Procrastination is a natural phenomenon. It happens with the individuals within all ages. Perhaps it is more prevalent in youngsters. Although teenagers are mostly active, it should not happen frequently to them but as a matter of fact, they procrastinate more than the elders. Elders have more experience and chances of their failures were more than the younger counterparts. They have learned the sense of discipline and therefore they do not break the rule for their acquired habits which they have developed with number of repetitions.
These are the few most common reasons for procrastination in adults,
1. Perfectionism
“Perfectionist fall prey to Schizophrenia!” is frequently used for the individuals who generally thought to be perfect. One of my mentors said that perfection means death. If you are all the way perfect means you have nothing else to improve. Your total work or task is finished. There are no chances of mending. If you have acquired mastery in any field or subject, you may be missing some of the area which are yet to be conquered. Unless and until you do not patch up, fix or darn your beauty is yet to achieved. A violinist who has done practice for decades feel that there is something between two notes. An eminent writer always thinks to write between lines. A scientist who has invented a principle or law tries to make it more powerful till his last breath. So always thing as WIP meaning ‘Work In Progress.’ You can be VIP (very important person if you are WIP!
2. Fear Of Failure
Every time when I used to go for high jump during my practice hours while representing at state level athletics, I used to fear that bar will fall down. Out of my one hundred jumps almost 80% times bar fell down but 20% times it did not fall down and those successful jumps made me to win.
You may always fail during you cycling, writing good email or passing your ball in volleyball to next court but a greater number of failures will always give the value when you succeed. During call to action for a webinar or a boot-camp, I realized that out of 100 visitors only 20 turned out to read the content and 20% of 20 only took the action. So, 4% were the actual power of success. I was horrified when a couple of individuals unsubscribed my newsletters even, I was sharing value added information to them. But I convinced myself when I saw the automated email system of a very successful leader during his seminar presentation that 269 people unsubscribed when he had sent email to about 5000 people. So, we must realize that if you want to gather some gold from gold mine, you have to un-turn your mind how much soil you have turned.
3. Fear Of Criticism
We may now and then fear that what people will think about the action you have taken. But criticism has two-fold benefits. You can eliminate your time spent in introspection. Let the people do the job for you. If people are wrong, you need not worry but if they are right, you have got chance to improve yourself.
The best criticism is the criticism of your mentor. The mentor will not like that his students have bad performance because it is ultimately worsening his performance. When your mentor criticizes, you may not like at all because you do as per your habits and do not want to change it as you are comfortable with existing practice. But it is the vision of mentor that you are not able to see or realize. So, you must blindly follow and immediately mend your internal process of thinking and act accordingly.
4. Specific Task Aversion
While undergoing any task you may not like to do because you think that it is not going to give any benefits to you. The lack of interest in that specific task is the main reason you avoid to work. It constantly reminds your subconscious mind that it is not useful to you. But you must temporarily put the legs in shoes of your companions who are keenly doing the task. Change the way of thinking and you may do things differently.
Sometimes unfamiliar or unpleasant working environment also may be the root cause of aversion. During aviation learning classes of fighter aircrafts, most of the fellow airmen had poor performances. Later on, it was found by our one of the faculties that learners had less hours of sleep during training and most of them felt sleepy during class hours. I was surprised with decisions of some of the organizations recently that their employees can take power nap in the office. This may be in primary stage of experiments but may increase the efficiency of employees.
If you are in a trap and do not know the result, it is mere trap but if you know the result, it is challenge. Sometimes, you take the risk even you know that result may be worse. Out of ten times while investing your money in stock, you may incur loss and knowledge of result is sometimes predictable but you take the risk and sometimes benefit is two-fold.
While learning swimming you are sure that number of times you are going to gulp the water. When you learn cycling, you are sure that you are going to fall down number of times but you do not stop because ultimately you are going to develop life time skill.
When you do not take risk, you perish. You must take calculated risk so that fear of challenge is minimized. Take some risk and challenge yourself daily, your success ratio will improve gradually.
6. Lack Of Energy
Lack of energy may be due to fatigue or tiredness. Tiredness is obvious. If you feel tiredness that may be lack of proper sleep or insufficient nutritional food or supplements. Breaking up of muscles during weight exercises may be repaired with adequate amount of protein intake and tiredness may be eliminated if it is related to calorie intakes.
Fatigue is the repeated tiredness during the day. Fatigue may not be resolved with sleep. Serious fatigue may disrupt the energy level and may cause sickness and long-term effect may hinder the quality of life. Some of the stress relieving techniques may be useful to remove fatigue. Regular specific exercise and temporary intake of energy drink may resolve the issue.
7. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
This disorder is normally prevalent in some of the adults. A victim may have adjustment problems with relationship at office or home. Hyperactivity may appear as extreme restlessness. Symptoms can become more severe when affects social skills, ability to communicate, interest and difficult to handle when it results in abnormal behavior.
Mental health professional may be consulted for proper diagnosis and specific treatment which may last longer.
Summary
When you get up in the morning, you may see some of the messages in your social media. Some of your friends may energize you for your purpose. But some of them may not. Eliminate those who do not inspire you or motivate. I have an idea. Write on daily basis your 10 things you have to accomplish. Let it be tiny. I sometimes write as ‘I have to wash my shoes’, ‘I have to bring salt from the market’, ‘I have to pour some water in plants’ and more. Or it may be worthy as ‘I have to record a video on communication’, ‘record a podcast or write an article’, ‘I have to provide some food to needy’ and so forth. Try to finish all task during the day but with priorities. You may miss reading newspaper but it’s ok as at may be your last point on the list and may not much affect as it may let you know of some filthy information like road accident, usual comments of opposition party and so on. But definitely your procrastination is reduced with quite intensity.
