Overcoming the habit of procrastination can be tough. Reeaaally tough. That deep desire for comfort thrives in all of us. It’s so powerfully convincing, it can make the choice to do even the smallest tasks over satisfying comfort, extremely difficult to do.
Despite our brain’s craving for comfort, there is a way that disrupts the brain so you can take total control over it when it tries to get you to procrastinate.
What’s the catch?
The trick is you bring into the situation a genuine sense of a ‘fear of loss‘ of something you really care about, that you’d hate to miss out on if you were to procrastinate. Doing so urges you to act in response to the fear of what procrastination would cost you, instead of wanting to give in to the urge of procrastination.
Now, there are many things that can trigger the fear of loss. It can be anything, just as long as it’s relevant to the situation, to what you fear to lose, and that it truly connects with your beliefs and desired way of life.
As long as you do this, this technique will be LETHAL.
Why does this work?
The human brain is wired to always respond to fear. So, when you use fear against your own brain, it gives your mind something it instinctively cares about satisfying and responding to. Making YOU the one in charge instead of it (your instinctive brain).
When you use fear…
The natural driving force of ‘desiring comfort’ in the situation of wanting to procrastinate switches to a driving force to something like:
Did you know that the true satisfaction, fulfillment, and control of your life that you know you desire for yourself is being robbed from you every time you willingly give in to procrastination? And that every time you do procrastinate, you can’t ever get that time back to make the self-respectable choice you know you should have made instead?
Now, although people are different, and thus, one may not resonate with the same things with another, the vital takeaway is that creating even the slightest sense of genuine fear will disrupt your brain when it tries to control you. And that this is because our brains are wired to respond to fear.
So by bringing a genuine sense of fear of what you’d care to not lose, into the situation of wanting to procrastinate, you are able to change your concentration from wanting to be lazy, to wanting to satisfy the need to be responsible.
To get a better idea of how this works, I’ve listed below 4 examples that you can look through and use. All of which contain individual truths that resonate with me at a deep core level that I use daily, and are responsible for the conquering of my past procrastination habits.
And I would like to share them with you…
4 Truths (Examples) To Think About When You Want To Procrastinate
Truth #1: You only have so much time to live the life you know you really want to live.
There is one scarce resource that can never be replaced, and that’s TIME. Time only comes once. We can’t go back in time to redo a regret, and we can’t create extra time to use for whatever it is we want it for.
Time is limited for all of us, and the amount of it is always getting smaller. What’s even more important to think about is that the amount of time to live our DREAM LIFE – the life that you know deep inside that you want to have, is ticking away and can NEVER be brought back no matter how bad we wish it could.
Every time a person procrastinates, that amount of time spent procrastinating is taken away from their dream life completely. Just think about that. All of that time spent procrastinating that could have been used on what’s actually worth most spending time on, is instead robbed for good!
We value and hold dearly to what matters most to us. And what matters most is having that dream life we’ve always wanted. Your dream life is special, so don’t let anything rob the limited time you have to do what you need to do so you can live out what matters most to you!
Care for it! Cherish it!
So, next time you feel the urge to procrastinate, talk to yourself and ask yourself which one do you really cherish: one, not having the life of your dreams and just wasting it instead, or two, living the life you know you really want!
Truth #2: You have even less time to live the life you really want with the energy level to fully enjoy it.
When you want to experience something, do you want to get the full experience of it and not just a taste of what you could have enjoyed? It only makes sense for all of us to want that! People want more of what they enjoy!
The thing is though is we need energy in order to enjoy an experience fully.
Without energy, it becomes harder to enjoy experiences because of our bodies’ increased desire to rest instead. If anything, when in a state of tiredness, we are not in a position of being able to enjoy experiences but rather in ‘battle mode’ of trying to cope with being tired.
Trying to enjoy an experience, though, is not the same as being able to enjoy the experience fully. We need energy so we don’t waste the experience spending time trying to fight against tiredness and fatigue. We need to be in a state of natural focus enjoying the experience effortlessly instead.
