Overcoming My Procrastination Addiction

Humans carry incredible potential, but as research has shown, most of us fail to do the INCREDIBLE because we are in this constant habit of delaying things in our life. Virtually all of us, an estimated 95% of us, suffer from this habit of procrastinating.

I bet you can relate to the experience where you have to do a project, but instead of doing it in time and doing it perfectly, you turn to games and watch TV or Netflix instead. And it is only at the last hour when you have to do it under the time crunch, you manage to prioritize your work over leisure.

And let me be honest here, that’s most of my life up until the age of twenty-two years, I was busy doing only one thing, procrastinating everything that carried some importance. Every time and I mean it EVERY TIME, I merely even thought of doing something, a hundred other things would pop up in my mind, and I just couldn’t maintain focus. Even if I, somehow, managed to force myself into sitting on the desk and doing the project or work, it’s only about fifteen minutes that I lose all my focus in and here we are again, watching TV, playing games and listening to music.

But, for the past three years, I have successfully managed to overcome procrastination and progressed from being an average student to quite an exceptional and appreciated one. Before we discuss strategy, we ought to realize how destructive procrastination is! And how it could be eating away your future prospects. Because most of our lives we don’t see procrastination as a real problem needing effective response measures. I have lost grades, my career prospects and what’s most overwhelming is the amount of productive time wasted, which it had been invested thoughtfully would have yielded some promising results. In any case, we all hate to face failures in our lives, and that’s what procrastination makes you, a failure! And I mean it.

Fast forward twenty years from now, when your career would be much more defined and restricted from it is now, would you be able to save yourself from the fear of “unfulfilled potential”, would you be able to bear the thought of, “I could have done that”? I couldn’t, so I knew I had to change things in my life.

And here’s how I did it, It’s a long process requiring consistency, but if you stick to it, the rewards are every bit worth it.

Remain Optimistic, Trust in Thy Ability

The fundamental thing that you must ensure is that you don’t fall into the abyss of depression and regard yourself as a failure. Belief is fundamental, and an important aspect to note here, which shouldn’t be taken as motivation is, that you procrastinate because even at the cost of delaying you often get things done, so deep inside you have the trust in your ability that you have the capacity to do it. However, at the same time, it is important that you realize you could have done so much more if you didn’t procrastinate, so it is all about setting the bar higher for yourself so that even if you procrastinate, it’s the higher standard that you have set for yourself to achieve that should push you to get things going earlier.

Otherwise, if you convince yourself that you can never get past that “D” grade, or ever establish yourself above average there’s no hope left any further. It’s important that you maintain this self-belief that shall push you towards achieving incredible feats in life. Underestimating oneself is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you ought to avoid taking that road.

Capitalize On Your Failures

“Any bad investment or experience that leaves you with a great lesson is essentially not a bad investment.” Imam Ali (R.A)

Until your failures leave you with a lesson, and you implement that lesson with a commitment to not repeat that mistake again, your failures transform into lessons, and in essence, become a blessing for you. Muster up that motivation and lift yourself up and take the initiative back into your own hands.

Actively Inspire Yourself

What keeps an Olympic athlete going in bone-shattering exertion during the games and matches, the legendary examples of their seniors and colleagues. See! Motivation like success is derived from the external world’s examples. So make yourself acquainted with great minds and great people (not physically for most) but by reading their life stories, watching documentaries. their interviews, their struggles and consistency. When you inspire yourself by the likes of Warran Buffet, you instill this necessary motivation and higher expectation of yourself.

What Warren Buffet Has That You Don’t?

You see! People succeed because of their commitment and hard work, not because they were some benefactors of a genetic lottery. So, by relating to such people you essentially change your league, and nobody likes to be on the bottom of his league, you’ll naturally be inclined towards working hard and pushing yourself.

Make a Schedule

This might seem like the most benign thing to tell to anyone who procrastinates, we all have tried making schedules and checklists right? But, there’s a chance that you need to consider this time you sit to make a checklist. Realize that you are never going to have plenty of time to do everything that needs to be done, however, you always have time to do what’s most critically important.

What I do is generously make a checklist of tasks, and later on, as I review them, I put a small “c” behind the task that just cannot be compromised on, and without doing which my day couldn’t be deemed as productive. And normally limit critical tasks to a max of Five and a minimum of Four. So it’s no longer a work schedule and checklist that jumbles up all your big and small dreams, instead, you have narrowed down your priorities and that will take you a long way.

In a nutshell, it is all in your mind and in your grasp, you can do it as I have and many others have done it In the past. Glory, success and satisfying life is one step away from you, a step to not procrastinate on things in life…Everything else will fall in order, on its own. Trust me! I have witnessed it. Best of Luck!

Originally Published on Medium By Author