PROCRASTINATION starts from an avoidance of something from
fear, then becomes a pattern that hardens into a habit.
We reinforce this procrastination habit through years of
practice, and it hurts us in so many ways in our lives – not only with work
tasks, but much more.
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| Do you have a 'procrastination habit'? |
The procrastination habit affects:
* Dealing with our finances head-on
* Health habits (putting off exercise, for example)
* Dealing with our health problems (putting it off makes it
much worse)
* Relationships (putting off difficult conversations)
* Creating, art, meaningful work
* Decluttering and simplifying
* Being on time (and being late can cause us stress)
* Learning new things
And much more.
Those are just some of the most visible examples, but we
procrastinate all day long, by checking our phones, favorite websites, email,
messages, news, watching TV, playing games, and … well, you all know your
favorite procrastination techniques.
So the question becomes, how do we stop hurting ourselves,
after all these years? How do we start to unravel our hardened procrastination
habits and create more helpful patterns?
The answer is to start thinking of these hardened patterns
as grooves.
The Grooves of Our
Habits
When you first procrastinated, you didn’t have a hardened
pattern. You had a choice.
You could do your homework (or pick up your toys, perhaps),
or you could put that off until later and do something else that’s perhaps more
fun.
You felt fear or resistance with one task, which made the
other option more appealing. You chose the easy route, and that felt good in
the moment.
There was immediate reward. There was difficulty later, but
that was something future you had to deal with.
All other choices like this were rewarded with immediate
gratification. So by repeating this choice over and over, you start to wear a
groove into the ground.
After a while, the reward isn’t even needed … the groove
becomes so much easier to follow, and getting out of the groove is so much
harder.
The longer we keep sticking with the groove, the harder it
is to change.
Habits are grooves. You stick to the old ones, until you’re
willing to put in the effort to get out of the grooves and make new choices.
How do you get out of the groove you’ve made? Conscious
effort.
How to Change Your
Patterns, or Get Your Groove On
The steps of breaking out of a groove are simple, but they
require concentrated effort:
1. Decide that you’re tired of the old groove. The old
groove isn’t serving you. It’s hurting you.
When you decide you’re tired of hurting yourself with this
particular pattern, you’re ready to change. Assess whether you’re ready right
now.
2. Commit to
conscious change. When you’re ready to stop hurting yourself with the old
pattern, make a commitment to practice and to be very conscious in changing
your groove.
Making the commitment to someone else, or a small group of
friends or family, is a powerful way to commit.
3. Set aside time
for deliberate practice. You’re not going to change your groove haphazardly.
You have to practice consciously and with deliberate effort.
Set aside a small practice period each day – just 5 minutes
to start with. Don’t put off the task of blocking off your practice period –
remember, you’re deliberately practicing a new pattern!
I recommend 5-10 minutes every day of the week, first thing
in the morning before you check email or your phone or computer. Have a
reminder where you will see it first thing in the morning.
4. Set an
intention for your practice. Before you start, tap into your reason by
remembering why you’re practicing. In what ways is this hurting you in your
life?
Is it hurting your career, health, happiness, relationships,
finances, meaningful work, your loved ones? Set an intention to practice in
order to make these things better.
5. Set yourself a
task. Pick something you’ve been putting off (but perhaps not your hardest or
most uncomfortable tasks to start with). Commit to doing that task for just 5
minutes.
6. Let yourself
do nothing else, and watch your patterns. Sit there and do nothing but that
task, or do nothing at all. Notice when you have the urge to switch to something
else, to get up and get away.
Those are your old patterns showing themselves, which in
itself is hugely valuable. But just observe the urges, without acting on them
but also without judgment.
They’re just urges, just feelings that arise, not anything
to worry about. Just watch, don’t act, just sit and face the urges. Then return
to the task. Over and over, until this is your new groove.
It’s possible to create new grooves, new patterns, that
serve you better. I’ve done it dozens of times in my life, perhaps more than a
hundred in the last decade.
I’m no stronger than anyone else, and so if I can do it, you
can too.
The Undone Course
I’m launching a new video course today [April 3rd,
2017] in my Sea Change Program called Undone:
Reprogramming the Procrastination Habit.
I invite you to join us in this 4-week course, by joining Sea Change today.
Sea Change is my monthly membership program for changing
habits, learning mindfulness and changing your life. Each month, we focus on
something different, and this month it’s procrastination.
What you’ll get with this course:
1. Two video
lessons per week
2. Exercises to work with your procrastination patterns
mindfully
3. A challenge to do these exercises a short time six days a
week for the whole month
4. A weekly check-in for the challenge so you stay
accountable
5. A live video webinar (for Gold members) and the ability
to submit questions for me to answer
I encourage you to join me and have your efforts to change
your old patterns supported by me and more than a thousand other Sea Change
members.
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