Despite the benefits that energy brings, energy still naturally declines with age. Therefore, the constant decline of overall energy creates a very limited amount of time for us to fully enjoy the experiences we want to have in life. Its limitations are even more so than the amount of time a person may have to live altogether to do what they want to do.
“Yes, life is short, but what’s even shorter is a person’s total amount of energy they can have. Eventually, the effects of age will begin to set in and you won’t have the natural higher amount of energy or potential energy your body once had. The result?… You aren’t able to fully enjoy things the way you used to in the past.”
Even though someone may live a long life, an elderly person won’t be able to enjoy things the way they could in the past like a 20-year-old, for instance, can right now. This is all because of the age difference. Moreover, despite a 20-year-old having more natural energy than an elderly person, the 20-year-old won’t always have the same amount of potential energy that comes with being 20. Gradually, their body’s energy cap will fade lower and lower with age too.
So, although a person’s overall lifetime might be much longer than the average lifespan, the constant drop in energy levels due to age will still make them less and less able to fully enjoy the experiences that make their life worth living in the first place.
It is very important to keep this in mind!
Next time you want to procrastinate, take into serious consideration the importance and extremely limited resource of energy. Energy is necessary for people to have to fully enjoy the things that matter to them. Instead of choosing to procrastinate, choose to take the necessary action to prevent wasting the limited energy you still have left, to live the life you know you would enjoy most!
Truth #3: The older you get the harder it becomes to go through the necessary stress to achieve what you are really trying to accomplish in life.
Unfortunately, as we age our bodies become less and less capable of handling any type of stress. This is why doctors become very talkative to their patients about blood pressure levels when they reach age 40.
The problem with not being able to handle stress is that it is necessary to go through in order to achieve anything worthwhile in life. For anything worthwhile begins with a challenge; therefore, begins with stress!
Knowing the importance of being able to deal with stress, it is best to take action right away while your body is able to handle stress as best as it can at the moment. It’s only going to get harder and harder for your body to cope with stress down the road!
Truth #4: Death can come at any time which means our desired legacy is always at a constant threat.
The sad truth is that death is inevitable. It is bound to come.
Not only that, it can come whenever. Even when it’s least expected. Just Google “people suddenly dying”, and you’ll see stories and even videos of how people we’re going about their day at work as normal as ever, and then bam! It happens…
A heart attack comes out of the blue, a brain aneurysm, etc. something that causes death instantly without even a sign to suggest any expectancy. And the victim’s friends and family members say they were taken by absolute surprise because of how healthy their loved one was.
DEATH DOESN’T CARE.
It can happen out of nowhere! Because of this, we could die any second without completing the necessary actions we needed to make, to leave the imprint we wanted on the world. So take this truth and use it to MAKE SURE you leave this world AFTER you leave the legacy that you know you want to leave!
…BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!!
BONUS TIP!!
This last one’s a bit different. It comes from a completely different angle than the previous four. Not discrediting the other ones whatsoever, this one I believe is the most powerful one of them all because of the ever-lasting increasing value it brings to a person’s life. This one may not make sense at first, but I’ll explain how it fits.
It’s also my personal favorite out of the 5!
Truth #5 (Personal Favorite): Life issues become easier and easier to deal with the more you choose to be responsible instead.
Let’s face it, we all don’t enjoy life issues. They are emotionally difficult. And it’s only human nature to want to be free from difficult situations at all costs.
Unfortunately, life can be unpredictable. It can come out of the blue and completely devastate a person’s life at any time, anywhere. Wouldn’t it be nice to not have these emotional circumstances affect us? So instead of your brain having control over you when it’s telling you to feel like crap during hardships, the negative emotions won’t affect you as they did before because you are gaining more and more power and control over it.
