DONT PROCRASTINATE ABOUT PROCRASTINATION! Procrastination is a psychological and neurological state of indecision. When we procrastinate, we are consciously or unconsciously experiencing confusion, uncertainty, self doubt, or fear. Business psychologists have found that if you have good time management skills and good business skills, “active” procrastination makes you more successful. It gives you time to access the situation and gather more information before you make an important decision. However, research shows that EXCESSIVE procrastination interferes with memory, and it tends to sour your personality. Procrastinators often have low esteem and tend to exaggerate their accomplishments as a way of covering up anxiety and self-doubt. When you catch yourself procrastinating, take out a sheet of paper and write down, as briefly as possible, all the reasons why you are doing it. Create an inner dialog and give the procrastinator a name. Then argue with it and watch what happens. Then ask the procrastinator for his/her advice. I recently did this with a neurocoaching client, and within minutes of directing his creative dialog, the procrastinator (named Joe) turned out to be giving wise advice to my clients childlike reaction for taking action on a problem! He befriended his inner voice, and its been 6 months of incredible growth in his company! Some procrastination is just an anxiety based on past unrelated events (i.e., memories), but other forms of procrastination is your brain telling you that you need more information before making a wise decision. But remember: you can never have enough info to guarantee future outcomes, so eventually you must trust your intuition and make a leap of faith. There is a powerful connection between perfectionism and procrastination. The perfectionist wants to do the best thing possible, which means it takes more time to do it right. Of course, you never know if something will come out perfect until its done. The procrastinator in your mind is always trying to second-guess the outcome: Maybe if I did this, it will be perfect, but maybe it wont, so I better think (procrastinate) some more. My mentor Bruno Bettelheim recognized that parents often fall into the perfectionist trap raising their kids. So he wrote a book titled A Good Enough Parent. So if you really want so solve the perfectionist/procrastination dilemma, ask yourself: Are you “good” enough? The answer is usually YES! Mark Waldman
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 06:38:26 +0000
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