A ravaging truth of life: Procrastination-By Sonal Jain

Procrastination is a termite that can eat up your opportunities, valuable time, and productivity. It starts with convenience but slowly ends being a very unavoidable and disastrous habit. Good habits take time to build, and not-so-good habits multiply faster. 

It is a ravaging truth of life that no one can ignore and today I shall speak about a few incidents in my life that were influenced by procrastination and what were its long-standing impacts.

What is procrastination?

Procrastination is basically constantly denying and postponing your work or any task that requires action immediately. This is a habit that repeatedly crawls your mind because it becomes convenient to just avoid the work. After rigorous research, it was found that procrastination could be because of an irrational fear people have about failing the tasks. People choose procrastination despite seeing its negative impacts and consequences.

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Procrastination usually happens when people want to avoid any given task or even start a particular task in the first place. When the fear of failure overpowers self-confidence, procrastination happens. This is one such habit people do not realize that they are already giving into it.

Some visible signs of Procrastination

Terrified of failure-

When you are afraid of failure even before trying, that is a sign of procrastination. This is one of the most common signs of procrastination that most of us face.

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Uncertainty of goals-

Procrastination is a common path to choose when you are not certain about the goals you chose. This is a phase in everyone’s life and when uncertainty gets bigger, procrastination also increases.

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Ideas do not turn into actions-

A person who is the epitome of creative ideas but lacks action or lacks the confidence and ability to put those ideas into action ends up procrastinating it knowingly or unknowingly.

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Afraid to begin-

Many times, there are tasks that feel impossible or highly difficult. Such people get overwhelmed and consciously avoid the task. They already begin to see failure even without starting. This is a sign of procrastination.     

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Inefficient to prioritize-

When you have a hundred tasks in front of you, but you lack the quality of prioritization, you end up procrastinating the important ones because you are unable to differentiate between important and no-so-important. 

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How to overcome procrastination?

Start with top-most priority task-

To start something is very important. Begin with your day with what a high-priority task of the day. Get it straight that if you miss out on this task, you will lack behind while completing it. You must analyze the ill effects of procrastination and how it is going to affect people around you because of your lack of accountability.

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Work on self-confidence-

Self-confidence is the key to help you overcomes your fears of failing. It is a tedious task but a very essential one. Self-confidence helps you work on any difficult or new task immediately without worrying about the outcome.

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Take adequate breaks-

Procrastination can also happen if you feel overburdened with work. Your mind and body do not allow you to work hence you end up procrastinating. Learn to know where to stop and take a break. It will help you relax and work with even better energy.

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Hold yourself accountable-

Lack of accountability usually allows you to ignore the important task and you procrastinate it without giving it a thought. Hold yourself responsible for delayed tasks or incomplete tasks only then you will understand the ill effects of procrastination.

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Find your motivation-

Motivation plays an important role in your performance. Find out yourself what motivates you to wake up and work every day. It could be a friend, a goal, a video you saw, a motivational speaker’s words, other people’s success, etc. 

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My perspective on Procrastination

Apart from lack of motivation and fear of failure, laziness is one problem I see when speaking about procrastination. When you are about to begin something new and if it requires a long-term commitment, there are always second thoughts in your mind. Whether you will be able to succeed or be able to stay consistent. Along with lack of self-confidence, laziness or lethargy is also one obstacle in the path of success.

The mere thought of ‘Who will give so much time to this’ brings out your lazy self which overpowers your hard work and dedication. When the start is not active, the process and outcome will not stay active. This comes from a personal experience that I am about to share. I am the live example of procrastination due to lethargy. 

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When I procrastinated-

I say I am a live example of procrastination that is because of this blog that I recently began in December 2020. I wrote My First Blog in December 2020 because I really wanted to begin a blog. I had learned content writing and it was my long-term plan to start a blog and write something I resonate with. But exactly the above points crawled up my mind and I began underestimating this move of mine. I gave in the thoughts like what if I run out of content in the future, what if I am not consistent, and many such thoughts.  

This began my weakest link in the new journey. I procrastinated on the blog, I ignored it for a while and that time stretched up to 4 months. I did not feel like writing anything, and I felt low about my writing. For 4 months, I constantly thought about the blog, and I wanted to begin but my mind did not let me do so. 

How did I overcome this Phase-?

Later, in April I tested positive for Covid. For 17-18 days straight I was not able to think, work, wake up or be my own self. That is when it hit me hard that life is so unpredictable. Why should I not give it a try? It is now a good time to try new things and not worry about where this will lead me.

Mere this thought helped me fight the vulnerable side of me and made it easy to accept that now, whatever happens, I should not take a step back. I should at least try because if I do not, I will never be able to experience the journey. So, I wrote my My 2nd blog on May 17^th, 2021, post my recovery and since then I have written two blogs per week. Today is my 9^th blog and I am glad to have come this far just putting as much confidence and hard work even on days I did not feel writing.

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Procrastination is not a very pleasing habit. It makes you feel insecure, less hardworking, low on self-confidence and so much more. It is very important to overcome this phase to able to work with full potential.