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 and 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. Here are five empowering procrastination tips that can help you to reach this realization and become empowered to effectively deal with procrastination and inaction.

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 are doing it to ‘you’, gives you the power to do something about it.

It’s All You:
When procrastination drags you down it’s all to 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 un-create it.

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 comes 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.

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 responses support 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 in a different way..

It’s All about awareness:
Procrastination does serve a purpose - and a very important one as such, but only is 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 for 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 you. Tomorrow will be today tomorrow. Don’t delay. Act!

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The effects of procrastination are mostly indirect and often far reaching. One of the most devastating effects of procrastination is fatigue. In fact, procrastination and fatigue goes hand in hand. Procrastination is not only the result, but also the cause of fatigue. Because of procrastination you keep postponing important tasks and because you postpone it you become fatigued. There is a big difference between being tired and being fatigued. Fatigue is emotional and mental while tiredness is mostly physical. Getting enough rest can solve the problem of being tired, but it won’t really do much for fatigue.

We all have a mental capacity which determines how much we can comfortably deal with in our lives. Everything that’s ‘on your mind’ is something that you have to deal with on a mental and emotional level. When you deal with it you feel a sense of accomplishment and you feel like a load has been taken off your proverbial shoulders. In reality, this sense of relief is the result of offloading some of your emotional load by dealing, and completing some task that was on your mind.

Everything that you feel like you have to do has got some value to you. We only procrastinate about the things we care about – otherwise it’s won’t concern us whether we do it or not. It’s only when we fail to take action that procrastination sets in. Every time you fail to take action and complete a task you fail to offload what’s on your mind. This tends to add to your ‘emotional load’ and since we all have a limited capacity, we tend to feel fatigued.

Fatigue can lead to more serious issues, ranging from depression to sleeplessness to a loss of self confidence. When you procrastinate you can easily turn the simplest task into a mountain and the more you think about it the harder it gets. Now you have to climb a mountain in your mind every time you think about doing it and every time you fail to act on it your mountain gets bigger and your fatigue get worse. Although procrastination and fatigue

The most important things to remember when you suffer from fatigue due to procrastination is that a sense of accomplishment is self reinforcing. Every time you finish a task you feel good and it’s this feeling good that motivates you to do more and to be more effective. It’s one of the most effective ways to conquer procrastination. More than anything, procrastination is an emotion – it’s a feeling and by taking charge of your emotional state you can take back control and empower yourself to take action and complete what you know you ‘must’ do. Unfortunately this fact is also responsible for fatigue. When you fail to complete a task, or worse, when you fail to even start, you create the opposite effect. You feel bad and you tend to act on this feeling which is what keeps you from approaching the task in the future.

Procrastination and fatigue is a cycle and the one tends to lead to the next and because it’s so self reinforcing it tends to keep many people tied up in an immobilized state of mind where they can’t seem to make any real progress. One of the simplest ways to snap out of this patterns is to design some simple task that you can easily complete and to gradually build your emotional strength. If you are procrastinating on something, break it up into three or four simpler tasks and then focus only on one at a time – forget about the rest. Each time you complete one you will ‘offload’ a bit of emotional baggage, your load will feel lighter and your sense of accomplishment will motivate you to do more.

Procrastination is like running on an emotional treadmill – you keep running but you are not going anywhere. It only leads to an emotional tiredness or fatigue that can greatly jeopardize your sense of well being, your level of motivation and your personal happiness. We all have a desire to progress with our lives and we at the back of our minds we all know what we can do to move forward and make our lives better, When we don’t act on these ideas we feel a certain strain which comes from the knowing that we are not advancing. This strain contributes to fatigue and adds to your emotional load that you have to carry around with you. We all carry a little ‘to-do list’ around in the back of our minds. Ever time something comes along that you ‘have to do’ it automatically gets added. As a general rule, the longer your list, the more fatigue you will experience.

