already happened so there is a reason you experience those negative emotions. Instead of judging yourself just have some compassion for this “member of your internal team” and don’t judge yourself. Practice some compassion and say to the part “welcome, I hear you”.
2. As you welcome the part “invite it for a drink and chat” instead of wanting to get rid of it while being angry with yourself. Generate some curiosity as to what the positive intention of your internal part is. Perhaps it wants to protect you from failure, or it wants to save you from a tough conflict. As you acknowledge the positive intention think through the consequences of delaying the action you need to do. What will happen first and what will happen next? Visualize the consequences of your procrastination several steps down the line. Make it so as if you were there now, really experiencing it with you internal senses.
3. More than likely you will see that procrastination will not protect you but set you up for an even bigger failure or unpleasant experience. Feel it, hear it and see with your mind’s eyes as you imagine a little movie clip of the consequences.
4. Acknowledging the positive intention forgive the internal part for delaying action and start to explore what would be a realistic plan of actions. Break up the task into small chunks and focus only on the next relevant step. The key is to get going and experience the first positive results or at least signs of progress. It will keep you going.
5. Imagine yourself taking the first steps. If there is someone you know, who would be a good mentor for you for whatever you have to do imagine that this person is standing supportively behind or next to you as you take your first steps. See yourself handing in that report or having the conversation with your boss and see the positive results as if you were there now.
6. Make a decision and commitment to taking the first step, and you are out of the woods…
This is something you can you on your own or you can seek the help of a generative coach to work with you or with your team if you are part of an organization or have your own company.