Procrastination - the Success Killer

bythelungdoc

3.2K followers

Updated 4 years ago

Procrastination - the Success Killer

Procrastination. It is probably what wastes the most time and produces the most failure in life.

We all procrastinate. Usually the hard thing are put off until later - tomorrow, next seek; sometime later.

Many intelligent, thoughtful people never accomplish much in life because they procrastinate - they always put off difficult choices for later. That "later" never comes.

Accomplishing the easy takes precedence over accompliahing the difficult. But it is usually the difficult things that produce the most difficult life-changing results.

We know we should do something but simply don't. Why is that?

One reason is because most difficult challenges involve some degree of change; and change is never easy.

People Naturally Resist Change - It Is In Our Genes

People naturally resist change because change usually produces stress, and our brains are hard wired to avoid or run away fromstress.

Thaink about the lion about to charge a remote ancestor countless years ago. To escape this menace, we had to start running, climbing, and get out of the lion's way.

If we stood and pondered our situation and wondered intellectually why the lion chose us instead of another - we will soon not live to ponder any more.

If we instantly ran, climbed and escaped from the lion, we would live to see another day.

Over time, people learned a lion charging meant danger and potentially a very bad outcome, so we escaped the stress of a lion charge without pondering our choice.

We learned lion => stress => run.

Physiologically, stress activates a tiny structure deep within our brain called the "amygdala." This tiny brain nerve center has a very large task; it tries to save our life when a stressful situation appears.

The amygdala turns off our higher mental functions so we won't just stand and ponder why the lion is charging while sinultaneously turning on our fight or flight response.

We run.

In other words, the amygdala, when exposed to stress, makes us want to estape that stress. It teaches us that stress in all forms is bad and must be escaped.

But this is sometimes a maladaptive response.

Taming the Amygdala

The amygdala was great for our ancestors because it helped us escape the lions of our life. But today, the amygdala can get in our way.

Rather than doing that stressful job, going to college, taking a difficult course, making difficult choices, we choose to escape the stress.

Rather than studying, we choose to play video games, go to the movies, or go partying.

We make an irrational decision that takes us away from beneficial goals in order to avoid stress.

So how can we achieve great accomplishments while reducing stress?

Japanese to the Rescue

The Japanese have designed a plan for goal accomplishment that was originally meant for big business, but can also be easily applied to the individual.

Rather than trying to accomplish something big and intimidating, any goal can be broken down into smaller and smaller goals so they are no longer threatening.

Kaisen tells us to approach any unpleasant goal by slicing up that goal into smaller, less anxiety producing goals. Instead of deciding you are going to spend the weekend cleaning out the garage, maybe you decide this weekend you will only get the cleaning supplies. That's it; no anxiety produced, and some of your larger goal is done.

Next week, maybe you decide to just take out some of the lighter items to want to discard. That's it; nothing more, taking maybe 15 - 30 minutes time. Easy - no stress and part of the job gets done. Your amygdala stays calm.

Each large goal is divided into very small non-anxiety producing goals and over time you will have a clean garage.

While it might take several weeks to finally clean out the garage, you can also simultaneously accomplish other goals by similarly slicing each larger chore into small, non-intimidating ones.

Much More Information about Kaizen Goal Setting

Think about how most of us grew up. I was given a "chore" by my parents and I had better accomplish that chore that day or bad things would happen.

Your boss tells you he expects a report on his desk the next day, and it had better be there if you want to keep your job.

Most of us are trained by our bosses in life (spouse, boss, children) to try to accomplish large goals all at once. When that does not work out well, as it frequently does not, our level of anxiety and task avoidance increases

There is a whole science built around this technique where smaller steps produce success in achieving big goals.

Rewarding Good Behavior

Part of achieving any goal should be the reward.

Sometimes, accomplishing a goal is reward enough - such as weight loss or getting into better health.

Other times, achievement should be attached to a reward. Cleaning out the garage may be rewarded by boasting about your clean garage on Facebook, going to see a movie, or something else enjoyable to you.

Rewards make achieving a goal more achieveable; the goal itself may not be rewarding enough.

Procrastination is solved by breaking up the task we might be avoiding into smaller non-stressful tasks, and then rewarding ourselves when the task is done.

If interested, there is more about Kaizen here.

It is a fantastic construct, one that can help you achieve great things one small step at a time.