To effectively deal with fatigue you simply need to off-load your ‘emotional load’. You have to deal with everything that’s on your mind. And the most effective way to do it is to deal with it one by one. Start with the tasks you are procrastinating most about as they will give you the greatest sense of accomplishment. Procrastination makes an easy task hard, but action makes a hard task easy. Just do it. Break it up into smaller simpler tasks and just do it piece by piece. It’s ironic, but the more you do the more you can do. The more you do the less emotional baggage you have - the lighter your load, the more you can carry. The wonderful fact about procrastination and fatigue is that when you eliminate the procrastination, you can eliminate the fatigue. Be kind to yourself. Free yourself from procrastination. Free Yourself from fatigue!

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It’s so easy to treat personal development as ‘optional’ and so few people ever take the time to actively improve themselves. Your personal growth and self development is arguably one of  the most important thing you can do with your time. You can even argue that to actualize your true potential is the purpose of being here. In many ways all your actions are geared towards ‘self improvement’. Everything you do, you do with a positive intent. This, however is mostly unconscious and for the majority of people it’s a case of pursuing ‘things’ and ‘stuff’ with the (all to common) assumption that when they get enough stuff they will be happy.

You don’t have to search too far to find just how wrong this theory really is. Every day we read about ‘extremely successful’ people who end up in rehab or who kill themselves. Why? To return to Charles Atlas – true success is but the development of your ‘self’. At no point in your life can you just stop and say ‘now I am successful – I think I’ll take the next 10 years off’. Unfortunately this is ‘the dream’ that so many people aspire to.

The key to a lifetime of happiness lies in personal growth. Real and lasting fulfillment in life comes from consistently improving the quality of your life. Life is dynamic and it has to keep moving. Like in nature, everything that does not grow, dies! You will either grow or die, and although you probably won’t die a physical death, you most certainly will suffer a psychological death. Depression is but one example of the effects of failing to grow as a person. If you are not growing you will feel like you are dying.

Every day life hands us opportunities to grow. They are mostly disguised as problems and unfortunately most people curse them instead of seeing the wonderful opportunities that they present. Earl Schoff once said ‘Don’t wish for less problems. Wish that you were better’. This is where personal growth comes to play and you must do it on purpose and with an active state of mind.

So why do people fail to actively participate in their own personal growth? Well, there are certain personal growth barriers that prevent them from actively progressing in any area of your life. The key word being ‘actively’. The three biggest personal growth barriers are three interrelated behaviours that tend to keep us immobilized and locked up in inaction. The result being the failure to progress with our lives.

Personal Growth Barrier #1: Procrastination
Procrastination is the irrational delay of tasks, especially important ones. On a conscious level you might want a specific result and you know what course of action to take, but still you remain immobilized. The failure to act is what keeps you where you are. It is likely that what you are procrastinating about is what you MUST do as this will help you grow in your ability to take action and just do it. Keep in mind that you only procrastinate about tasks that you value and at some level you know you will benefit from it.

Personal Growth Barrier #2: Indecision
Every single action is preceded by a decision. The ancestor to every action is a decision and the failure to act can be traced back to the failure to make decisions. The ironic thing is that not making a decision is a decision - isn’t it? Indecision is like a disease that you have to eradicate from your life. Indecision is simply the result of a fear of failure and by not making a decision you can’t fail – right? Realize that nothing in the future has happened yet and fearing the worse possible outcome will almost certainly keep you from making the decision. If you don’t make the decisions you won’t take the actions and you will remain immobilized.

Personal Growth Barrier #3: Comfort Zones
Comfort zones are all those things that you are too familiar with – and often to the point where you don’t even attempt anything else. Inside your comfort zones everything is known and you have this sense of certainty that you can comfortably deal with anything that comes your way. You’ve done it before and you feel ‘at ease’ with it. Stepping outside your comfort zones challenge your beliefs and it challenges your perceptions. Stepping outside your comfort zones however, challenges you to grow as a person – you have to grow to get comfortable outside your old comfort zone. Most of your limitations are self imposed and controlled by what you belief you can or cannot do, what you like or dislike, what you think is right or wrong. You have to keep stretching your ‘self’ physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually to avoid standing still and remaining imprisoned by your comfort zones. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said ‘Man’s mind, once stretched to new idea never goes back to it’s original dimensions.’

