Procrastination: A Friend Through a Different Lens
Anshika, one of my coaching clients, is a senior marketing manager at a media house. During our initial few sessions, she almost always talked about how overwhelmed she felt with the number of projects she led and the ever-increasing complexities of her work environment.
I recall how Anshika used to say that she reached the end of the day and still felt like she had hardly achieved anything that day. She had several goals to accomplish. One of them always seemed to go by the wayside. Every week, she devised some action steps for that goal, and she didn’t get to it every week.
After some deeper conversation, she said, “Vinita, I know why it happens because I keep delaying and postponing some tasks… and I think I do it intentionally. I think I’m trapped by this monster called procrastination.”
The word procrastination has its origin in the Latin word procrastinates. It is a combination of two words, “Pro,” which means forward, and “crastinus,” which means tomorrow.
During the session, she discovered that procrastination was a self-regulation failure. However, it need not be. We dug more profoundly, and things seemed different for Anshika now.
She had changed her lens and looked at procrastination again this time. She had chosen a new mindset, not just intellectually, but with a believing heart.
Her new belief was that procrastination could be a friend and a foe, depending on how she looked at it. Choosing the right lens was crucial.
“But how can that be, when you have always probably heard and thought procrastination was a negative?” You might ask. Well, read on.
Anshika and I, together in our coaching conversations, discovered that she mostly procrastinated when
- She felt overwhelmed by the magnitude or complexity of the job or situation.
- She felt inadequate or incapable of doing the project.
- She lacked interest in the task or the overall goal.
The first two are most definitely playing the roles of a foe. However, the third one is more of a friend, something we rarely consider. Think about it.
Isn’t this monster called procrastination a friendly one when it still is speaking in your tiny voice, trying to get your attention to pause and listen to yourself?
Yes, it is inviting you to lend a sincere ear to yourself. Rather than continually being annoyed or frustrated with inaction, it is asking you to look honestly at why you are not starting or finishing something.
After a while, I asked her if the goal was really something she wanted to accomplish or if it was a ‘should or must.’ Upon some reflection, she realised that this goal was something other professionals were doing in her industry, so she thought she should do that too. She had now realised that the problem was that it wasn’t HER goal. That’s why she was procrastinating and why it didn’t work for her.
Simply by taking a conscious pause and talking to her tiny voice within, she replaced it with another goal that was more suited to her. And I’m sure you guessed what happened next.
I invite you to take a conscious pause and revisit your to-do list. Ask yourself where it is you’re procrastinating. Take an honest look at whether your procrastination is a friend or a foe.
If it’s a friend, why not go on a weekly date with yourself and spend quality time listening to what your small voice is trying to tell you and reflect upon it?
Maybe change the goal itself, or change or modify the tasks to fit who you exactly are and what ticks you. Then, identify and take the baby steps necessary to reach your new goal.
Now you are certainly on your way to success — from the inside out.
