I learned that procrastination is not about having a why, discipline, focus, or willpower. It’s all about understanding and managing your emotions and thoughts.
Most people let their emotions, thoughts, and personal stories drive their behavior.
They think a task is boring. They get frustrated with the first roadblock that they encounter. They tell themselves that they are not good enough and that all their hard effort will not lead to change.
They end up putting things off and not moving forward.
Our thoughts and personal stories evoke emotions that play a big role in how we go about our day and life.
These emotions are tied to internal conflicts:
- Simple emotional conflicts: I don’t feel like working on this now.
- Stronger emotional conflicts: I might be criticized for this work.
- Past emotional conflicts: I failed before.
- Emotional conflicts related to limiting beliefs: I am not talented enough to do this.
- Emotional conflicts related to past events in our childhood: I was yelled at for failing, so my lizard brain encourages me to avoid taking risks where I might fail.
Like the last one, many of these conflicts are so deep within us, we are not aware that they are causing us to procrastinate or to self-sabotage.
I Was the Same
All my life I battled procrastination.
Many of my friends and former colleagues would be surprised. When I had people relying on me, I always got things done; I didn’t want to let them down.
Whenever the task was related to my personal goals, especially for becoming an entrepreneur, I would start strongly but always ended up procrastinating on all the things I needed to do.
Things were never good enough. I didn’t know enough. I didn’t have enough resources.
I would blame my delays on a lot of things. My excuses were only partially true, but the deep truth was that I had fears and limiting beliefs and I was letting them get in the way of my goals. My personal stories and thoughts were driving me to avoid and delay.
Eventually, I ended up failing at whatever I chased.
My Breakthrough Moment Regarding Procrastination
I did a lot of research on procrastination throughout the years, and I already knew that emotions and thoughts played a big role.
But it suddenly clicked when I read the following about Cognitive Behavior Therapy:
“The way individuals perceive a situation is more closely connected to their reaction than the situation itself.”
I learned that it is not the task. It is about how we ‘perceive’ the task that causes us to procrastinate.
It dawned on me that if I could learn to step outside and examine my emotions, thinking, and stories related to how I ‘perceived’ the task, it would help me to better understand the conflicts I had inside. I could then question and validate my thoughts and beliefs and see if they were true or not which would help to reduce the impact of those conflicts.
By learning to observe and challenge my internal stories, I was able to better understand myself and my values. I was able to let go of those stories that were holding me back. I was able to align my values with the person I wanted to become.
This greatly reduced the pushback I had when doing tasks.
How I Accomplished This
I came across a podcast by Tom Bilyeu, How to Make Your Negative Thoughts Serve You with Harvard Psychologist Susan David.
In the podcast, Susan discussed how we can manage and examine our emotions, thoughts, and the stories that drive us.
I used the following techniques she discussed.
Be Mindful of Your Thoughts and Emotions
First, I had to learn to be aware of my thoughts and emotions.
I was like most people. I ran on autopilot and did not really pay attention to what I was saying to myself or really notice and understand my feelings. I often reacted without stopping to examine why.
I had to learn to be mindful of what I was thinking and how I was feeling.
Accept Your Emotions
Second, I had to learn to accept my emotions. I would often get upset at myself for the feelings I was having, especially when procrastinating.
These negative emotions actually caused me to have more internal conflict leading me to procrastinate even further.
Susan says that instead of being upset for feeling down, angry, or frustrated, she says to accept that you have those emotions. She says that our emotions are “data” and can teach us a lot about ourselves and our values. She says emotions just “are” and that we need to accept them.
After I started viewing my emotions as data that could help me better understand myself, I found that their influence was weaker.
Step Out and Examine Yourself
Susan says to step out and examine your emotions, thoughts, and stories.
She says an easy way to do this is to use, “I notice that…”
“I notice that I am feeling angry.” “I notice that I am feeling overwhelmed.”
She goes on to say that we should avoid big labels such as, “I am angry,” and instead be granular as possible when describing our feelings. “I notice that I am feeling hesitation and fear which are causing me to feel anger.”
She says, “when we label in a more granular way it immediately helps us to identify what the cause of the emotion is and helps us to start taking active steps. What it starts to do is to develop the readiness potential in our brain. It moves us from being in our heads into being in action in our bodies.”
I found that when I broke down my feelings and thoughts granularly, it helped me to better understand what I needed to do, and this made it easier for me to get to work on my things.
A Personal Example
I always had problems finishing things related to starting a business for myself. I was caught up in learning. I was caught up in trying to make everything perfect from the start. I was never happy with what I had created.
I would end up working days and weeks on tiny things without really moving forward.
I started examining my emotions related to how I was perceiving the task of starting my own business. On one hand, I was frustrated because I wasn’t sure how to proceed or what to do. But looking more deeply, I saw that I was afraid of failure, of it not being good enough, of being criticized, etc.
I then questioned those feelings and started challenging and validating them.
Will I fail? I might. What is the worst-case scenario of failing? I waste a lot of time, effort, and some money. Will it really be that bad? No, because I will have learned a lot of things that will be useful to me in other areas. I might find something that leads me to a better path.
Are there people with less resources than myself succeeding? Yes, I see examples all the time. They put themselves out there, and in return, they are succeeding. I see people not sharing anything new or unique but still succeeding.
Will I be judged? Of course, I will. There will be critics and bullies. What will I do? I will learn from my critics and ignore the bullies. It is life. I have faced them many times throughout my life, so this is nothing new.
I continued down the rabbit hole and looked at a lot of things that were causing me hesitation, anxiety, and stress related to starting my own business. I kept validating my fears and concerns. After doing so, I was able to reduce a lot of the negative conflicts I had been feeling deep inside.
I saw that what I feared wasn’t as bad as my lizard brain was making it to be. After doing the exercise, I felt much less pushback to complete my work.
I quit concentrating on being perfect. I, instead, started working on getting my tasks completed.
Our Emotions Help Us Better Understand Our Values
Susan also says that our emotions also tell us something about our values.
This is important because when we have conflicts with our values, it can cause us to subconsciously work against ourselves when we are trying to improve.
She says that when we get hooked by a thought, emotion, or story, it moves us away from our values.
If you grew up believing that money was the root of all evil or that most executives were bad people, this can cause you to have deep conflicts when it comes to creating your own business or being promoted within your company.
She says you can ask yourself, “What is the emotion (or story, or belief) and what is it telling me that I might care about?”
Once you examine these and validate them, it can help you to be in better alignment with your values.
I started examining my own beliefs and thoughts and then validating them, and it really helped to reduce the internal conflict I was having.
I had conflicts about money. I was worried that becoming rich would change me, and I was afraid of turning into someone that I wouldn’t like. I challenged this belief. I saw that I valued being a good person. I challenged the belief that I would become bad. In the end, I knew that if I created strong values and followed them, then I would remain the same.
By understanding how my beliefs were working against my values, I was able to question those beliefs, and this led me to completing more work and accomplishing my goals.
Moving Forward with Your Own Life
If you are struggling with procrastination, look at how you ‘perceive’ the tasks on which you are procrastinating.
What are your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs tied to what you have to do?
Look at them as an observer and try to learn what they are telling you. After that, validate whether they are true or not. You might want to write things out.
I wrote things out and found that it helped to keep me as an observer. Furthermore, I had my notes to fall back on later when I found I wanted to review my perceptions again.
Change is possible. It’s not an overnight process, but it can be done. With practice, it becomes easier, and you will feel a shift and a reduction in pushback for the things you want to achieve.
If you can learn to examine and validate the emotions tied to the task you want to complete, you will learn a lot about yourself and your values.
Let me know if you have any questions.