All barriers are only that – they are barriers. It often strikes me how these typical vehicle barriers at boarder check points are so ‘flimsy’. They can hardly stop a bicycle, yet they stop big sixteen wheelers. The barrier is more psychological than actual. So are the barriers to your personal growth. They can stop you, but they can’t keep you unless you allow them to. Simply acknowledge them and then move on. Personal growth is a choice and it’s an active process. To ensure a happy and fulfilled life that is filled with joy and appreciation you have to consistently grow and expand your ‘self’.

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On a very practical level we are all very familiar with the concept of action and reaction. For every action there is an equal, but opposite re-action. This is one of the laws that Isaac Newton uncovered and is still one of the most fundamental laws by which this universe we live in is governed. On a much more metaphysical level the law of action and reaction, or cause and effect, also holds true. In the ancient eastern philosophy it was referred to as the law of Karma, where every single action will come back to you in like kind. Like a boomerang, what you put out will come right back at you, although it’s often disguised as something else.

A lot of the ‘effects’ in your life are caused by this strange human phenomenon called procrastination. Although it’s quite obvious that every action has a reaction, it’s a little less obvious that every in-action also has a re-action. It is not just what you do that makes the difference in your life, but also what you fail to do. Procrastination is that strange (lack of) behaviour where you want to do something, but still you don’t. The question that arises is ‘what are the causes and effects of procrastination?’ Well, there are many. Let’s look at three of the most common causes and effects of procrastination, keeping in mind that for every cause there is an effect.

Cause and Effect #1: The Fear Of Failure
The fear of failure is a major cause for procrastination. In fact, all forms of procrastination has some kind of fear at it’s roots. The fear of failure is a common fear that we all share. As human beings, we are not designed to fail. We are designed to consistently progress and improve. This fear then keeps you locked up in procrastination as a way of keeping your from failing. The effect of this form of procrastination then is quite obvious: failure to utilize opportunities. If you don’t act on opportunities they aren’t really opportunities are they? It is never a case of whether opportunity is knocking, but rather a case of whether you are acting on this opportunity and utilizing it.
Cause And Effect #2: Feeling Overwhelmed
We all have a limited mental and emotional capacity. Just like your physical capacity, you have a limit to what you can take on at any given time, and only you know what that limit is. When you overload yourself physically, your body usually breaks down in some form or another. When you overload yourself mentally and emotionally, your mind will intervene, usually in the form of procrastination, to keep you from a ‘mental overload’. The effects of this form of procrastination is that you start to avoid tasks, especially the important ones that you know you ‘must’ do.

Cause And Effect #3: Postponing Important Tasks
Procrastinators are actively seeking out diversions, no because they are lazy, but because at some level they fear the task that they are avoiding. By postponing a task you actually ‘lie’ to yourself. Instead of giving up or quitting – all you are doing is to make yourself feel a little better by saying ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’. By postponing important tasks, you postpone important results. Remember that for every cause there is an effect and when you postpone the actions you also postpone the results.

The are no definitive answers to what are the causes and effects of procrastination, as the effects are often far reaching. The simple fact is that without positive and constructive action on a consistent basis, you will rarely produce any significant results. Procrastination is what keeps you immobilized and locked up in where you are. To get to where you want to be, you have to break free and break out of this mould. You can overcome procrastination and you can learn to develop both your mental and emotional capacity to take your life to a whole new level you never thought possible before.

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Although it might appear that there is no logical explanation for this seemingly irrational behaviour, there are still reasons for procrastination. These reasons, however are not always that obvious. Human behaviour is not haphazard or coincidental - everything we do we do for a reason. In fact, everything we do, we do for a positive intent. Everything that you do is driven by your desire to improve your circumstances at some level of your consciousness. It is impossible for someone to do something that she believes will leave her worse off. For some people this might mean killing themselves, while for others it might mean climbing a mountain, while for others it might mean giving up a bad habit. It all varies according to our beliefs.

