3 Steps to Beat Procrastination

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone” ~ Pablo Picasso.

So you’ve always wanted to do something. Say, write a book, travel around the world, or run a marathon.

You have in your mind a bunch of reasons why you have not been able to even start working on your goal or dream.

You’re too busy or too tired or too afraid.

You say these are reasons why you have not started. But you know the truth.

These are excuses. Plain and simple.

You may have heard that excuses are the source of procrastination. But they’re not. That’s just a symptom of the real problem.

The real reason behind procrastination

The real reason behind your procrastinating?

Follow the pain.

What do I mean? As long as the pain of the status quo does not exceed the pain of taking action, you will continue to procrastinate.

For example, you may absolutely hate your job. You may daydream about starting your own business on the side or preparing yourself for your dream career. You keep promising yourself that you’ll begin taking steps toward your goal, but it’s always tomorrow. And tomorrow never comes.

Why? Because as much as you hate your job, the pain involved in starting a new business or career is even more painful. The reason why we struggle with procrastination is that we aren’t honest enough with ourselves to state the truth as plainly as this.

We fool ourselves into thinking that we have enough willpower to do more painful things but it’s simply not true.

It sounds less noble that our primary motivating force is to choose the least painful (or most pleasurable) option, but if you’re willing to examine your own experience honestly, you’ll know it’s true.

Here’s another more common example. You have a burning desire to lose ten pounds in the next month or two. You know what is required for you to accomplish this goal, but you have not been able to lose weight in years. You keep saying to yourself, “I know I can do this once I decide it’s time to lose weight.”

But is that true? Didn’t you already decide months ago?

The truth is that doing what you’ve been doing before is less painful than taking action to lose the weight. So instead of deluding yourself with stories, why not just tell the truth:

“The reason why it’s hard for you to lose weight is because it’s less painful to eat more and exercise less.”

“The reason why I am not working on starting a new business or career is that it’s less painful for me to stay in my crappy job and I prefer to do that right now.”

Hitting rock-bottom

So what motivates people to take action and do things they’d rather not do.

They must hit rock bottom. Or at least be approaching that point.

What might that look like? You experience a panic attack on your way to work so severe that you almost run someone over. Or your doctor looks you in the eye and tells you that you may not live to see your kids grow up if you continue with your current lifestyle.

All of a sudden, the foreboding sense of pain associated with your current choices suddenly become very real in the present moment. This is when the pain of the status quo begins to surpass the pain of taking action.

It’s a powerful motivating force. There’s only two problems with it.

1. It’s painful as heck.

Then again, isn’t that the point? Rock-bottom experiences can be effective because they’re painful enough to motivate you to endure the pain of making a change. But the pain of having to face a reality you’ve been denying for years can cause so much spiritual pain, you can feel like you’re literally dying.

2. It’s unpredictable because no one can engineer a rock bottom-moment.

Not only that, rock-bottom moments are highly subjective (one person’s rock-bottom may merely be another person’s speed bump) and may extend over a long period of time rather than in one dramatic swoop.

Actually there’s a third problem:

3. It might not work

Even after experiencing the pain of a rock-bottom moment, it might not work. Without strength, courage, or the right guidance, you may get swallowed up by the pain and stay stuck.

Who wants to wait around for excruciating painful moments that can strike at anytime and may not even work in the end? Not the best strategy for motivating yourself to take action.

If you’d prefer another option, here’s what you can try instead…

A less painful way out of procrastination

You don’t have to hit rock-bottom before making meaningful change in your life. Here’s what you can do instead:

1. Tell the truth

You must start by declaring the truth of your situation.

Why do you stay in an abusive relationship? The pain and uncertainty of leaving outweigh the pain of enduring verbal or physical violence.

Why do you not write the novel you’ve always wanted to write? The pain of possible rejection and criticism outweigh the pain of not exercising your creative gifts.

Why do you continue to allow your finances to spiral out of control? The pain of self-discipline and denial in the short-term outweigh the pain of continuing to pile up debt.

2. Allow the truth to expose the real cost of the status quo.

This step is really a consequence of you taking the first step seriously. If you tell the truth everyday about why you are where you are, if you refuse to blame others, you’ll begin to experience the true cost of the status quo in the present moment rather than as a distant, way off in the future possibility.

By acknowledging that you are choosing painful things that will become more and more painful over time, you realize that the hard choices you have been putting off are not as hard in comparison. Thus you will feel more motivated to take action to do what seems harder now to reduce the possibility of even more pain in the future.

3. Take action

Let the increased pain of not taking action motivate you to do something—today. Actually right now if you can manage.

In some cases it might mean taking some small action such as opening a Word document. In other cases it means taking massive action such as leaving a relationship or sending out a manuscript.

Don’t let procrastination hold you back

You don’t have to remain a slave to procrastination.

All you need to do is learn how to harness pain to your advantage so you can do the things you’ve been most afraid to do.

Don’t waste another moment telling yourself misleading stories about why you’re not taking action.

Tell the truth. Feel the pain. Take action. Repeat.

Do these steps long enough and you may very well eventually learn to beat procrastination forever.