Break the Procrastination Cycle: 5 Science-Backed Strategies to Get More Done

Break the procrastination cycle, five science-backed strategies to get more done. Before I give you some strategies to get more done in your life and say goodbye to procrastination once and for all, it is very important to recognize ways we may fall into procrastination, why it affects us negatively, but more importantly, to understand possible reasons we tend to procrastinate. Let's explore the showy. Hi everyone, welcome to Mind and Tangling Podcast by Holistic Transformation Center. Where you can find tips to improve your well-being, achieve goals and all things related to my RTT KeepNosis practice. I'm Joanna Stibbs, rapid transformation therapy practitioner, hypnotist, medical assistant and health coach. I help high achievers like you unlock their full potential by removing the mental blocks that keep them stuck, unproductive or unfocused. So what is procrastination? Experts define it as the voluntary delay of some important task that we intend to do despite knowing that will suffer as a result. Now we all have procrastinated at least a couple of times, if not more, in our lives, but when we chronically procrastinate, it is very important to tackle the root cause of that behavior, since it's detrimental to our lives. Studies show that at least 20% of adults are chronic procrastinators, and around 50% of college students also procrastinate chronically. From mental to physical health and our ability to reach goals and achieve the outcomes in life that we want for ourselves, I'd like to highlight the importance of getting rid of such self-sabotation behavior. For many years, scientists didn't seem to care much about procrastination, until a recent study has showed the association of procrastination to many poor outcomes, including some related to mental and physical health. Here is a list of some of the things that procrastination can lead to. Depression, anxiety, stress, disabling arm pain, poor sleep quality, physical inactivity, loneliness, loss of money, time, and opportunities, high blood pressure, and heart related diseases. Furthermore, a study on procrastination at bedtime showed links to depression, and another study has showed connection between procrastination and poor heart health. First, let's take a look at the types of procrastinators. Look at the following list and see where you may fall. How have you observed yourself procrastinating in the past? Lean the sapadin in the Jack McWire created a splendid book to help us see where we fall into the six types of procrastination. Which one are you? The first three types avoid the tests they need to perform due to some form of anxiety or fear of the results of that task. With the fear of rejection, failure, or even success, they completely avoid the task altogether, the warrior. The warrior doesn't believe he or she can perform the task. The anxiety attached to the fear of failure, to believe that they are not good enough to do it. And if they even try, that it will end up in disaster, all that will make it that they don't even start the task. They avoid the negative emotions and anxiety related to those thoughts and beliefs. And don't even make an attempt. The perfectionist. Perfectionists tend to avoid the task at hand, just like the warriors, due to the fear of failure. But more than that, they fear that things won't be done in perfection. This is for them that is the same as failing. They fear that they will be judged if their work is not perfect and not good enough. That they themselves will be judged and seen as not good enough as well. The overdoer. The overdoer takes in and commits to too many tasks and has difficulty on one hand to say no and on the other to prioritize tasks. They believe that if they refuse and don't accomplish all the tasks, that they won't leave up to their own standards or those of others. And therefore, they won't be good enough. This type of procrastinator tends to suffer from extreme burnout. Now, the next three types of procrastinators are motivated by boredom or frustration or anger. Their low frustration tolerance, LFT, is related to the belief that they won't be able to cope with a boring, mundane or repetitive aspects of a task. They fear the feelings that they may experience while performing a certain task. The crisis maker. This person believes that in order to be motivated to perform a task, they need to put themselves in stress mode and pressure that comes from doing tasks in the very last minute. Trying to run away from boredom, they wrongly believe that they will perform at their best if they do it that way. The dreamer. The dreamer doesn't think they should be working hard to achieve their goals. The thing should outright be given to them with no effort. Big ideas and dreams, but not much action is done to achieve those very dreams. Just the thought of doing some kind of task, either worse them or frustrates them. The defier. The defiers are angry at someone saying silly tasks haven't been given to them. They feel it stupid and ridiculous that they shouldn't be the ones doing it. They rabble against doing the task with great resentment, and they delay it to do others tasks they believe are more important. Not a great attitude to have when it's your boss requesting the task at hand. Now, it's important to understand that procrastination is never the problem, but a symptom of a deeper emotional issue. Behind the procrastination behavior, there is always some kind of limiting emotional core belief. And to resolve procrastination, it's important to know what the core belief of that procrastination is. My client Mike, it's a fictitious name for privacy, had a huge problem with procrastination that kept him from taking a step towards his life goals. He really wanted to organize his home, boxes, getting things for sale. There's donated to three stores to sell his house and planning his retirement. But instead, he would look at the clutter and just give up altogether. He had no motivation whatsoever. To the point that things would start to stack up and the physical clutter would match the clutter in his mind. He also procrastinated sleep time on a daily basis, and ate unhealthy snacks instead of going to buy groceries to eat healthy produce, which was his goal. He also procrastinated going to the gym, as well as going to the doctor. Things started getting worse and worse and he felt even more miserable with time, to the point of reaching a serious depression. Things were left undone due to a serious sense and belief of not being good enough. He envisioned things done in a certain way, in a certain perfection, and believed that if he couldn't do it that way, then things weren't aligned to make them that way, within a certain amount of a located time, with no unexpected obstacles on the way. Then why start? The pain of thinking of the task not done as it needed to be done, within a certain amount of time, the fear of that type of perceived failure was a reminder of the not enough myths that he felt about himself. Of course, at that time, he wasn't aware of that. His belief was that if he can't do things in a certain way, then it's not worth doing. And if it's not worth doing, then he's not worthy of reaching his goals and advance with his life. He would seek immediate pleasure and occupy his mind, doing other mundane things that had no priority and were in fact a total waste of time. But the accumulation of chaos created would eventually get to him, speak louder and make him feel even more unworthy, more miserable, ashamed, guilty, and