It is impossible to describe the relief that I just had, pressing the “Send” button in my Thunderbird, which will transmit an e-mail with the final part of my Diploma assessment to my coaching school.

Whether I pass or not is not at all important at the moment, but that I did send it away, finishing all required tasks, answering every question to the best of my ability and giving the best that I could, was.

Are you sometimes procrastinating to do the things that, if you did them, would propel you towards achieving your desired outcome, reaching your goals or simply doing what needs to be done anyway straight away instead of postponing and risking unpleasant consequences?

If you are a bit like me, getting closer to a deadline helps. There is enormous power in a cut-off date, especially and even more if there is money involved. To trick myself, I have simply brought forward my deadline in addition to an easy and down-to-earth 3-step process to overcome procrastination:

1. Make a plan
Write down the dates and what needs to be done and check, whether or not the task can be finished in the given time frame.

In my case, I had 3 assessments, which where all due at the same day. Doing them simultaneously would have been an option, but not a necessity, because they can be done independently from each other.  So I chose to give each of the assessments a month for completion, which was very doable.

2. Break it down
Once you have a plan in front of you with the deadlines, you can then start to break down what needs to be done and by when it needs to be done. Make the task as small as you can, in as little time frames as possible. Blocks of 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes, depending on the job, are ideal.
I had a part A, in which I had a number of questions to answer and a part B where I was asked to attach forms, sheets or other work to show how I had implemented the strategies from part A in my business.

Breaking down the question part was easy:
42 questions, 28 days (plus 2 to review the answers), makes 1,5 questions every day or 3 questions in two days. Knowing that I would not be able (or would not want to) work on the paper each single day, the goal became 3 questions per day, weekends of and 1 “joker day” per week, in which I would be “allowed” not to work on the paper. If you do the maths you’ll see that I would finish even earlier than the ‘every-day’ option.

I did the designing of the required sheet or form for part B, when I answered the relevant question from part A, so that all thoughts were fresh and I could immediately utilise (and test) what I had learned or found out.

Of course I did the easy questions first, and I want to suggest you do that too. Pick the task that can be done quickly and effortlessly. If you break it down effectively and really to the smallest detail possible, there will be at least one part that you may even like to do. Choose to accomplish this one or the one that would come closest to fulfilling this criteria first to get you going.

The effect of doing this is, that not only will you have started the process, but also you have an opportunity to celebrate a little success. I want to emphasise the importance of celebrating – not necessarily a big party of course, but a little reward.

Maybe you want to allow yourself to read one e-mail of your choice as a reward for doing this certain task in a certain time, or read a chapter in your favourite book, or clean the fridge, or whatever you would normally declare as ‘being more important’ than doing what really needs to be done.

When I was studying Architecture, I once decided that vacuuming was more important than building a model of my design, which was essential for completion. I was not really surprised to hear that some of my buddies’ apartments too where the more spotless the closer we came to a deadline!

If you make it a reward, you have something to look forward to and the easier it becomes to “Eat That Frog”. Nothing breeds success like success. Experiencing that wonderful feeling of getting something done will urge you to do more so you can feel this emotion again.

More than once I ‘allowed’ myself to work on the paper between 9am and 10am, only to extend the time to 11am, then 12pm or even until I really had to go and pick up my son from school.

3. Hold yourself accountable

If you are competitive, you can make a bet with a colleague or buddy, someone from your family, or even yourself. The more people you have around you who support you and ask you again and again how you are going with that project, the better – of course not to the extend that every five minutes someone is distracting you from actually doing the work. Maybe you can ask them to call, visit or check in with you just after your set deadline.

The less or not at all competitive procrastinator may be challenged a bit more in this step. If you belong to this category, you may rather respond to shame or guilt or any other feeling you would avoid more than anything else, which you could use to help you overcome procrastination.

Ask yourself: Who would you be letting down, if you did not finish in time (other than yourself)? Who would be disappointed about you (other than yourself)? Who would not respect you anymore (other than yourself)? Then go and commit to this person to doing what needs to be done and to hold you accountable.

However, using shame or guilt as a motivator means giving it a negative touch. It means that you are “moving away” from what you don’t want. Unfortunately moving away is a much less effective motivation than if you’d be moving towards something you want to have. Therefore one of the most important steps in a values elicitation is to convert any ‘away-from-motivation’ that might be present in the top values into being 100% towards motivated.

A tip for persistent procrastinators: find someone who does not notice you, but whom you respect and whom you would like to pay attention to you. Let him or her know what you want to do. No frog can be big enough that you would not eat it! It is a sure-fire way to overcome procrastination. You will do anything to avoid giving this person an opportunity to think negatively about you, wouldn’t you? (Of course this strategy is not always suitable, but if the situation allows it, can be very powerful!)

This is the step that is the most powerful and therefore the one where the rubber hits the road. If you can find a way to hold yourself or be held accountable, you will more likely overcome procrastination than if you would without that support system.

If you choose to, you can insert an additional step before you even begin: Research.
Allow yourself to explore, why you are procrastinating. Putting off tasks is most likely an effect of an underlying (limiting) belief and could indicate a fear (of failure or success) or an unfulfilled need (of significance or belonging). Procrastination is also an effective way to hide from taking on responsibility for consequences resulting from actions as well as from non-actions.

Exploring the root cause for procrastination requires both the courage to look at the real issue and honesty with yourself to dig deeper than you normally would. A trained and experienced coach will make sure that you get to the real issue, so that you can resolve once and for all, even if it means not being n.i.c.e. (especially if we spell it as “n.othing i.nside c.ares e.nough”!)

If your coach is trained in NLP, she will have even more tools to choose from and which will allow you to overcome procrastination within a heartbeat. For more information on techniques  you can use to conquer your limiting beliefs and their effects on your life experience, call 07 4774 8146 or e-mail info@transitionguidance.com to book a personality-reality check with our compliments.

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