Stop Procrastinating

• Procrastination plays a major role in self sabotage.
• Procrastination usually stems from a desire to avoid pain.
• The hardest part is always the start. So get the ball rolling now! 

In this article we are going to be looking at how stop procrastination, because it is one of the most common things which causes people to lack self discipline.

The way we are going to do this, is by examining what you link pleasure and pain to in your life.

Once you understanding this you will gain far more control over your life, so that you will finally be able to stop procrastination.

Awareness, Your First Step To Overcoming Procrastination

One of the most common results of a misalignment of pleasure, pain and the goals people set for themselves is procrastination.

Procrastination simply means avoiding the things you want to do in life by putting them off, with the intention of doing them at a later date.

The trouble with this is that things usually never get done. Or by the time you finally get round to doing them, it’s too late.

Procrastination is therefore one of the main ways in which people self sabotage potential successes they could have in their life.

The effects of this can make you feel guilty for wasting your time, and worst of all, leave you feeling powerless and without control.

Causes Of Procrastination

Although there can be many reasons for procrastination, the most obvious is the avoidance of a perceived pain.

This may stem from a feeling of insecurity that comes from not having the information to do a task, and the resulting illusion that the task will be a lot of pain or hard work to accomplish.

Since procrastination is really a focus on the pain of a task instead of the benefits, one of the best ways to stop procrastination is to restructure how you perceive the pleasure and pain of the task at hand.

Overcoming Procrastination By Travelling Into The Future   

One method many successful people use to stop procrastination is to mentally project themselves into the future by using visualisation. 

This allows them to stop procrastination by motivating them and focusing their mind on the future pleasure of a task, rather than the present pain.

The famous boxer Muhammad Ali once remarked how he hated training. But he said he managed to get through the pain and discomfort that came with his long intensive training sessions, by picturing himself as a champion and the rewards he would receive by becoming the best.

In this way he was able to overcome his present pain, by focusing on his future pleasure.

The Importance Of Mental Visualisation

Mental visualisation is important, because either way your mind will either be visualising the perceived pain of a task, or the perceived pleasure.

However because it is a natural tendency to think about things that are happening immediately in the present, the mind tends to think of the pain first and so is motivated to immediately avoid any present pain.

The reason the mind focuses so much on the present is because of a built in survival mechanism. When we were still hunters living in the wild with dangerous animals, the mind had to be constantly focused on the present and avoiding pain in order to survive.

Skip forward a few thousand years and our minds haven’t changed that much! We still think primarily in terms of immediate pleasure, or immediate pain.

This is where control comes in. By shifting that focus away from the immediate present and into the distant future, you can change the minds natural motivation away from pain to become motivated towards pleasure instead.

Since the pleasure comes after a task is completed, changing your focus is therefore an extremely powerful technique to use in living a highly disciplined and productive life.

Here is a 3 step process you can use to overcome present pain, and become motivated by a future pleasure.

3 Steps For Overcoming Procrastination With Mental Projection

1 – Make a visual, kinesthetic or auditory representation of your objective. If you don’t know what your dominant thought processes are, see this article on NLP models and the subconscious.

Visualise the benefits of completing your task. A slimmer body? More money? More friends? Better health?  Whatever it is, focus your mind on the future pleasure you will receive, rather than any perceived present pain.

2 – Intensify those pleasant feelings. Make images brighter, more lively. Make feelings more intense. Make sounds more vivid.

These don’t even have to be accurate representations of reality, so make them as wild, vivid and exaggerated as you can.

3 – Stop what you are doing, and start the task immediately. Then feel good for doing it.

Thoughts To Feelings To Actions

This 3 step process is exactly what highly trained successful athletes do. They first change their thoughts, which changes how they feel, which in turn changes how they act.

This is often called “psyching yourself up” or “pumping yourself up”. They can do it, and so can you.

Using these 3 steps will help you to associate pleasure over pain, and with time this will eventually become natural and automatic.

Stop Procrastination By Getting The Ball Rolling!

Another benefit from using this technique in overcoming procrastination, is that even if you do not complete the task the very first time you still become motivated to start working on it immediately.

Often starting is the hardest part of any new task. But once you get started, things become a lot easier. A good analogy to use is the energy it takes to get a ball rolling.

The most energy is required at the start to move the ball. But once the ball gets rolling and gains momentum, very little energy is required to keep it moving forward.

So the next time you feel you are procrastinating and avoiding doing something you know you should do, practice this 3 step mental visualisation process to immediately stop procrastination.

Then get started on your task immediately, even if it is just for 5 minutes! The sooner you get the ball rolling, the quicker and easier things will get done.