Tips to Overcome Procrastination

byfleurallen

2.6K followers

7 years ago

The past 30 days I have personally gone from motivated, action taker to be gripped by procrastination for about 21 days. Finally, I was able to overcome this to achieve an important goal to me. But overcoming procrastination is not easy thing. So how did I do it? This past month has inspired me to share my story and also the tips to overcome procrastination that worked for me.

Background

I have been a member here at Wealthy Affiliate since April 2017. Completing the certificiation training courses and now working through the Affiliate Bootcamp courses. Achieving member rank of within the top 100 and learning for myself and sharing and assisting other member when I could.

January 2018

One of the founding owners, Kyle put a callout for those interested in being mentored by him for a Super Affiliate Challenge! I submitted my request... And... Was delighted to be confirmed I was accepted into the Super Affiliate Challenge. Now referred to as SWAG (Super Wealthy Affiliate Group).

Kyle handed out the first week challenge, which I actioned immediately (I was on holiday at the time so I had the time - hey no excuses Fleur). Then there was a suspenseful wait for the first month (February) tasks to be shared. In hindsight what I can gather Kyle was creating the content and perhaps Carson (the behind the scenes guy) was updating the software to be able to cater for this new initiative.

February 2018

We were given the first month's tasks on 4 February and told all 18 tasks were due on 4 March. Nice, I thought, I have plenty of time.

I actioned approximately 14 tasks in the first week. It wasn't too difficult mainly because I've been in business for the past 10 years, and have been actively going through the trainings here and am upgrading an existing blog I already have. So the majority of tasks I had completed before my birthday on 13th Feb. So I thought, great I set up to be able to celebrate my birthday and then complete the final tasks.

The only thing was, one of the tasks was to publish 12 new posts to my website. Yes that's one task! I thought no problem that's 3 a week, at worst, 5 or so a week if I take a week off for my birthday.

Distraction lead to Procrastination

This is where distractions hit because February is not only my birthday month, but also the month of the Fringe Festival and Perth Festivals here. I work in the Arts, therefore there were many functions I had to be at, I couldn't just not go (poor me hey!?!). Plus it is summer and so is peak Twilight Sailing season. Plus I do actually have 2 part time jobs so had to set up the administration and plans for 2018 in both roles. Phew, I'm exhausted just remembering it all.

I had planned to catch up on whatever blog writing I was behind on during the week of 26th February. No problem. But...

Ill health

On Sunday 25th February, I came down with a nasty head cold. It was the usual symptoms but also I felt very, very vague and so found it difficult to concentrate. To the point of not feeling confident to drive. I took 3 work days off that week, spending most of it in bed. Then.... right when my head cold was beginning to improve, I broke a toe! Noooo! This happened Thursday 1 March. Which that day I felt pretty sorry for myself looking at another 3 days sitting down with an elevated foot.

By Friday 2 March, I was feeling better, my son had come back to me (I have him week about) and was at the beginning of a 3 day long weekend here. So I thought staying close to home with my foot elevated or swimming in the pool to escape the hot weather with my son I can do. But... I was feeling a complete failure.

Fear of Failure

Why? Because I only had 2 days to complete 3 of my SWAG tasks. Remember the 12 post task? I had only written 2 posts that month!

I was feeling stressed about it but also was feeling very grumpy because I did not want to fail. So...

I felt the fear and did it anyway

I decided to write all the remaining posts in those remaining 2 days! I know Crazy right? Well I thought even if I don't achieve my goal, at least I've had a great go at it. Please note, I am aware that Kyle's intention is probably for us all to post regularly such as 3 posts per week rather than multiple in 2 days! But I had a commitment to meet.

However, I was so stressed about it all, I misread 2 of the tasks and thought I had to write 16 on my website for the month! It's incredible how powerful stress can be. Therefore I created the goal of writing 14 posts in just over 2 days (I am in Australia so was using the time difference to the US to my advantage here).

Friday 2 March

Made the commitment to myself to create 14 blogs in about 30 hours.

Shared this commitment publicaly to make sure I did it! I can tell you I immediately felt physically sick when I did this. My inner voice was saying, well done now everyone will know when you don't achieve it! What!?! I was so disappointed in my inner voice dialogues at that point. That was when I told myself, no more excuses, no more BS, no more poor me I have a broken toe or cold or whatever. I'm going to make a plan and do it!

