One Reason You May Procrastinate
Have you ever felt overwhelmed and overloaded with tasks that you don’t really feel excited about completing?
You know you have to get it done, but you find yourself delaying and distracting yourself with other things.
But the distraction and delay doesn’t help. Instead, it makes everything worse because you still have to get your original tasks done but now you have other work piling on top of that mountain.
This is a common scenario. Procrastination is often disguised as a “time management” problem, but it’s not really about managing time. Instead, it’s about managing your mind and your beliefs.
On the flip side of procrastination, you may find a perfectionism problem.
What is perfectionism?
You may think, “perfectionism just means that I have high standards. I want to do things well.”
But having high standards is very different than perfectionism.
Having high standards means you take pride in your work and want it to be excellent.
Perfectionism means that you are afraid the work you do will not be perfect, and if it has one flaw or mistake other people will think that you are imperfect.
Other people may see the truth, that you are human and not perfectly flawless.
Perfectionism is about trying to control other people’s opinions about you.
At the root of perfectionism, there is a thought of shame, and the belief that says, “If other people see that I am not perfect, I will get rejected and be unloved.”
So if you have a habit of delaying and procrastinating, ask yourself if you are doing it because you don’t want to make a mistake. If this is the case, you may want to examine the beliefs you have about yourself.
Why do you think it isn’t safe to make mistakes?
What would happen if you made a mistake? What would be the worst-case scenario? Chances are, the worst-case scenario is simply that others would see you as an imperfect, lovable human being. Just as we all are.