How to develop discipline and beat procrastination for good? Although I’ll be covering writing, this could serve for any part of your life.
I know a bit about procrastination.
Firstly because I’ve almost always worked for myself, which mean I didn’t have a boss for the majority of my work life, I was my own boss. This sounds fun, right?! It is also a nightmare. You have no one to please but yourself. You’re responsible for your own failure. So your beautiful brain starts thinking: if you rest for a moment, you’ll starve, your business will fail, and we will live behind a bridge.
Great.
I’ve always looked for methods of beating procrastination and developing self-discipline. This helped me a lot to achieve everything I’ve done today. So, now I’ll teach you. In the end, I’ll also add how to beat anxiety as well, although I’ll have a post only about it. Because it can be kind of crazy to have your own business and to be a writer. Focus on mental health first, folks, always.
What is procrastination? How can I develop discipline and beat procrastination?
Procrastination is when you don’t do what you have to do. Instead, you go look for other things to put in the place of doing the thing you needed. You can procrastinate in a million different ways, believe me. It can be by putting on a funny Youtube cat video. Or by doing the dishes, laundry, cleaning your room. Anything besides the thing you should be doing.
Why do we procrastinate?
It can be because of different things, but I bet that you are procrastinating right now due to a reason that you didn’t even know:
FEAR.
We usually tend to procrastinate hard work. Maybe it’s an essay due tomorrow. Maybe it’s writing that difficult scene.
We are afraid of failing.
The chore can be punitive for us, so we would rather do anything else besides that chore. We know we will have to face it sooner or later but our brains chose the “later” option. This is a problem for Isadora from the future, right? However, time can’t stop. And you’ll have to do it. However, since it’s so punitive, the anxiety comes.
You start blaming yourself for not doing it, cursing yourself: loser, failure, everything else. Am I right?
After much suffering, when you finally do it, you realize it wasn’t that bad. Then, you decide: I’ll never procrastinate again because it’s too much suffering, more than it’s worth it.
But, then, the next hard task comes.
Much of our procrastination comes from fear of failure and perfectionism
You simply don’t know what to do. The task looks huge and complicated. You are required to do it but you prefer to jump off a cliff than facing it right now.
It’s even worse if you are running your own business. The anxiety will come. All the bad thoughts, even an anxiety crisis. Until you punish yourself enough that you do it. And then you realize it wasn’t so bad after all. But it’s a cycle.
If you’re a writer, your thoughts can be something like this:
You are no real writer. Writers write. You’re not writing. You’re sitting there watching stupid videos. You’ll never succeed, will you? I bet real writers don’t procrastinate like you, do they?
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