It is interesting here that the fear of failing my goald. The fear of failing publicaly really got me motivated. I had a bit of a 'I'll show you' attitude - when it was me I was showing no one else. It wasn't anyone else's goal, it was my own. I was the only one that really cared about it.

This day I wrote the articles:

'I will succeed' and

'Why Motivation is Important'

I felt MUCH better and wrote my, I need your help post here at WA too and got a truck load of topic ideas. I can tell you, taking action really is the best remedy for procrastination.

Saturday 3 March

I had planned to write 4 posts this day, 2 in the morning and 2 in the evening. Remembering I had my son with me so I couldn't just write all day long.

So I wrote:

'Best Blogging Tool - Site Content'

'The Importance of Health and Wellbeing' and

I was feeling exhausted by this stage. So I remembered I wanted to combine some content on 2 other websites over to my blog. So I took the topics from my Business Book Review site and rewrote some of the articles:

'The Success Principles Chapter 1'

I was needing sleep so went to bed early. Then woke up in the middle of the night to finish:

'The Success Principles Chapter 2'

'Business Book Review The Success Principles by Jack Canfield'

Sunday 4 March

This is the day I took some time out to give back and say thank you to many people on social media that were cheering me on, especially here at WA. Which meant I took a breath and went back to review the SWAG tasks. And realised... I only had to write a total of 10 posts to reach my 12 post goal!!! I had just written and published 7. Oh my goodness, the realisation of going from halfway to achieving your goal to only 3 posts away from the goal was great, was motivating and a huge relief too as I was absolutely exhausted.

I drafted my final 3 posts and published them the next morning when I was fresh.

Monday 5 March

I published:

'The Barefoot Investor Review'

'Best Online Training Tools' and in honour of the mistake of the total number of posts I needed to achieve my goal. I wrote:

'The Power of Stress'.

Result

I had achieved my goal and had written 10 posts in under 3 days!

That felt incredible. To achieve a goal, I really wasn't sure I could achieve.

That is my journey. So what did I learn? What Tips to Overcome Procrastination can I share with you? I shared some already but here are a few I can think of:

Procrastination to Passion to Profits

What ultimately moved me from Procrastination was my goal of my goal helping others to turn their Passion into Profits and for the blog to be self-sustaining in terms of income and growth (which means regular quality content).

Resistance

I have been resistant to blog regulary 3 times per week since I joined WA. I have no idea why? Maybe a self sabotaging tool? Maybe because I don't regard myself as a writing (just a blogger)

"NEWSFLASH a blogger is a writer"

I wanted to join SWAG to get me over this block. Now on the other side of the goal, it certainly served its purpose!

Overwhelm

I had got myself into a point of overwhelm, all of my own making. Therefore, I said to myself. I got myself into this, I can get myself out of it too!

What I did was focused on one blog at a time, not the overall goal of 10 blog posts. That really helped.

Commitment

In February I had been more committed to celebrating than I had been to my blogging goal. Which in the end I was very disappointed in. This disapointment reminded me of my desire to achieve in SWAG. So I focused on that and not on failing.

Relief

As I begain to write, my sense of relief grew after I published each post. It is true, Success breeds Success.

Attitude

I took a attitude of determination and imagined being one of the other great bloggers here. That actually do post regularly.

Self Belief

This was HUGE. As soon as I started taking action, my self talk changed immediately from 'you can't do this' to 'hey you can actually do this!' Powerful.

Team

The support I had here at WA was fantastic and awesome and frankly got me up and running in those first few blogs. Thank you all x

Important

What won out in the end was focusing what was important to me, and what I could 'live with myself'

New Day

I took each day as a new day and moved on from the previous day not dwelling just checking my plan and writing one blog at a time

Achievement

Achieving this goal has been so good for me on so many levels. Really boosted my confidence and ability to achieve the SWAG goal and a profitable blog.

Timeout

It was great to take time out again, guilt free. To reflect on my achievement and enjoy swims in the pool again feeling good about myself.

Intense

A completely intense time that I don't wish to repeat next month. So this month am writing a plan but actioning it not just writing it.

Only

I was delighted to realise the power of stress had warped my end goal from 10 to 14. It was very sweet to realise this mistake and

New

I have a New commitment and New routine to writing 3 quality posts per week - Yay! I have finally moved past this block.

The result is I overcame a huge bout of procrastination. If I can, you can too.

What is blocking you on your path to success?