This is a very important concept to understand if you are to understand the reasons for procrastination. Although there are many reasons on the surface as to why you procrastinate, the underlying reason always boils down to one factor: FEAR. Fear is what shuts you down and prevents you from taking action. By design fear is there to ‘help’ you and whenever you fear something you will be compelled to prevent an encounter with whatever you fear.

Although fear is the underlying factor behind procrastination, we tend to see certain common fears amongst procrastinators. Here are the three most common reasons for procrastination and the fears that we subconsciously attach to them:

Fear #1: The Fear Of Failure
When you fear failure you are inclined to avoid participating in the first place. The common association is that ‘if I don’t do it, then I can’t fail and no one can judge me’. This is very prominent amongst procrastinators and they often hide behind the perfectionism frame. They will wait for things to be perfect until they take action, so they keep postponing tasks waiting for the ‘right time’ before they take action. Out of the fear of failing and looking bad, they would often spend vast amounts of time on a project without making any real progress because at a subconscious level they don’t ‘want to’ finish – a finished project will make them vulnerable for criticism and consequently failure. The result is that they always find ‘good reasons’ to postpone or even avoid the tasks all together.

Fear #2: The Fear Of Unpleasant Or Painful Experiences
If you believe that some action will lead to a painful or unpleasant experience then you will feel compelled not to do it. Your nervous system is designed to avoid painful experiences. The ironic thing is that we get to decide what we believe, and what will be ‘painful’ experiences. Unfortunately for most of us, our beliefs were ‘installed’ by default and we learned by association. Through experience we ‘learned’ by our results and we tend to use this limited information form (mostly) past experiences to make up future meanings and we start imagining potential consequences to the point where we actually believe them. If you believe that some action will lead to a painful or unpleasant experience, you will avoid it, regardless of whether your association is accurate or not. What you believe is what’s real for you and this is what you will act upon.

Fear #3: The Fear Of Missing Out
In the frenzy of modern living we all want to get a piece of the action. We simply cannot help it. Every day we get bombarded with numerous opportunities and it seems like the media’s sole mission is to get our attention. The challenge is that we don’t want to miss out – no one wants to be left behind and miss out on what everybody else is gaining from. The challenge with this is that we tend to take on way too much, to the point where we get overwhelmed. When you feel overwhelmed, the natural reaction is to shut down and the result is usually procrastination. When you overload yourself with too many things that you ‘have to do’ you simply cannot deal with all of it and procrastination comes to your ‘aid’. Like a breaker switch in an electric current, procrastination will kick in when the load becomes too heavy.

These three factors are by no means the only reasons for procrastination, but it is definitely some of the most common. An awareness of these fears in itself can help you to overcome procrastination. Realize that F.E.A.R is only an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real and most of your fears are only imaginary.  You can break through your fears and take action. It is your ultimate power to direct and steer your life. Don’t allow procrastination and indecision to keep you immobilized. Keep moving forward. Keep taking action.

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There are many definitions of procrastination, but they all seem to point to one common characteristic in behaviour, or rather, lack of behaviour. When you procrastinate you are quite literally ‘stuck’ between advancing and staying where you are. Consciously you want to advance, but subconsciously you want to stay. On a subconscious level you are preventing yourself from taking the very actions that you know you need to take to achieve the results you desire from a conscious or rational point of view. The frustrating thing about procrastination is that although you know what you want, and even how to get it, you still remain immobilized and ‘unable’ to act on it.

Probably the most accurate definition of procrastination is that it’s the irrational delay, aversion or even evasion of a task or action. It’s irrational because we cannot explain this behaviour from a rational point of view. We can only explain and understand it from an emotional point of view because the reason why we procrastinate is because at a subconscious level we have an emotional association to the task that prevents us from taking the action. Wanting one thing and then doing the opposite seems stupid and completely irrational, but that is why procrastination can be such an odd behaviour to deal with effectively.

