Written by: Misty Lucas, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Do you procrastinate? I know I sometimes do, and I even like to think I work best under the pressure I create for myself. When we actually look at procrastination, it has destructive effects and can make you feel out of control. Procrastination is like an ‘invisible force’ that keeps you from doing the very things you know you must do. 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 to’s’ 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 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. Procrastination can also be an external block and understanding the why behind procrastination is the way to free ourselves from it. Here are five empowering procrastination tips that can help you to reach this realization and become empowered to effectively deal with procrastination and inaction.
1. 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.
2. 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 uncreate it by diving in a little deeper to see what you’re getting from procrastinating. It is showing up for a reason and if you’ve been doing it for a while, it is definitely a pattern that you feel has served you. So until we understand it with compassion, we cannot clear it at the root. 3. 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.
4. 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 response supports 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 differently.
5. 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.
When you are empowered, you are in charge, and even if things seem to go wrong on the surface, underneath, you know that you have the power to deal with it effectively.
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. Act!
Ready to take a step? Join me for my Free 3-day workshop, What is Stress Costing You? Take Your Health Beyond Conventional Medicine. I host this FREE workshop once per month, and each day, we explore how to bring you back to your remembered wellness. You can register for my workshop HERE.
You can also learn more about tools to Empower, Uplift & Transform your life on my PODCAST. Episodes are available on Spotify, Apple, and Google Podcasts.
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Misty Lucas, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Misty Lucas is a Women's Life Coach and Restorative Yoga Educator. After a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis that left her depleted physically, emotionally, and spiritually she had to find a new path. She left her career in law and dedicated her life to supporting women navigating complicated health crises from chronic stress and autoimmune illnesses by blending her coaching skills and restorative yoga techniques. From this knowledge, she has created her signature coaching program to support her clients and work with them, releasing old patterns and holding them back from creating a life they want to live.
