How to Overcome Chronic Procrastination
Chronic Procrastination Case Study
Richard was facing exactly this issue. When he came to see me Richard stated that he wanted to overcome procrastination. That sounded like a good starting point. I asked him what “procrastination” meant to him, personally. What I came to realize was that this wasn’t some little avoidance in his life. This was something that literally had a grip in his everyday reality. Even the simplest tasks would be put off until a situation would come up that demanded his attention to the task. Dishes would pile up until there were none left to eat on. Trash would be overflowing until it had to be emptied. This is the real problem that Richard was facing.
Working on something that you “don’t” want to do is a very hard goal. After all, how do you know when you’ve reached your goal? There’s not much room to celebrate if you can’t see it or imagine it. With just a little digging, we found that his real problem was that he wasn’t able to keep his word to himself. Now we had a goal, “To have the ability to keep my own word to myself. When I say that I will do something, I then do it.” Great, now we could measure success or failure from that point forward.
Working on the “Core Issue”
We decided to use the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to go after the problem. We “tapped” on everything related to this issue of procrastination and not keeping his word to himself. We spent a total of about 20 minutes working directly on the problem.
When we finished I asked Richard to imagine himself doing the tasks he mentioned in the beginning of our session. (Note that these were things that he had been procrastinating for several months, and at the start of the session he could not see himself getting these things done anytime in the near future.)
He was surprised to find that he could see himself doing the tasks to completion and was even able to commit to completing one of them within the next two days. I also asked him to think about another more daunting task but to not tell me what it was. His homework was to give his word to himself that this task would get done.
New Options, New Life
In short, today Richard is a new man. And his wife has noticed the changes as well. She has often commented to him how he will now notice something that needs to get done and he simply does it. Both major and minor tasks are handled with the same attitude. And when he revealed what was the task that he had kept to himself, even I was shocked that he completed it as promised, to himself. This involved a massive clearing of septic tank plumbing. No wonder he had been procrastinating. I think that I would have too.
Have you been suffering from Chronic Procrastination? What has been your biggest obstacle? What has gotten in your way and kept you from taking action on your goals? With a little digging, and a little tapping, your life might change too.
Sometimes it just takes a pen and paper to write out what you’re experiencing, then what you want. Using methods like EFT can also help to remove any emotion keeping you from taking action. Or, contact me to schedule a Trial Coaching Session. We’ll review your goals and what might be getting in your way then lay out a high-level plan on how to get you from where you are now, to living your goals.
Until we meet again,
Patrick