The definition of procrastination, when translated from the original Latin, means ‘in favour of tomorrow’ and although you might ‘intentionally’ postpone your tasks there is an underlying reason why you do it which is irrational, emotional and stored in your subconscious experiences. You might want to loose weight and even though you can see how fat you are and how your health and vitality is deteriorating, you still can’ get yourself to exercise. Why is this? Well, on a rational level it’s very obvious that you MUST take action, but on an emotional level it seems to painful to give up the foods you’re addicted to and to sacrifice an hour of TV-time to go and kill yourself on the treadmill.

This association to exercise and changing your diet is nothing but a belief and an association that exists in your mind. Because you believe it, you will act upon it, even if it only exists in your imagination. On a very basic level all our actions are driven by need to avoid pain and the desire to gain pleasure. Procrastination is nothing but this basic truth in action. When you procrastinate you’re your beliefs about what will be painful and what will mean pleasure are what prevents you from taking action. Since your beliefs reside mostly in your subconscious level of thinking, you will be immobilized even if you say you want the opposite.

The definition of procrastination as an irrational behaviour is indeed a very accurate one and explains the frustration when you can’t seem to get yourself to act on your conscious desires. Procrastination guarantees a life of frustration and striving. You must overcome procrastination if you really want to make any significant progress in your life.

Here’s a new definition that you might want to adopt to empower you to be more effective and to consistently act on your ideas, dreams and desires:

Procrastination is a call to action. It is a signal that you must act on the very things that you do not want to act on and DO the very thing that’s holding you back. It is the necessary resistance you need to be able to grow, develop and gain confidence that only comes from actually doing it. When you do break through the short term ‘pain’ that held you back you come out on the other side with an increased sense of esteem for yourself and you start to see yourself and your abilities from a different perspective. The fact that you are procrastinating about something means that it hold significant enough value for you to be uncomfortable with not taking action. 

The things that are holding you back most are that which will free you most - once you take action. What will free you most is taking action. Not because of the absence of procrastination, but despite the procrastinating.

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“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” - Don Marquis -

“Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait…The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count.” - Robert Anthony

“In delay there lies no plenty.” - William Shakespeare -

“Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin.” - Victor Kiam -

” You may delay, but time will not.” - Benjamin Franklin -

“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.” - Eva Young -

“Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.” - George Claude Lorimer -

“Don’t fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all.” - Mignon McLaughlin -

“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” - Olin Miller

“Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform.” - Edward Young -

“Procrastination is something best put off until tomorrow.” - Gerald Vaughan -

“Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.” - Wayne Gretzky -

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Your conscious mind is very limited in its ability to deal with life. That over which you have conscious control is mostly limited to one thing at a time. This is why using your willpower to create any real change rarely works long term. What you need to do is to change your automatic behaviour which resides in your unconscious mind, that part of you that controls all the vital function of your mind and body. You can try and overcome procrastination by using willpower but it will usually be a short term change. The cause for procrastination is not your conscious actions, but your unconscious associations that is to a large extent responsible for your behaviour.

Your nervous system is designed to preserve you and when fear presents itself your nervous system, through the working of your sub-conscious, will “kick in” to “protect you. The ironic thing is that we train ourselves, unconsciously, to fear certain things by making false associations about the meaning. Nothing in life has any meaning but the meaning you give it. You literally create neurological links to experiences that gets “stored” in your nervous system so that you can act quickly and accordingly next time. Whenever something happens to you, you assign a meaning to it by the way you communicate the experience to yourself. Unconsciously you are always trying to establish meaning and at a very basic level you are trying to establish whether something means pain or pleasure. This meaning then gets stored in your unconscious mind that will help you act (or re-act) appropriately in the future. The challenge is that when associations are reinforced you build up beliefs that will greatly influence your behaviour and is often the cause for procrastination.

