My recent experience with working on the pervasive problem of procrastination has been very counter-intuitive. I previously believed that procrastination was a manifestation of a lack of fear. Im actually learning that procrastination is a manifestation of too much or unfounded fear. I notice my self always making threats about getting something done. If I dont do my paper Ill fail and then that would piss me off and..........etc. Im always under the impression that I must do things when in reality I do not have to do anything. anything at all. I dont even have to eat if I dont want to. I dont have to save money if I dont want to. I dont have to be nice or conform to social norms if I dont want to. If I do something, its because I wanted to. Also, when Im procrastinating Im usually making things appear much larger and more difficult than they are.
More often than not, procrastination is rooted in rigid perfectionism. The more one procrastinates, usually the more critical of them selves they are. Changing self talk is instrumental in overcoming procrastination, form I have to, to I choose to. An excellent audio book on this topic is neile fiore's Now Habit
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Ha! Great insight :-)
ReplyDeleteI think you will be very interested in PJ Eby's book "thinking things done." I can not recommend this guy enough, he seems to have understood the mental mechanics of motivation.
He's currently in the process of writing the book, and he sends out preview chapters every week:
http://thinkingthingsdone.com/signup/ (so far I didn't get any spam)
Just by signing up you'll get access to a video which will give one of his techniques. It is all very practical and pragmatical, and it works very well, at least for me.
Also, in the book he describes quite a few insights on how motivation works, not only the insight which you mentioned about procrastination.