even more depressed. His self-esteem was completely destroyed. His hope for life and joy and his health were deteriorating every day. There was no motivation to do things, waking up was a pain to endure while seeing all the things that he was failing to accomplish. With rapid transformation of therapy, we were able to find the root cause of the problem and find the times in his life where he felt rejected, ridiculed, a failure mocked by his teacher and friends, giving him this core belief of being different and not good enough. We were able to refer things in his subconscious, and of course he now knows he is more than enough, absolutely capable. And what happened before is looked with compassion for that little kid that he once was. The teachers' inability and the colleagues' cruelty and lack of sensitivity do not dictate his worth. He doesn't need to be perfect, he is good enough just as he is. The past, let's stay in the past. Once we were able to really create new brain connections, a new belief was created in the old one destroyed, a new reality in the way of feeling about himself has emerged and with it a new way of being, feeling and living life. And when you feel worthy and enough, you have a different behaviour. The truth about his capacity and worthiness was rewired into the brain and the man was transformed for that. This is just one inspiring story amongst many. So many people go through life with a handbrake engaged while on a highway, cell sabotaging their well-being, their potential over things that happened so long ago. But that can be changed, it needs to be changed. Strategies to stop procrastination once and for all and get more done. All of the following strategies are used in my RTT programs to rewire the brain, to quickly become the person that practices those things, does more and succeeds in life. I definitely recommend subconscious work since it really resolves the problem faster and because it fixes things that the root and wants and for all. But you can start now consciously playing these concepts. So let's take a look. One, change your relationship with failure. Once you see that the only failure is when you don't even try, you start understanding that obstacles in perfections and mistakes are all part of the success. So give yourself permission to make mistakes and embrace those mistakes, the most successful people know this, they embrace mistakes, they know mistakes are a process for learning and doing better, they don't let things remain undone, they do things anyway even if they're not perfect and learn through the process. That way they are always moving towards their goals and well-being and are capable of getting more done. Also people also tend to do the hardest things first every day, leaving more space for filling at ease and accomplished in the rest of the day. Think about it. So just start it, just do it, take action, attach pleasure in being active and seeing things getting done, rather than how things end up done or the end result. Two, enhance emotion regulation skills. Don't procrastinate due to an inability in regulating emotions. They can be motivated by the need to avoid negative emotions, anxious procrastination and or by the need to feel pleasurable positive emotions, had anistic procrastination. There is a temporal disjunction where the procrastinator prioritizes the needs of the present itself over those needs of their future self. So the goal is to cope with emotions in an adaptive way that leads to the outcomes that you want in mind, rather than a maladaptive one where you procrastinate. You want to become able to cope with negative emotions like fear and anxiety or cope with the absence of positive emotions due to a boring non-exciting task. Here are some steps to improve emotional regulation. A, figure out what you are afraid of and face your fears. Reflect on what it is that worries you in a given task. Are you running away from negative emotions or seeking positive ones by avoiding boring tasks? By understanding your motivations, you can then move forward with a plan. B, forgive yourself for past procrastination. Be compassionate and focus on the now and what you can do from now on. B, non-judgmental and be kind to yourself through the process. C, practice mindfulness and observe yourself talk. Try to improve it every day by challenging your negative thoughts. You can check out my article Seven Ways to Turn Your Mind It to Your Best Ally, where you can learn ways to build up the cheerleader inside you. The link is on the description. D, imagine your future self by focusing on the goals, rather than the task at hand. Visualize yourself achieving your goals with as much detail as you can, as if you are already there. Engage your positive feelings and emotions and your senses in that visualization practice. Three, break your tasks down into small manageable steps and milestones. It will make the task less overwhelming if you focus on each step at a time rather than the whole thing at once. If you focus on the little things, you'll find that you will progress steadily until it's finished. All you need to do is to start that one simple step and create intermediate milestones for each step, for instance, if you are given a large project with just a deadline at the end. Create other smaller intermediate deadlines for each step just for yourself. It will help you be more motivated, focused while you plan ahead, and show accountability with yourself. Four, improve your work environment and make your tasks more enjoyable. Do distractions that keep you away from completing your tasks. Like turning off the TV, the computer notifications, and putting your phone away. On the other hand, you can add pleasurable things to your task. Like a nice background music while you work. Or even choosing a spot where you enjoy being. Like a nice cafe with a Wi-Fi. Or even doing your task in nature if that task at hand allows for that, of course. Basically it's about improving your environment so you feel comfortable without distractions and interruptions while performing the task at hand. Five, ask for help. Some habits are very ingrained in our subconscious, so it's absolutely fine and extremely wise to ask for help. Use these strategies but remember that there are powerful therapies such as RTT that can help you achieve a cognitive behavioral balance through hypnosis and help you practice mindfulness every day. A therapist or coach can guide you through the process and give you a sense of accountability and outstanding support. You don't need to do it alone. Subconscious healing work will also allow you to get to the root cause of your beliefs and behaviors and knowing the root cause is the most powerful tool for positive change because understanding is power. It gives you the tools to heal past trauma and move on with your life in a healthy way. Also be aware that emotion regulation becomes hard to achieve when other conditions are present like depression, OCD, ADHD or lack of sleep. So ask for help. That is the wisest thing to do. I hope you enjoyed this article on procrastination and that you found these strategies useful in inspiring. Leave me a comment and let me know what your procrastinator style is and which strategy you found most useful in your case. Also send me an email to [email protected] if you would like my help in getting rid of procrastination or any other self-sabotaging behavior from your life, once and for all. Bye for now and remember you can do anything that you set your mind to do. You are so much more powerful than you think. Take care.