The Root Cause for Procrastination
"One of these days is none of these days." - HENRI TUBACH
Why is it that we as human beings often behave in ways that we don't really want to? How often have you said or done something only to cringe at the thought of it afterwards? The truth is that human behaviour is mostly driven by your unconscious mind, especially behaviours that is hard to explain from an intelligent point of view. Procrastination is probably one of the best examples of an apparent illogical behaviour, but the cause for procrastination is rooted in your unconscious or sub-conscious mind.
Your emotions, beliefs, values and rules all reside in your sub-conscious mind and is an incredibly complex "network" of neurological links and associations that is designed to help you respond to life. Your conscious mind is very limited in its ability to deal with life. That over which you have conscious control is mostly limited to one thing at a time. This is why using your willpower to create any real change rarely works long term. What you need to do is to change your unconscious or automatic behaviour which resides in your unconscious mind, that part of you that controls all the vital function in your body and mind. You can try and overcome procrastination by using willpower but it will usually be a short term change. The cause for procrastination is not because of your conscious actions although your conscious actions create your unconscious reactions.
Although there are many symptomatic causes for procrastination like having a perfection frame of mind or not being "good" at a specific task, the main cause for procrastination boils down to fear. Your nervous system is designed to primarily preserve you and when fear presents itself your nervous system through the working of your sub-conscious will "kick in" to "preserve you. The ironic thing is that we teach ourselves to fear certain things by making associations to life experience. You literally create neurological links to experiences that gets "stored" in your nervous system so that you can act quickly and accordingly next time. Whenever something happens to you, you assign a meaning to it by the way you communicate the experience to yourself. Unconsciously you are always trying to establish meaning and at a very primary level you are trying to establish whether something means pain or pleasure. This meaning then gets stored in your unconscious mind as a belief which will help you act (or re-act) appropriately in the future. An awareness alone will already will help to free you from disempowering associations and beliefs.
Although procrastination makes no sense intellectually it actually reveals a lot about your unconscious and your self imposed limitations and (in)abilities. The cause for procrastination is fear, and more specifically your fear that taking action will lead to pain or a painful experience of some kind. At some level your unconscious mind combines and searches it's "files" to come up with a "link" that associates the action to a painful experience. This can range from something which is mildly uncomfortable to something physically painful. Although you consciously want to do something your unconscious will prevent you as it associates pain to the action. As human beings we automatically reach for comfort and will almost automatically reach for whatever feels comfortable in the moment. We have a need for certainty and at a very basic level we need that certainty that we can at least be comfortable.
Learning to push against this need for comfort is what creates all the growth that is necessary for you to really produce results. When you start to see procrastination as a blessing in disguise you can start to use it and embrace the behavioural insights it holds. Procrastination reveals your fears and, quite by design, gives you the necessary resistance needed to expand and grow in your capacity to deal with something that you really want to create. The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of "discomfort" you can comfortably deal with.
Real cause for procrastination might not even be a single cause but a string of associations that causes you to avoid taking some kind of action. Trying to kill the monster might not be that obvious, but you can certainly exert your will to push past your fear. After all, fear is imaginary for it is only an association in your nervous system created by your unconscious working. We all have habitual responses and behaviours like grooves on a record that will "play" the same sound every time because of the pattern. Your associations are like these patterns and the cause for procrastination is like a pattern that gets played unconsciously. When you exert your will to take action, even when you don't feel like it, you start to "scratch the record" and consequently you start to produce a different pattern that is not automatic but conscious and eventually your conscious actions will create your unconscious behaviour.
Why is it that we as human beings often behave in ways that we don't really want to? How often have you said or done something only to cringe at the thought of it afterwards? The truth is that human behaviour is mostly driven by your unconscious mind, especially behaviours that is hard to explain from an intelligent point of view. Procrastination is probably one of the best examples of an apparent illogical behaviour, but the cause for procrastination is rooted in your unconscious or sub-conscious mind.
Your emotions, beliefs, values and rules all reside in your sub-conscious mind and is an incredibly complex "network" of neurological links and associations that is designed to help you respond to life. Your conscious mind is very limited in its ability to deal with life. That over which you have conscious control is mostly limited to one thing at a time. This is why using your willpower to create any real change rarely works long term. What you need to do is to change your unconscious or automatic behaviour which resides in your unconscious mind, that part of you that controls all the vital function in your body and mind. You can try and overcome procrastination by using willpower but it will usually be a short term change. The cause for procrastination is not because of your conscious actions although your conscious actions create your unconscious reactions.
Although there are many symptomatic causes for procrastination like having a perfection frame of mind or not being "good" at a specific task, the main cause for procrastination boils down to fear. Your nervous system is designed to primarily preserve you and when fear presents itself your nervous system through the working of your sub-conscious will "kick in" to "preserve you. The ironic thing is that we teach ourselves to fear certain things by making associations to life experience. You literally create neurological links to experiences that gets "stored" in your nervous system so that you can act quickly and accordingly next time. Whenever something happens to you, you assign a meaning to it by the way you communicate the experience to yourself. Unconsciously you are always trying to establish meaning and at a very primary level you are trying to establish whether something means pain or pleasure. This meaning then gets stored in your unconscious mind as a belief which will help you act (or re-act) appropriately in the future. An awareness alone will already will help to free you from disempowering associations and beliefs.
Although procrastination makes no sense intellectually it actually reveals a lot about your unconscious and your self imposed limitations and (in)abilities. The cause for procrastination is fear, and more specifically your fear that taking action will lead to pain or a painful experience of some kind. At some level your unconscious mind combines and searches it's "files" to come up with a "link" that associates the action to a painful experience. This can range from something which is mildly uncomfortable to something physically painful. Although you consciously want to do something your unconscious will prevent you as it associates pain to the action. As human beings we automatically reach for comfort and will almost automatically reach for whatever feels comfortable in the moment. We have a need for certainty and at a very basic level we need that certainty that we can at least be comfortable.
Learning to push against this need for comfort is what creates all the growth that is necessary for you to really produce results. When you start to see procrastination as a blessing in disguise you can start to use it and embrace the behavioural insights it holds. Procrastination reveals your fears and, quite by design, gives you the necessary resistance needed to expand and grow in your capacity to deal with something that you really want to create. The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of "discomfort" you can comfortably deal with.
Real cause for procrastination might not even be a single cause but a string of associations that causes you to avoid taking some kind of action. Trying to kill the monster might not be that obvious, but you can certainly exert your will to push past your fear. After all, fear is imaginary for it is only an association in your nervous system created by your unconscious working. We all have habitual responses and behaviours like grooves on a record that will "play" the same sound every time because of the pattern. Your associations are like these patterns and the cause for procrastination is like a pattern that gets played unconsciously. When you exert your will to take action, even when you don't feel like it, you start to "scratch the record" and consequently you start to produce a different pattern that is not automatic but conscious and eventually your conscious actions will create your unconscious behaviour.
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