What Is Procrastination?
Procrastination as I would define it is when we put off, postpone or delay indefinitely some important action, which we know we should take. If procrastination were an Olympic sport, I would have won the gold medal and be the world champion procrastinator. Many people think that procrastination is a time management issue, that’s not entirely true. Good time management is an essential skill but the habit of procrastinating, which is more of an emotional challenge, will wipe out all the benefits that are gained from being an excellent time manager.
Procrastination is one of the most damaging behavioural issues that I am asked to help leaders with during a programme of executive coaching. It affects the performance of the executive. Before we can change the behaviour we need first to understand it.
Understanding Motivation And Procrastination
Many people are often amazed at how they are seemingly motivated towards a goal and know what it is they have to do to achieve it but yet seem to not follow through and take action on those tasks that they know they need to perform. Why is this?
At the heart of this issue are the person’s motivations, their reasons why they take action or in this case why they don’t take action. My own favourite definition of motivation derives from splitting the word into two: Motive and Action; what are our motives to take action? It’s easy for me to identify what a persons motivations are; I just need to observe their actions and ask them what their motives are for taking that action. Conversely if a client tells me they procrastinate I need to find out their motives for not taking action in a given direction. Very often their motive is to avoid an uncomfortable feeling that will arise by carrying out the action they are avoiding. Allow me to give you an example from my own personal experience.
A Personal Experience Of Procrastinating
I used to hate “cold-calling” but I knew I had to do it. The thought of performing this activity filled me with dread. I would get stressed just thinking about speaking to someone on the phone. Now, was that because I had little belief in what I was selling? No! Was it because I have low self-esteem? Yes! I used to have the deep belief that I was not worthy of my prospects time. I felt insecure, uneasy, anticipative and awkward. The result of this would be that my calls would come across as unpolished, unprofessional and nervous. The net result was that I had little success in my activities and I developed a belief that I was bad at calling, poor on the telephone.
Now I had the desire for a large business but was motivated to do all the other stuff except the very thing that would grow my business. Doing the other stuff gave me the mistaken belief that I was achieving my goals, after all I was ticking things of my to-do list. Yes, I was falling for the age old illusion of mistaking activity for accomplishment. But doing these activities were important, but they only served to make me feel like I was achieving. As long as I could convince myself that I was achieving then everything was fine.
The Real Reason For Procrastinating
People want to feel good, it is a natural inclination that we have as humans, it’s not natural to willingly subject ourselves to pain. So it is only natural that we will do the things that bring us the feelings of accomplishment and the associated feelings of pleasure. So I was gaining pleasure while avoiding pain. Accompanied with this I would rationalise (incidentally my definition of rationalisation is when we tell ourselves rational lies) that making the calls was too time-consuming, it didn’t work, I was annoying people which was bad karma, the planets weren’t aligned correctly that day etc etc. From this it is easy to see why I was avoiding the pains of growth.
So in summary I was avoiding the feelings that I would feel when I would be cold calling, namely: worthlessness, insignificance, insecurity and generally feeling bad about myself. But this motivation away from feeling these feelings was hidden by the fact that I was feeling good about doing other stuff. So when I would then think about making calls I would just keep repeating this cycle of avoiding uncomfortable feelings and instead avoid that tension and occupy myself with other trivial activities.
So what about you: are you procrastinating in some area of your life? If so what feelings are you trying to avoid feeling? My recommendation is to feel those feelings, however uncomfortable. You should know that the benefits to you will be repaid tenfold as you start to feel better about yourself while performing those activities you know will bring you the success and good-feelings you deserve.
Copyright © 2009 Mark Buchan
About The Author
Mark Buchan is one the UK’s most sought after coaches. He coaches executives and business owners from a wide range of business sectors. His ability to facilitate change and assist his clients in overcoming their obstacles to growth is fast earning him the reputation of world’s best coach.
You can contact Mark directly on Skype. Hi Skype ID is worldsbestcoach. See our contact page for other ways to contact Mark.
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Tags: affirmations, anxiety, executive stress, stress