Overcome Procrastination- LET'S GET TO THE ROOT!

Procrastination 🙄 

is often misunderstood as simply a lack of willpower or poor time management. While organization is essential to following-through on your personal and professional intentions, it is not the most essential. Maybe you're rolling your eyes because that doesn't resonate for you or you're having a 'thank you Jesus' moment because you have had all the structure for success but haven't been able to follow-through like you'd like to. I'm with you!

From working with hundreds of clients who procrastinate and end up sabotaging their timelines often, I've come to observe that the avoidance or resistance goes a lot deeper than just a lack of organization. What I've discovered is that the roots of procrastination run much deeper, touching on psychological, emotional, and even physiological aspects of the psyche.

So, if you're still reading, I am glad you're here and my hope for you is to offer more awareness around procrastination and by helping you to understand these root causes a little more, you can feel more empowered to start overcoming your procrastination. 

The Psychological Roots

One of the primary psychological drivers of procrastination is the fear-based beliefs that you hold —fear of failure, fear of visibility, fear of embarrassment, fear of disappointment, fear of not being good enough, or fear of the unknown, etc. This fear can paralyze you, making even the smallest tasks seem insurmountable. The fear-based drivers are subjective to your history, past experiences, and behaviorally manifests differently for everyone. A certainty, sabotage of some kind - avoidance, delay, withdrawal, resistance, fight, etc. will present in the form of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors if fear is driving the bus here.

The Emotional Roots

Emotional triggers like anxiety, worry, doubt, and stress can also lead to procrastination. When faced with a challenging task, your brain might seek to avoid the discomfort associated with it by engaging in more pleasant activities. This avoidance provides temporary relief but ultimately reinforces the procrastination cycle because your brain is linking your avoidance to the reward of relief. Each time you fall into this procrastination trap, you're letting the brain know that this is the behavior that is most helpful when you're feeling uncomfortable. Oftentimes, your perception of the outcome causes an emotional chain reaction that triggers procrastination and what's even crazier, our perception of a perceived outcome often projects from past experiences. This is why we find ourselves stuck despite our best intentions to move forward. Until you learn how to work with these emotional responses, of course.

The Physiological Roots

Procrastination is also linked to your body's stress response. When you perceive a task as stressful, your nervous system may react by entering a fight-or-flight mode, causing you to either avoid the task (flight) or become overly anxious about it (fight). These can be triggered either unconsciously or consciously. You might know exactly why you are procrastinating (conscious) or have very little or no awareness to why you are avoidant or feel resistant, this would indicate that your brain and/or body has flagged a past experience similar to this one and the most appropriate response (based on past response and outcome) would be to withdrawal, avoid, resist, hide, etc. which would ping the your inner procrastinator. When you learn how to work to calm your nervous system by diffusion, you'll start to notice that you'll approach tasks with a clearer mind and hey, even finish what you start more often! 😉 

Moving Forward

Recognizing the complex roots of procrastination allows you to address them more effectively. By acknowledging the fears, working to diffuse your emotional triggers, and physiological responses involved, you can start paving the way for more consistent and confident action.

AND, my express course to Abolish Procrastination will show you exactly how to address these common drivers and help you move past those self-limitations, doubts, and insecurities. It's not just about taking action—it's about transforming the voice in your head to work with you instead of against you. 

Registration opens soon! Make sure you're on my mailing list, so I can notify you first! ➡️ Subscribe HERE ⬅️

I hope to see you inside this new express course 😉  (PS- it's my favorite 😍)