Cheryl Wright

Pro­cras­ti­na­tion � stalling, avoid­ing, putting off. It's a com­mon be­hav­iour and some may de­scribe it as a bad habit, an ex­cuse for lazi­ness or even a per­son­al­i­ty trait. Yes, these are just some of the rea­sons peo­ple pro­cras­ti­nate. How­ev­er, some of us are chron­ic pro­cras­ti­na­tors with deep­er is­sues. Fear could be the un­der­ly­ing rea­son why we pro­cras­ti­nate and each fear may tell a com­plex sto­ry. If we are will­ing to un­rav­el it, we will not on­ly un­der­stand our chron­ic be­hav­iour but we will al­so find clues to help us make de­ci­sions and take ac­tions when nec­es­sary.

Look at the list be­low and see if you iden­ti­fy with any of the fears that may be fu­elling your pro­cras­ti­na­tion.

Fear of Fail­ure

No one wants to fail but fail­ure will be our por­tion if we fear it so much that we avoid the de­ci­sions and ac­tions that could gar­ner the suc­cess we want. But why do we fear fail­ure?

�2 We are un­sure of our abil­i­ty to do what we have to do.

�2 We feel in­se­cure about our men­tal and emo­tion­al fi­bre to face the pos­si­ble fall­out (shame, ridicule, the process of do­ing it all over again or do­ing things dif­fer­ent­ly) if we fail.

�2 We are ob­sessed with per­fec­tion­ism - be­ing per­fect, for­mu­lat­ing pitch-per­fect plans, mak­ing un­ques­tion­able de­ci­sions and tak­ing no-fail ac­tions. As a re­sult, we sit on our hands and bind our feet with men­tal shack­les. More­over, we seem blind to the fact that our ob­ses­sion with per­fec­tion fu­els pro­cras­ti­na­tion.

Fear of Suc­cess

We want to be suc­cess­ful. We can smell it. We sense its pres­ence just around the cor­ner. Yet, we hold back. We put off mak­ing de­fin­i­tive de­ci­sions and tak­ing spe­cif­ic ac­tions. These are some of the thoughts that plague us, put us on the de­fen­sive and fu­el pro­cras­ti­na­tion:

�2 Fi­nan­cial suc­cess could put me at risk.

�2 I might have to change my im­age.

�2 Sup­pose my re­la­tion­ships can't han­dle the changes that will come.

�2 I'm not sure I want to al­ter my lifestyle.

�2 I'm un­com­fort­able do­ing busi­ness and so­cial­iz­ing with peo­ple I don't know.

�2 If I do this, I'll be one step away from my dream but I don't like be­ing in the spot­light.

Fear of the Fu­ture

Un­hap­py mem­o­ries of the past cou­pled with neg­a­tive present re­al­i­ties im­pact how we view the fu­ture. It can be scary not know­ing what the fu­ture holds. And of­ten, that un­cer­tain­ty caus­es us to put a hold on things we should do or want to do. "Sup­pose..." and "What if ..." fea­ture in our every thought, build­ing fear up­on fear. Our ra­tio­nale set­tles in­to par­a­lyz­ing thoughts and numb­ing ques­tions.

�2 Ex­pec­ta­tions for a promis­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty, per­son­al goals, ca­reer ad­vance­ment or a change in the sta­tus of a re­la­tion­ship took a turn for the worst, and left us nurs­ing dis­ap­point­ment, em­bar­rass­ment and heartache. How can we keep ac­tive, pro­duc­tive and mov­ing for­ward with con­fi­dence, when our past ex­pe­ri­ences left noth­ing but lin­ger­ing dis­sat­is­fac­tion?

�2 If our present cir­cum­stances are spin­ning a web of con­fu­sion around us, how can we pos­si­bly be hope­ful for the fu­ture? When com­bined, these ques­tions lead us to one con­clu­sion - pro­cras­ti­na­tion over ac­tion.

De­spite these fears, we shouldn't throw out pro­cras­ti­na­tion al­to­geth­er. It's not all bad. It al­lows time to weigh op­tions and weed out ideas and ac­tions that are not vi­able. Un­der­stand­ing what fears fu­el our chron­ic pro­cras­ti­na­tion opens the door to re­solve them and free our­selves to be con­fi­dent, coura­geous, ac­tive and proac­tive. The year is still young; let's not let pro­cras­ti­na­tion keep us from ac­com­plish­ing our goals.