Beat Procrastination - Why Just Because You Procrastinate It DOESN'T Mean You're Lazy Or A Failure

Procrastination is one of the biggest reasons why we don’t create more often, more deeply and more abundantly.

It’s also one of the strongest limitations and restrictions on us each reaching our natural creative potential.

So why does it have such a powerful negative effect on creativity?

One of the crucial factors is that we confuse procrastination with laziness, inadequacy and failure.

These feelings quickly feed on themselves and escalate, none of which helps you be more creative.

Let’s look at exactly what happens in the negative cycle in more detail.

It’s important to state that we’re just observing here from a neutral standpoint, we’re not placing any blame, criticism or judgement. Just observing:

1. You procrastinate. Whatever your favourite procrastination habits are – rearranging your art supplies into the perfect order, checking your email every 2 minutes, preparing and eating food when you’re not even hungry – there’s no getting away from the fact you do procrastinate. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this article.

2. You realise you procrastinate. And that it’s affecting your creativity. You’re not creating as much as you’d like to be.

3. You feel lazy and inadequate, a failure. It’s a natural reaction, it’s understandable you feel like this. Because you feel a failure, and feel lazy, these kind of negative thoughts churn around in your head, gradually gathering momentum and getting louder and more convincing. These thoughts then have a further negative reaction on your creativity.

4. You start to believe you actually ARE lazy and inadequate. Even though you’re not. Then of course your behaviour and the actions you take start to reflect these beliefs.

5. The cycle continues. Now you’re acting as if you ARE lazy and inadequate because that’s what you’ve come to believe about yourself. And we act in alignment with what we believe about ourselves. Procrastination now takes hold even more, and you begin to use procrastination more heavily – and ironically more CREATIVELY – than you did before, all to live up to this image you have of yourself as lazy and a creative failure.

Ouch. Sound at all familiar? I know I’ve been caught in this cycle before.

So what next, is there any hope, any solution? Well, yes there is. The secret is to break the cycle, or better still not even let it begin.

You can do this by first of all accepting that you do procrastinate. Then noticing the times and situations when you’re most likely to procrastinate. And noticing the ways in which you most procrastinate.

It’s only then, once you know the “when” and the “how” of your procrastination habits that you can start to break the cycle.

What’s the first positive action you can take towards this before you go to sleep tonight?

For more tips and techniques for recognising and overcoming the kind of things that stop you being more creative, I invite you to download your free copy of the powerful and practical "Explode Your Creativity!" Action Workbook at http://www.CoachCreative.com

If you’re ready to beat procrastination and set your creativity free in the next 21 days, check out the powerful ecourse “7 Steps To Freedom: How To Beat Procrastination And Set Your Creativity Free” at http://www.HowToBeatProcrastination.com

From Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin