Written by: Andrew Cowie, 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.
Procrastination is one of the biggest issues I deal with among my clients at Phoenix Coaching & Therapy. It is the enemy within, preventing people from achieving the untapped potential they have inside. We are all, by nature, procrastinators. We all have the tendency to set things aside that we perceive to be something that can be done later. However, letting procrastination take control of your life will eventually overshadow any dreams of success that you want to achieve. In fact, it might lead you to a higher form of procrastination that you should worry about. This is called chronic procrastination.
Chronic procrastination is the worst of its kind for it becomes a personality trait. A chronic procrastinator develops a self-destructive habit of waiving off any task, no matter how urgent it could be. Once they’ve realised that there’s not much time left to complete a task, they panic.
Many people come to me for help because they’re feeling stuck. The dreams that they once had have failed to come to fruition… not because those goals were unrealistic but simply because the necessary action hasn’t been taken to bring them into reality. The fear of failure holds people back, and makes them question the validity of their goals, so they keep on kicking that can down the road and putting things off until tomorrow. The only problem is… tomorrow never comes.
My approach with clients is to identify specific goals and to break the attainment of those goals down into easily manageable baby steps, each of which has a deadline imposed on it. Personal development guru Napoleon Hill once said that “A goal is a dream with a deadline”. There’s a lot of truth in that. All goals should have a due date imposed on them to ensure that work gets done on time and to give you the motivation to stay focused. Working on time-sensitive goals increases your sense of urgency and pushes you to your limits.
Writing goals down on paper can also help to provide tangibility, giving you a clearer picture of what you what to accomplish. It forces you to strategize, review your progress and regularly brainstorm new ideas.
Along with procrastination, distraction is another key productivity-killer. We live in an age in which distractions are everywhere due to the endless notifications we receive from smart devices. Emails, text messages and social media updates all serve to divert out attention from the job in hand and many of us squander hours each day just scrolling on our phones.
A recent survey showed that the average US office employee spends only 2 hours and 53 minutes on productive work daily. A whopping 85% of workers reported being actively disengaged in the office, costing US firms an estimated $550 billion from lost productivity per year. The same survey found that the average employee spent 13 hours a week attending to emails, which means that 28% of the working week is taken up by emails alone. This is economically disastrous.
Whether it’s in your business, your job, or just your personal life, distraction and inaction prevent you from moving forward. Too often we become sedated and content with the status quo, just floating aimlessly through life without giving ourselves any clear proactive direction. Time and again, I see clients whose ambitions have stalled because they’ve got stuck in exactly this kind of rut. Fortunately, with the right guidance and accountability, it’s possible to get most people moving again very quickly.
That’s why I’ve just launched a new book and masterclass designed to help you break through those walls and supercharge your productivity.
In Phoenix Unleashed, I present a vast range of tools, tips and action points that you can implement in your business, your job, or your personal life right now. The book and masterclass cover everything from proven productivity hacks to time-tested time management practices, to unstoppable goal-setting.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, an executive, an employee or an artist, you’ll find something in this package to benefit you and your organisation. Click on the links below to get started on dominating your life today.
Andrew Cowie, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Andrew Cowie is a transformational life coach, psychotherapist, and author dedicated to helping people overcome adversity and achieve their full potential. He came to the world of therapy after a 20-year career in newspaper journalism was brought to an abrupt end by severe burnout. In the course of his own recovery, he was introduced to meditation, mindfulness, hypnotherapy, yoga, martial arts, and NLP. He went on to retrain some of the world's leading spiritual and personal development teachers to become an expert in these fields. Andrew has since dedicated his life to passing on this knowledge, synthesizing the various disciplines into one overarching system blending ancient spiritual practices with the latest cutting-edge techniques from the field of modern psychology. He is the owner of Phoenix Coaching & Therapy and the founder of its associated 'magical training school' The Ancient and Mystical Hermetic Order of the Phoenix (AMHOP). His debut book Rise Like a Phoenix was published in 2021 and is described as a manual for personal regeneration. Andrew works with clients worldwide and is passionate about mental health and exploring the latent potential of the human mind.
