how to beat procrastination and master self-discipline
Let’s be completely honest… Procrastination is a pain in the backside and it destroys people’s lives. (That’s no exaggeration). There are many interesting perspectives on this topic, but I believe it's a little more complicated than a one-size-fits-all approach. We’re going to address how to stop procrastination: the number 1 time management problem, from multiple angles.
Stephen Pressfield in his book Do the Work, refers to procrastination as being ‘resistance’. He describes resistance as a repelling force, that is negative. “Its aim is to shove us away. Distract us and prevent us from doing our work.” He also says that “resistance is always lying and it’s always full of s***”.
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You see, procrastination is a difficult subject to address, to be completely honest because you’ve got an emotional side of it, you’ve got a mindset side of it, and you’ve got an alignment side of it.
The physical side of procrastination
Habits and things that you physically do in your life. This is the physical manifestation of internal challenges. In other words, these are your actions that determine whether you procrastinate or whether you focus. But it's not that simple... Your actions are influenced by other factors.
The emotional side of procrastination
If you’re going through a difficult time, you’re super busy, your sleep is all over the place, your routines are off, you’re feeling stressed, you’re feeling tired, and you’re not in a good emotional state…
The chances are pretty high that you will procrastinate to seek comfort. You may do this in the form of comfort food, excessive cleaning, sitting on the couch, watching Netflix, or spending hours on social media. Those types of things happen when you aren’t empowered, when you aren’t well rested, and when you haven’t taken care of yourself.
As a result, this is why I always say that your health and wellness should be a number one priority. Without that foundation, the chances of procrastination go up tenfold.
Side note: I’m not suggesting it’s bad to do these things. How it is important to bring awareness and intention to them, rather than use them as a way to avoid your emotions.
The alignment side of procrastination
From another angle, Doctor John DeMartini talks about a connection between your values and procrastination. Examining your hierarchy of values and seeing what actions you’re doing day-to-day will reveal if you’re inspired or uninspired. He suggests that we procrastinate when we’re doing uninspiring tasks.
Read: How to Find Your Core Values
Once you identify what’s important to you, look at your schedule and begin removing things that you hate doing. Doing this will create more time and space for you to do what you genuinely love.
I guarantee there’ll be things that you do in your life where you don’t need the motivation to do them. You don’t need external motivation to do the things that you feel inspired to do.
One of the best examples of this is a kid who loves to play a video game. They don’t need external motivation. They enjoy the challenge of the game and desire to evolve and become better.
In this video, I share a process where you can go over memories you can find out things that are truly important to you, and can gather that information and collect it in a document and see the words.
It’s an extremely powerful exercise.
Upon identifying what you’re truly aligned with and what you value, you can begin to make the necessary changes in your life. To be clear, it doesn’t mean that every single action you do in your life is going to be inspirational or feel like it has purpose. Let’s face it, we sometimes do things that we know benefit us even if we don’t feel like them.
Delaying gratification
Oftentimes, procrastinate on things that we know would benefit us and know we should do. But for whatever reason or distraction, we just don’t feel like doing it. And so, this idea of eating the frog first came along when someone said if you wake up in the morning and you ate a frog first thing in the morning, your day pretty much can’t get any worse. So, the idea is that you pick the most difficult task and face that first thing in the day and get that done. Whether it’s on a to-do list, in your calendar, or whatever system you use, work through the most challenging thing first and then the rest of the day should be a lot easier.
Again, this is why it’s important to understand what you value and what you want to achieve. From here you can decide to delegate, discard, delay, or do now. Over time, you start to have the high-priority actions dialed in and less of the uninspiring ones.
Have a system
You need a goal and a system to move you forward. Because if you feel quite scattered and the whole system and the process of what you’re doing, or you don’t even have a system, you’re more likely to procrastinate again.
Because it always comes down to the daily habits, the small actions that stack up over time that take you to where you want to be. Many people struggle with the need for instant gratification. Changing this requires self-discipline and willpower. Start focusing on the long-term benefits and drawbacks of these goals.
Using health and fitness as an example. We know that in the immediate term, putting the donut, pizza, and other junk food in our mouths feels good for just a moment. We're not thinking about the long-term effects of the stress and damage it may cause.
How To Beat Procrastination And Master Self-Discipline
As you can see, procrastination can be a tricky subject to address because there isn't one specific thing that will fix it. However, everything is always connected. Next time you're procrastinating, try to understand all pieces of the puzzle in order to understand yourself better. Remember to take action and don't fall down another rabbit hole of further procrastination.