I’ve really spent the last several years working on all my other major flaws and now I’m left with only one nagging issue that I haven’t resolved (of course that depends on who you ask 
). Procrastination is my single biggest problem at this point. It’s completely pervasive in my life and I realized the other day that it’s so ingrained into the way I operate that it’s going to be hard to escape.
I procrastinate with everything, even the tiniest of tasks, I’ll put off for no apparent reason whatsoever. I even put off things I want to do; I put them off until I really want to do them, and I justify it by telling myself that I’ll do it better later on when I’m in the mood. I put off calling clients for no apparent reason, although have an inkling I put that off because it can be stressful, but my subconscious won’t tell me for sure. I put off working out for any reason I can possibly think of; I’ve even justified skipping a workout because I skipped a workout under similar circumstances in the past! I know, I’ve lost my mind. I’m sure I’d be blown away at the amount of money I’ve lost because I put off updating my checking account register or put off depositing a paycheck, only to end up with a wad of Non-Sufficient-Funds fees.
It’s Time To Change
I’ve grown pretty sick of my procrastination, and it’s cost me more time and money than a tree could shake a stick at. It’s time to do something about it, and I’ll attack it the same way I’ve attacked other bad habits of mine.
The Plan
Every morning I’m going to meditate for 15 minutes on procrastination. For those who’ve never meditated before, it’s really powerful stuff and is responsible for the majority of the changes I’ve gone through over the past year and a half. I’m going to attack it from two sides: 1) I’ll imagine myself not procrastinating and succeeding in wild and crazy ways and all my dreams coming true as a result, and 2) I’ll imagine myself procrastinating and failing miserably, my whole life falling apart, and my relationships shattering because of it.
The second angle may seem a little much for some people, but there’s a perfectly good reason behind the tactic. The reason I procrastinate is because I have a view of the consequences of procrastination that is completely out of line with reality; as a result, I can’t picture all the little things I put off adding up to some really big problems in my life, so I keep putting them off. In other words, my subconscious isn’t afraid of procrastinating, and it should be. It’s important to note that even though my procrastination has caused problems and prevented successes in the past, I am incapable of changing the way I act because my subconscious has a wacked-out view of my procrastination. Consciously, I know this, but my subconscious isn’t listening, and that’s where the meditation comes in; meditation is a translator for my conscious mind, speaking English, to be able to communicate with my subconscious mind, which speaks some dialect of gibberish that I have yet to figure out.
The Trick To Meditation
I can meditate all I want, but it’s not going to do a lick of good unless I conjure up certain feelings. You see, the conscious mind speaks logic, math, science, and English, but the subconscious mind only speaks feeling (I know, I called it gibberish before, let it slide). You simply cannot effectively communicate with the subconscious mind without using feelings. So when I picture myself succeeding I’ll imagine myself in a particular situation and manifest feelings of happiness, power, control over myself and my future, a feeling of ultimate self-confidence, and any other good feelings that go along with that situation. It takes a couple weeks of meditation before you can manifest feelings at will, but if you’re trying and it’s not working, stick with it and soon it’ll just click (if you’ve been doing it for a while, let me know and I may be able to help). On the other side of the coin, when I picture myself failing as a result of procrastination, I’ll imagine myself being ridiculed by others as a lazy procrastinator, for instance, and manifest feelings of frustration, humiliation, resentment and any other feelings I would feel in such a situation.
Timeline
I really have no idea how long it will take to really gain control over my procrastination; if it’s anything like my lack of self-confidence that I began to conquer over a year ago, it may only take 2-3 months to gain the momentum that I need, but it could take up to a year of dedicated effort before I’m truly in control of it. That’s the thing about changing your subconscious tendencies, it takes time. I’m 25 years old, whatever my subconscious wants, it’s had 25 years to work toward getting it, without resistance; I can’t possibly expect to change 25 years of habit overnight. The good news is that it won’t take 25 years to take control over my procrastination; by meditating and remaining on the lookout for my procrastination rearing its ugly head, I can really start to induce change in only a few short months and really take control over the problem in a year or less.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Strider // Oct 20, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Interesting post, let me share some of my own thoughts. Maybe it’s just my experience, but maybe they can help you too. I often
have long periods of procrastination myself. I strongly feel the subconscious has a great power in deciding whether or not I
will do a task now or postpone it (again…).
Try to recognize its fallacies, such as: “I will do this task when the circumstances/my mood is better.” For example for me this
reasoning can often put me off my studies when I didn’t start before afternoon; my perfect day starts early. But recently I
realized this is simply no excuse to not start studying the same day. For me it was like an “all-or-nothing” attitude: either do
it well or don’t do it at all. This is also a fallacy; better to do something than to do nothing at all!
After realizing this you can start to program your subconscious by telling it is wrong; and it is good to at least start
spending time on the task even if you won’t do it perfectly.
So ultimately the source of my procrastionation - and maybe yours too? - may be perfectionism: you realize you cannot do the task at that moment in the way you expect to do it, so you postpone it until the circumstances are perfect. This of course rarely or never happens, so the task just keeps getting postponed!
I feel you show a type of perfectionism in the way you are planning to meditate. The two things you mention - doing your work
extremely well and fear of being ridiculed when you make mistakes - are, paradoxically, exactly reasons that can make you
perfectionistic and ultimately lead to procrastination and failure. The goals you are setting may simply be too high. These things are often
the same things parents do because they demand the best prestations of their children.
Of course setting goals of good achievement is not bad, but I think it will ultimately be much more productive to realize it is
impossible to do them perfectly. It is important to set them realistically. Just working on something is worth much more than
not doing it at all. And if it is not going as well as you planned, or you temporarily fall for procrastinating again, don’t let
this be an excuse to abandon the goal altogether! If you know that you consciously want to do something; program your subconscious to want it too, instead of having it repeat the same lies over again!
2 Johnny // Oct 22, 2008 at 8:37 am
Strider, I think you hit the nail on the head with a major cause of my procrastination. I think along those same lines exactly…that I tend to postpone until the circumstances are perfect, and they rarely, if ever are perfect, so the task waits an waits.
Convincing yourself that doing something is better than doing nothing at all really does help. Thanks for such a well thought out insight.
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