I originally posted this article on Linkedin.

Today, I decided to stop procrastinating and wrote this article.

Procrastination, the art of deferring important tasks to a later time in favor of more comfortable or enjoyable tasks is horrendous. It is a success killer. It can hinder your growth in terms of your career, creativity, and life in general as a human being.

To succeed in life you need not only to work harder but also smarter. You need to have clear goals that you need to achieve and focus on just those. Unfortunately, procrastination can keep you from fulfilling those goals and thus you remain unsuccessful in your life.

In this short article, I will be talking about a number of reasons which are common sources of procrastination. I will then go further and give you a few ways to overcome procrastination. Here, reasons for procrastination and ways to overcome it may be intermixed but the goal is to raise your awareness about procrastination and how to tackle it.

Reasons to procrastinate:

• The hardship in attaining success

It is the thinking about the hardship you will endure while pursuing your tasks that keeps you from actually doing them. And thus you keep postponing those tasks and you opt for lesser, easy tasks which are less important for your goals in life. Therefore, you end your day with a bare minimum performance which, unfortunately, earns you a mediocre success in life if not at all.

• Over expectation

So, you have this good thing you want to do. But you are really afraid whether it will bring you great, positive results that will measure your success. The problem is that you focus too much on the expectation than the actual rewards through the process of actually pursuing it.

• Allergic to failure

In your life, you have always been taught to be successful no matter what. This image has been implanted into your mind at schools, by your parents and probably the society which surrounds you. You always try all means possible to hide your failure, therefore, you really are afraid to do now the next big thing because you think you are not yet capable of and you will fail.

• Distractions

Distractions keep you from focusing on your important tasks. If you are not aware enough, they may superfluously center your focus instead of your real tasks to your end goals.

• Social standards

Your society has been built upon two things: results orientation and the harmony focus on weaknesses. These can be a great source of procrastination. In a results-oriented society, it is the accomplishments that matter and not the process to achieving them. And thus you always chase the final results at any cost. Therefore, if you are really not sure of the results that you are going to get once you do what you want to do, you tend to defer them at a later time once you think you are sure you will get results.

• Lack of clear goals

If you lack clear goals in your life, you are like a dandelion seed. You can be carried away by the wind towards its whatever direction. In this respect, anything which comes across you superficially poses as your important goal and thus distances you from the real things you should be doing. Moreover, it is easy to underestimate the reward your goals bring to your and thus keep them pending and go for the less important tasks.

How to overcome procrastination:

• Forget about perfectionism

You are not doing what you think will bring you success because you think it won’t be perfect. Rome was not built in a day. Do it bad but improve it over time, this is better than nothing.

• Baby steps and resilience

One, and probably the best, way to win procrastination is to start in small steps what you want to do and improve over time. Be warned that to achieve your tasks that have you procrastinating over, you should maintain progress no matter how small it may be. No matter how long it takes to accomplish your task, you will eventually reach the destination. This way is better than deferring until you are ready.

• No distractions, please

To do that next bing thing which eventually brings you success but isn’t so enjoyable doing and keeps you procrastinating, you should rid all distractions from your reach. If not, you will always be attracted to them as your human soul loves no hardship. It always searches for comfort, relaxation, and stress freedom. Distractions are one of the reasons we procrastinate.

• Set your goals and priorities

A clear goal on what you want to achieve will give a reason to pursue your tasks without deferring them until later time.

• Forget about the social standards and aim at failing

Sometimes, it may be very strategic to do those good things with the intention of failing. This should go with an intention to appreciate the experience through. This counters the over-expectations issues we discussed earlier. The main goal being that you are doing something good for human beings, or for you, at least. And the success should come naturally.

• Learn

Lack of knowledge on how to perform your tasks may cause you to procrastinate over them. You should learn how to do them and actually do them. Informedness on how you will be performing a task gives you the urge to actually perform it impromptu.

Conclusion. I hope you are now aware of reasons which keep you from approaching your big thing. Moreover, you are now equipped with ways to overcome this procrastination. Stop delaying your priorities in life and start doing them today. Now.