Although procrastination makes no sense intellectually it actually reveals a lot about your unconscious and your self imposed limitations and (in)abilities. The major cause for procrastination is fear, and more specifically your fear that taking action will lead to pain or a painful experience of some kind. At some level your unconscious mind combines and searches it’s “files” to come up with a “link” that associates the action to a painful experience. This can range from something which is mildly uncomfortable to something physically painful. Although you consciously want to do something your unconscious will prevent you as it associates pain to the action. As human beings we automatically reach for comfort and will almost automatically reach for whatever feels comfortable in the moment. This is why you often procrastinate on tasks that do not feel good in the moment although it will mean much more pleasure in the future.

Learning to push against this need for comfort is what creates all the growth that is necessary for you to really produce results. When you start to see procrastination as a blessing in disguise; you can start to use it and embrace the behavioural insights it holds for you. Procrastination reveals your fears and, quite by design, gives you the necessary resistance needed to expand and grow in your capacity to push past your fears and create the things you really want for your life. The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of “discomfort” you can comfortably deal with. Procrastination can also shed some light on the goals that you value most, as your concern over procrastinating on it shows that some part of you care enough to be concerned.

It’s been said that first we form our habits and then our habits form us. This is also true for habits of mind and procrastination often manifests itself as a habitual pattern of thinking. Your thoughts lead to and help create your actions. Like the engraved pattern on a record your behaviour will “play the same tune” every time. Your associations to pain and pleasure play an important part in your habitual behaviour in that it determines what you will or will not do. By repetition you form habitual patterns of thinking that will cause you to automatically act or retract in certain ways when your habit pattern gets triggered.

Being aware of your associations to pain and pleasure is critical in dealing with the root cause of procrastination. There are many symptomatic solutions that will not create a lasting result. Although you have to use your willpower initially, your aim is to re-establish your associations to the tasks you are avoiding. You can be, do or have whatsoever your heart desires providing that you can overcome your self imposed fears and take action. Although the real cause for procrastination resides in your unconscious mind, you are ultimately in control with your conscious actions.

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Procrastination is a call to action. Avoiding the very tasks that will give you the results you are after is not very intelligent. You have to step up and strengthen your resolve. The easiest way to snap yourself into action is by making a decision. Decision is the father of action and all action flows from decisions. The challenge is that we have been using the word decision so loosely that it lost much of it’s true meaning. When you make a real decision, a true commitment, you cut off all the possibilities other than that which you are absolutely committed to. Like any other skill you need to get better at making decisions by making more of them and as you develop this ability you will get better at overcoming procrastination until you eventually develop the habit of being decisive.

A truly committed decision will turn your “shoulds” into “musts.” In fact, this critical distinction separates procrastinators from action minded and decisive achievers. We all get what we have to have and we only get our “shoulds” when it is convenient. The most common reason why people  procrastinate is that they just don’t “feel” like doing it. When you don’t feel like doing it, it simply means that you associate more pain to taking action than to avoiding it. As human beings we are to a large extent controlled by our emotions and feelings. You will do almost anything to avoid painful emotions and gain pleasurable emotions. Your beliefs about what will lead to pain or pleasure serves as a reference that will guide you in making decisions. Changing your limiting beliefs is a powerful way for overcoming procrastination. The only reason why you can’t take action is because of your belief(s) about why you can’t.

Beliefs are designed as a short cut for your mind to make decisions quickly. Even if you haven’t got exact experiences your mind will make it up based on your beliefs. We all have a built in need for certainty and our beliefs give us that sense of certainty. The most potent beliefs of all are the beliefs you have about yourself and your own abilities and capabilities. If you belief that you are a procrastinator and that you can never follow through and create results, then no matter what technique or strategy you learn or apply, you will always be a procrastinator. Your beliefs about yourself create your identity and one of the strongest need within your character is for your actions to be consistent with your identity. Whatever identity you hold will create your reality.

Your beliefs are mostly formed unconsciously by life experiences and the meaning you take from it. You are the master of meaning and the way you communicate your life experiences to yourself will determine what things mean to you. The way you talk and communicate with yourself is a form of hypnosis and most people give themselves a real hard time when they screw up. They indulge in negative self talk. That installs disempowering beliefs about their abilities and capabilities. Overcoming procrastination requires of you to take control of your internal communication. What you say to yourself about yourself and your life will eventually determine what actions you take.

