Before knowing solutions to “How to break out of procrastination” you must know the causes of procrastination.
Procrastination is nothing but choosing a task that brings pleasure to your mind and senses instead of the task that brings pain.
Causes of procrastination.
1) Your subconscious mind: It is the store house of all your past experiences, knowledge, attitudes, and your general tendencies to react to various situations. EG. If in the past you have failed even after giving your best efforts then that experience is stored in your subconscious mind and it will come out when you will again try to put your best foot forward.
2) Your current pattern of thoughts: Pattern of thoughts means those things or topics about which you are repeatedly thinking. Some of it might be important and some of it unnecessary. Be aware of your thoughts and figure out those thoughts that are unnecessary.
You cannot immediately get rid of those thoughts so you need to learn how to replace those thoughts whenever they come. How to deal with unnecessary thoughts is something I have discussed later in this article.
3) Distractions and shortening of attention span: It can happen due to unnecessary scrolling on social media, watching too many reels, checking out your phone again and again etc. Average Human attention span today is just 8 seconds.
4) Fear of Failure: Such fear can arise due to past experiences where have failed to accomplish similar goals or due to lack of clarity about the goal that you are pursuing or due to you being not able to accept the consequences of failure in case you fail like social stigma etc. or due to the mindset that if you fail all your hard work will go to vain or all of these reasons.
Solutions To “How to Break out of Procrastination”:
1. Set clear priorities:
Studies or Business or Phone. Set the priority order of your activities. It can be according to most important activity to least important or according to the activities which if you complete first will reduce stress on you while performing other activities.
2.Set your goal span:
Yes you read it correctly a “Goal Span” having a lower limit and an upper limit. Lower limit target is something that you can easily accomplish while upper limit target is something for which you have to really push yourself. Aim for the upper limit and if you lie in between be satisfied with it.
Start doing your most imp tasks early in the morning so that by afternoon when you feel lethargic you’ve completed it.
3. VISUALIZATION TRAINING:
Every day visualize yourself as doing your work. Be realistic. Visualize as clearly as you can. In your mind face all the difficulties that trouble you while you are trying to achieve your goals. Initially do this for 10 – 15 minutes then you can extend up to 30 minutes.
Visualize all the minute details-all the emotion, thoughts, impulses that are affecting you – face them and go through them in our imagination everyday. This will gradually help you deal with actual situations.
4. Don’t Normalize Procrastination:
It is a serious issue and if taken for granted can be detrimental for your personal development.
5.Reforming your thought patterns:
Thought pattern means the type of thoughts that are coming to your mind in your routine life. These thoughts are biggest reason for distracting us. If your thoughts are triggering detrimental emotions like lust, anger, fear, greed, arrogance etc. then you need to reform or even replace them. There are three steps in which you can reform your thoughts:
- Dilution: When you get any detrimental thought understand the consequences of such thought and dilute it with positive or pure thoughts which generate positive emotions in you. If you are a religious person you can think about god, if you are not you can think about great personalities like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Buddha, Krishna etc. of human history and their teachings.
- Substitution: It means to completely replace the negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Once you dilute negative thoughts you will quickly be able to substitute them as well.
- Sublimation: It means to reinforce positive thoughts. You can do it when ever you are free and your mind starts wandering. During such time reinforce positive thoughts. It will gradually change your negative thought pattern, make you more virtuous and decrease you tendencies to get distracted.
How to Break out of procrastination.
6.Gradually developing new habits :
You need to replace your unsustainable habits with habits that are more productive and good for your overall development. But it is not easy, so being patient is of utmost importance. Don’t try to do everything at once.
Remember consistency >>> irregular intensity. So develop gradually.
For Understanding “How to develop Consistency” – Refer this Article.
7. Procrastinating distractions themselves: Delay distractions themselves. Set a specific time period in you day to deal with all distractions whether due to your phone or anything else.
8.Breaking down task into smaller parts:
When you break down your task in small parts it will make the task more achievable to you and thus will reduce fear of failure and increase your focus up to a certain extent.
For Understanding “How to work for Long Hours” – Refer this Article.
9.Balanced approach:
Neither be too harsh on yourself nor be too lenient by giving yourself awards that you don’t deserve.
10.Embrace the consequences of failure.
Whether it is social stigma or anything else embrace it. Accept it and accept that your current situation is vulnerable and constantly look to improve in your weak areas.
Also don’t be overburdened with past but take your past mistakes as a lesson learnt in life to make yourself do that work reminding yourself of consequences.
That’s all for “How to Break out of Procrastination” in this article. Even if you understand this much and implement it you will seee transformation n your life.
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