Amazingly and thankfully, there is a way to get this in life that doesn’t involve drugs, alcohol, or any other thing that only offers temporary relief (not to mention, side effects). This is something that’s natural, makes you mentally stronger, and actually provides life-lasting relief (now who doesn’t want that in their life?!😄)
The solution…
Do things that you don’t feel like doing!
When you do things that your emotional mind tells you NOT to do, but you know you SHOULD do, you immediately gain more power over the emotional part of your brain. Through this, you begin to take control over the very part of the brain that makes people suffer in difficult circumstances! Yes, you take control over THAT!
Now, not procrastinating is something that is very hard to do for a lot of people. So when you choose to not procrastinate despite wanting to, you immediately start to gain power over your mind. As a result, the more you say no to procrastination, the more you prevent difficult negative emotions in life from ruling over you!
Now is that an amazing incentive to not procrastinate or what???
But what actions/tasks/responsibilities would this even work for? Well, anything! Anything that you don’t want to do but you know you should do! It doesn’t have to be a big thing. It could be something as simple as doing laundry when you don’t want to, or the dishes, or cleaning, taking out the trash, or working out when you don’t want to. Anything! As long as whatever it is, it creates an urge in you to procrastinate instead of following through in doing the task, it will work.
Now, you might be thinking, “But doing things you don’t feel like doing is easier said than done!”
You’d be right. However, you’d be right to a certain extent because it all comes down to perception. If someone is in the state of desiring to procrastinate and is focused on the perception that it will suck to do what they really don’t want to do, then yes it will be very hard for them to not procrastinate. But once they start to switch that focus onto the life-changing benefits they crave, that they don’t fully realize exist within the temptation of procrastination, procrastination all of the sudden becomes something to attack and overcome asap!
“Once the focus is no longer on the pain that comes with not procrastinating, but on the life-changing benefits of what the temptatation comes with, a person will realize something amazing that the opportunity of procrastination holds within – the exchange of giving up however many minutes of coziness and comfort, for a life long protection from emotional struggle.”
By switching the focus from the pain of not giving in, to the amazing benefit that this truth holds, it actually starts becoming more and more painful to NOT overcome procrastination instead. All that needs to be done is to remember to change the perspective to how your entire life will greatly benefit from overcoming the temptation to procrastinate.
So, each time you feel the urge to be lazy and procrastinate, just look at it as another opportunity to protect yourself by taking more power away from your emotional brain by being responsible instead. Being responsible feels good too! You just gota dig underneath to realize the insane value being responsible actually brings to a person’s life!
Takeaway
When you are faced with the urge to procrastinate, leverage these truths to do the things that you know you should be doing instead. Doing so will continue to lead you to the life you really want for yourself. In the future, when you are being tempted again, talk to yourself about these 5 truths and what they hold:
- You only have so much time to live the life you know you really want to live.
- You have an even shorter amount of time to live the life you really want with the energy level to fully enjoy it.
- The older you get the harder it becomes for your body to deal with the necessary stress to achieve what you are really trying to accomplish in life.
- Death can come at any time which means our desired legacy is always at a constant threat.
- Life problems become easier and easier to deal with the more you choose to be responsible instead.
If you focus on these 5 things, you will start to notice a big difference in how you deal with procrastination. Leverage fear to get your mind’s attention away from wanting to procrastinate and be sure to remember the hidden benefits that the urge to procrastinate can give to your life when dealt with properly. Really get to know each truth so it can be easy to go back to them when you need them. The more you do, the more ready you’ll be ready to take on the urge of procrastination when it comes and use it for good!
To finish things off, if you end up feeling like the examples I provided didn’t resonate with you well, I suggest that you come up with things you know would create urgency within yourself. Remember to think of things that trigger a genuine sense of fear of loss in you, or things that are such a strong benefit that it’s too good to say no to. The goal is that the thought resonates deep inside you. The deeper it hits you, the more effective it will be when you use it when you are tempted to procrastinate!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this read! Feel free to share your thoughts, and if you have any questions please let me know!
Until next time! 😄