How Can I Stop Procrastinating

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

This is a question that a lot of people need to find the answer to or they will always have a problem, ‘How can I stop procrastinating?’

Procrastination is you knowing what needs to be done but for some reason or another you always find an excuse, and therefore nothing gets done. Procrastination is a habit that can literally destroy your life if you don’t decide to take control and do something about it now. Once you stop procrastinating you will be amazed how wonderful life can really be.

This article will give you some tips on how to achieve your goals and ultimately get done what needs to get done.

How Can I Stop Procrastinating?

Do you know what causes procrastination in the first place?

It really boils down to only two things:

Pain and Pleasure

Everything we do comes down to either avoiding pain or gaining pleasure.

Lets just say for an example that you are back in school and you have a report due, you know when it’s due, but for some reason you procrastinate on getting it done. Why did we procrastinate? The reason we procrastinated is simply because we associated more pain with taking action than not taking action. So you wait until the last minute and then all of a sudden a sense of urgency comes over you and you get the report done. The reason you got the report done is because after a while of NOT getting that task done it’s more painful than just getting it done.

How can I stop procrastinating,  you must first understand why you procrastinate. When was the last time you put something off? WHY did you put it off? Chances are, the reason you didn’t just get the job done and be done with it was because you associated some type of pain to taking action. Think about something that you like doing, like going out with a group of friends. The reason you don’t put something like that off is because you associated pleasure in doing it.

How Can I Stop Procrastinating

So, how can I stop procrastinating?  First you will need to figure out what is causing you to associate pain with getting a task done. Lets say for an example that you have been wanting to go up into the attic and clean it out but the thought of even going up there makes you feel miserable. That is the reason you have been putting it off because you are visualizing in your mind, pain. You haven’t actually done anything yet so you really aren’t experiencing any pain.

For this example you need to work on what you are focusing on in your mind. In this case, instead of thinking about how much time this task is going to take you to complete, focus on how good it is going to feel once it’s all done. Or, focus on how much free time you will gain knowing that another project has just been crossed off your list of things to do.

The point is that you need to get yourself to associate pleasure with getting the task done. Once you can get yourself to look forward to taking action, you won’t procrastinate.

Another way to get yourself to stop procrastinating is to associate more pain if you choose NOT to take action. For example lets say that you have been wanting to start eating healthier but you keep putting it off because all the fast food places keep coming out with more and more things to try. You know that if you keep eating like this that you will become overweight and unhealthy but for some reason, you don’t take action.

In this case you need to focus on the pain that you will suffer if you choose to not take action and keep eating unhealthy food. Imagine what your body will look like 5 years from now if you don’t start taking better care of yourself. Now imagine how you will look 10 years from now, 20 years from now.

So the key here is to actually feel the pain you would be causing yourself if you decided to not take action. You can’t let procrastination take over your life, so if you make this experience intense enough, it will drive you to take massive action.

Conclusion On How Can I Stop Procrastinating

There are other ways to stop procrastination but they ALL come down to, avoiding pain or gaining pleasure.

The first step is knowing how to stop procrastination. The second step is to make taking action a habit. The more you can get yourself to start taking immediate action the less you will be willing to procrastinate. The more you do it, the more you will continue to do it.

In order to stop procrastinating you need to get into the habit of always taking immediate action. If you can develop the habit of taking immediate action I promise you it will change your life. If you choose not to learn this skill you will be full of regret asking that one question, What if…..? So start taking action, stop procrastinating, and start living your life to its fullest potential.

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