“Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy”

Wayne Gretzky

Procrastination, Let’s face it we all do it, I’m battling it right now as I attempt to right this blog, that anxiousness of the work ahead, the little voice that hangs around telling you to switch on the television and simply put the task at hand off until tomorrow. As we all know though, tomorrow becomes next week, next week becomes next month, next month becomes next year, you get the picture right. Next thing you know its 5 years later and that thought inside your mind hasn’t become a reality, it remains a thought. It’s time to beat up that little voice, beat it so bad it is afraid of you. Violent sentiments right there, trust me though, a little bit of tough love goes along way. However don’t confuse beating that niggling voice with self criticism. Any thing related to self criticism is not the path to go down and in fact being to self critical may result in a rise in our old friend (the “r” is optional depending on your interpretation) procrastination. I can certainly relate to that.

WHY DO WE PROCRASTINATE?

As with all problems in life, it is difficult to come up with a decent solution without first questioning why that particular problem exists. The great Albert Einstein once said “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” Many of us do not have the same level of patience as the great Albert and 55 minutes of fretting about a problem just isn’t what we want to expose ourselves too. We want quick solutions to ensure the brain is rewarded with instant gratification, which typically results in a rash or poorly thought out decision and as we all know poor decisions result in poorer outcomes, which starts the cycle again. As humans our emotions play a big role in driving our thoughts and what we think is directly affected by our chemical makeup, that’s how we are constructed and to be fair it makes us who we are, it gives us our personality. Procrastination takes over our minds all too regularly, it’s our coping mechanism, it’s how we avoid tasks that apply extra stress to the brain & body. We protect ourselves from tasks that will make us feel anxious, make us feel a little uncomfortable and push us out of our “happy place”. If you’re reading this though you’ve likely come to realise that the realm of procrastination isn’t a happy place whatsoever. It’s a bit of an upstart, something like a 6 year old who can’t get their own way in the sweet shop (to the Americans and Canadians thats Candy, The Irishness will never leave me :P), doing everything to convince the parent (in this case you) to get what they want. The rebellious voice who convinces you to watch the next episode of Game of Thrones (for the third time) (I like using brackets), instead of getting in that swim you had planned. We never lose our inner child, I’m sure some of us still refuse to go to bed early. No parents nagging us all these years later but still the same end result to put off a task the weak part of us simply doesn’t want to do. There it is the “W” word weak, the uttering of such a word raises such negative comments but is at the core of why we procrastinate. Weakness is of course subjective but there is in us all, even the so called “achievers”. For me weakness in the human psyche is similar to the battle between good and evil, the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. We are free to decide whos counsel we take when the angel and demon sit upon the shoulder and try to convince the jury of synapses in your lovely skull to side with their wishes for you. “Weakness” and “Strength” do the same. The brave and bold “Strength” convincing you to push yourself to achieve those dreams that surface in your head, “read that book”, “Practice that swimming stroke”, Pump some iron” (as you’ll come to learn my personal favourite, reading will feature too) “Write that blog”. The lazy, hunched over, cowering “Weakness” persuading you not to listen to “Strength”, “You don’t need to do that leg session”, “You already know enough Calculus, the right questions are destined to come up on the exam”. You get my point right, we all procrastinate but we all dream, we all have goals and the only difference between the “achievers”(subjective) and the people who fall short (also subjective) is ultimately a greater level of control, a greater level of patience, a greater resolve, “Strength!”

“Never trust your fears, they don’t know your strength!”

Athena Singh.

NOT ALL PROCRASTINATION OR PROCRASTINATORS ARE BORN EQUAL!

When it comes to Procrastination, different levels exist, In the same way different difficulty settings are built in to computer games. Mario’s (Remember the Super Nintendo?) decisions were made by various different people and various inputs led to a variety of contrasting, yet similar outcomes. We all remember weighing up the right time to instruct Mario to jump, so as he could clear the hazard. Press the button too early and Mario would fall into the open chasm, press the button too late and he ran right over the edge before the jump could even happen. As you can see both scenarios resulted in Mario’s demise. We sometimes react the same way when confronted with situations in day to day life, overly anxious and jumping to a conclusion much too soon, ultimately resulting in a poorly founded decision leading to negative consequences. This potentially results from a lack of belief to complete the task in the first place, a feeling of “anyway at all” will suffice, the main objective is just get it done so the stress can be removed as quickly as possible. This however can be a step in a kind of procrastination cycle. If we are dealing with a task, we need to give it the attention it deserves and suffer the pain to achieve the best result for everyone, however the desire to return to a state of procrastination consumes the individual and they want to shake the burden as quickly as possible, convincing themselves that the solution they have hastily chosen is the right one. There goes Mario plummeting to his doom, all because the individual making the decision simply couldn’t handle the discomfort. As previously mentioned, Mario will sometimes be forced to run straight over the edge without ever even jumping. The stimulus never came to warn Mario to jump and alas, too late, he has plummeted down the open chasm again. Fear prevented the jump ever happening, hesitation in the face of fear resulted in an unfavourable outcome for Mario yet again. High level procrastinators run right off the edge, never jumping, they are crippled with fear. They don’t even engage with the discomfort. This is a terribly sad state of affairs when somebody does this to themselves in real life. “Never try, Never Prosper”. Such procrastination leads to an unfulfilled life all because the “Weakness kept winning out, to the point where it could take a back seat as autopilot was engaged and “Strength” had suffered a critical amount of muscle wastage from being so underworked. Neither of the above two examples of procrastination and the procrastinators on the “Game Boys” are advisable behaviour but i’d certainly give the “jumper” more of a chance in eventually reaching their dreams under the right guidance. The “Non-Jumper” however is another level entirely and is operating in the “World Class” zone on the procrastination level options but is certainly at “Beginner Level” when it comes to task completion and is likely to stay there if not prepared to test themselves in tougher environments. The difficulty level when turned up is difficult to deal with but if you hang around long enough you’ll get comfortable and before you know it Mario will be sliding down the Castle flagpole.

CAN PROCRASTINATION BE OVERCOME?

The short answer is Yes! but it has to be worked at on a regular basis, in the same way that if your having difficulties with your free throws on the basketball court, what’s the best solution to improving and lessening those difficulties, its practice and effort. We are all capable of working to achieve a goal. Working is in or nature and I cannot stress enough how important determination and work ethic is to eliminate the impact of procrastination on your life. In fact hard work is something of the antidote when it comes to procrastination. Being lazy is a trait that comes naturally to us all, in modern day Western society its a very common option, sit back in that couch, pick up that remote control and channel hop, scroll endlessly on Instagram looking at everyones glossed up photos and stories. Don’t get me wrong you can learn a lot from watching good tv shows, news and documentaries and in the same way specifically following chosen people you may aspire too. However if you wish to stop procrastinating about the life you want and go and do something, get up and do the things you need to do to achieve the life you want. Putting in the effort to the tasks and the objectives you need to achieve what you want to achieve. Its as simple as that. For me its the gym, its nutrition, its cardio (which still shakes me when I think about it), all things I allowed to slip when following my career path as an Engineer. I’m now heading in the right direction and it makes me god damn happy I got to say, I get annoyed when I let my standards (important too) slip but know the immediate solution is getting down to the pull up bar, getting on the cross trainer, making a nutritious meal, getting in the pool, you get my point. Immediately you will feel good about yourself when you test yourself and challenge yourself, the brain rewards you. Procrastination is defeated for another day, now let’s go and do it all again tomorrow!