People who are happy, successful and fulfilled are not lucky or born under the right stars, but are individuals that have learned how to overcome procrastination and take action even when they don’t feel like it. When you don’t feel like doing it you are simply not in a resourceful emotional state. The quickest way to change this is to change your mental focus; change your concentration and that which you are paying attention to. If you focus on the painful and unpleasant aspects of any task you will eventually start to procrastinate, even if you are incredibly disciplined. Your focus is your experience of life. Learning to control and direct your focus on the pleasurable aspects of taking action will empower you to overcome procrastination. Develop the habit of taking the long view; of focussing on the outcome and not the process and watch yourself move past procrastination.

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In this day and age we are so inundated with choice and opportunity that you might even say that we are spoiled for choice. There is just so much that we could do that we often end up not doing anything at all. Procrastination is one of the biggest dream killers. In a world where there is so much demand on your attention it is becoming ever more difficult to stay focussed and act on the things that would truly give you an extraordinary quality of life. Time is, was and will always be your most valuable asset and the way you use it will determine what you create or fail to create with and for your life. Having an effective strategy for overcoming procrastination is critical if you truly want to push past short term obstacles to create a life of fulfilment.

The abundance that modern life offers us tends to overwhelm us which leads to an emotional overload that will distract you and scatter your effort and concentration. There simply isn’t enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time for the most important things in your life. Success at anything in life, whether it be your finances, your relationships or your body, requires an investment of time and effort from you. You need to focus and concentrate your physical and emotional resources on creating a desired result.

The first step in overcoming procrastination it to get really clear on exactly what you want from every area of your life. This clarity will give you the power to look past distractions that may throw you off course. It gives you a direction and a target and will help to build a mental picture for your life. One of the most destructive effects of procrastination is that it makes you feel out of control; like the events of your life is controlling you. If you don’t know what you want it is all too easy to jump from the one task to the next. Apart from knowing what you want you should also develop some strong reasons why you want it. This will give you a sense of purpose and motivation that is critical for staying focussed long term.

The truth is that most people know what they need to do to create their life the way they want it. The challenge is not with knowing what to do, but in doing what you know. The only way you will create any result in your life is by taking action and procrastination is what prevents you from acting on the very things you know would give you a greater quality of life. The reason why people procrastinate is primarily because of fear, especially fear of failure. By not taking action and postponing important actions you avoid the potential for failing. The only reason why you procrastinate about anything is because at some level you link more pain to taking action than to not taking action. The ridiculous truth is that these “links” are mostly conjured up (by you) in your mind and they are not even real. When you make a task too big in your mind it will overwhelm you and it would seem too difficult and too big and you will end up procrastinating.

One of the most powerful strategies for overcoming procrastination is to learn how to break your tasks up into bite size pieces. Any task, no matter how big can be broken down into small manageable tasks that is easy to do. If you focus on climbing Mount Everest it will probably put you off immediately, but if you focus on climbing seven small mountain sections it becomes more believable. The power of chunking down your “big” tasks empowers you to take back control of any overwhelming situation – you cut it down to size. Your size.

One of the quickest ways to overcoming procrastination is to learn and utilize the power of immediacy. What can you do immediately? What action can you take right now that will move you closer to your goal? Doing something, no matter how small, will immediately break your mental pattern of procrastination and put you back in control. Taking the first step, even if it is small will create momentum and you will almost automatically be driven to take another step. Don’t wait for everything to be perfect before you take the first step. Just do it. Just get it going. Often you will only know what to do next after taking that first step.

There are many strategies and skills you can use for overcoming procrastination. You don not have to be stuck or spinning your wheels. Like any skill you need to learn and practise it until you get good at it. Eventually it will become an automatic response and you will develop the habit of taking action despite your fears and apparent limitations.

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