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Kamini Wood works with high achievers on letting go of stress, overwhelm and anxiety that comes with trying to do everything, and trying to do it all perfectly
Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up Live Joy Your Way, whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening. Thank you for taking some time out of your day to spend with me and I wanna talk about something. That does come up in my coaching conversations quite a bit, which is the concept of procrastination.
So if you've ever found yourself stuck in this cycle of delay or just putting things off, maybe there'll be a nugget, a nugget in today's episode that would be helpful for you. So I wanna just start by clarifying what procrastination really is. [00:01:00] I truly do not believe that it's laziness. Or just poor time management.
Now that can happen, right? There are times when we do feel lazy or we aren't. We recognize that we're not managing our time well, but for those people who can, who just say, well, I'm just a procrastinator. I wanna offer this, this other way of looking at it. I think that sometimes it's an emotional coping strategy.
I think that procrastination happens when we de delay tasks that sometimes feel uncomfortable or challenging, or maybe there's some anxiousness or anxiety that's there. And so through procrastination, we're actually avoiding them because there's a sense of fear or maybe there's a sense of overwhelm, or maybe there's a little bit of perfectionism happening there, and because there's maybe not a through line of how to do it perfectly.
There's the, I'm gonna put this off till later, and maybe it's not even a conscious choice. I mean, it could actually be more of a, you know, subconscious. I just, it's like we could keep finding something else to do. So again, you know, I think that some of us do procrastinate because of these underlying, these underlying [00:02:00] thoughts or emotional, emotional causes.
One of them is the fear of failure. The thought that, you know, what if I don't do this well enough? Or, um, what if I'm not good enough? The perfectionism. Thought process or belief could keep us from doing something because maybe there's this belief that if it's not perfect, it's not worth it. If it's not perfect, it'll be worthless.
Sometimes we just feel overwhelmed by what's in front of us, and so we just don't know where to start. So we, we actually avoid it. It's almost like a little bit of experiential avoidance and sometimes it's because there's not the feeling of control over the situation. And so if a task feels like it's being pushed upon us, we procrastinate, we push it off.
And I think I. It's important to understand the emotion behind the procrastination because when we have that understanding, now we can approach it in a different way. Because without that understanding, I think we, we tend to fall into a place of either, um, sometimes we feel guilty, but sometimes we just shame ourselves and we're just like, there's something wrong with me.
I just keep procrastinating. [00:03:00] But instead, when we offer this place of understanding, now we can maybe get curious with it, and then we can start working to break the cycle of putting things off. And when we think about the costs of procrastination, you know. Again, temporarily, we, we actually feel relief because we're not doing the thing that feels overwhelming.
But a lot of times when we procrastinate, it does come at a higher price. It can erode our own self-trust. We tend to, uh, no longer feel like we can keep our word to ourselves. It does damage our self-esteem. It actually can amplify anxiety and overall it reduces our productivity. And when all of that happens.
We do lose a sense of self through that process. And I do think that what ends up happening is over time we start to shame ourselves and we start to think that there's something wrong with us. And then the more that shame builds, the more we feel bad about ourselves and it's harder to get going and it's harder to to step out of it.
So here are some actionable tools that I wanna offer that might help start working through procrastination now. Mel Robbins has the five second rule, right? So [00:04:00] when this, this rule is you countdown from five and you just get going. So when faced with hesitation, countdown from five and you just physically take action towards towards the task.
This works for some people. I think some people it can feel still overwhelming. So I, I offer it and say. Try it. If it doesn't work, then maybe instead I offer, take the project that you have and break it down into tinier steps. Sometimes what happens is we have this big project in front of us. It feels overwhelming.
We actually have whatever, either the fear of failure or as I mentioned, just perfectionism, whatever the thought belief may be, that keeps us from starting. That could be an indication that's just too big. So break it down, break it down into smaller steps. And as you break it down into those tiny steps, even look at those and if they feel everyone break it down even further.
'cause when you simplify the tasks into smaller bite-sized pieces, it has a natural way to reduce that overwhelm. So, as an example, instead of, oh my gosh, I've gotta clean my entire closet, I, I hear this time and time again. It's like my closet needs to be decluttered and then I [00:05:00] can't get started. It's start with a section, you know, maybe, maybe it's like.
I'm going to look at my shoes and I'm gonna clean my out my shoes. That would be breaking it down into a smaller step. The other one that I wanna offer is to really clarify your why. What is your why behind it? Because when you can connect your own emotional benefit to completing the task, like why does this matter to me?
Why is it meaningful to me? Now we're building intrinsic motivation to actually work. On the, the task at hand. And then the other last one that I wanna offer is time blocking, which is setting aside a specific block of time for a specific task in your schedule. And it's just a, you know, for right now, for those of us who, um, maybe procrastinate, checking email or paying bills as a better example, we procrastinate paying our bills.
It's, you know, okay, on for this hour, on this day, it's a time block that that's gonna be when I'm gonna be paying my bills. So, you know, if you've been putting off paying your bills, it's the [00:06:00] invitation is to just break it down into, these are the ones, maybe it's even these three bills are the ones that I'm gonna look at and this is the time that I'm gonna, that I'm gonna block off to do it.
So again, try the five second rule. Just really countdown from five backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and get moving. If that doesn't work for you, see if you can break it down into smaller bite size. Pieces, give yourself permission to block things off and then really look at what is the meaning for it for you. It's not just about the what.
It's the why. Why is this important to me? Find that internal value that you have in completing the task so that you can connect with it from that emotional. Internal perspective, and you're building your own intrinsic motivation to get the task done. And just also remember that each small action does build momentum and each small action should be celebrated because then you can build upon that.
And as you take each small action and you're celebrating it, you're also building your confidence and your self-esteem, which will then start building and moving you towards completing the [00:07:00] task at hand, breaking through. Procrastination is about progress and taking steps. It's not about doing it perfectly.
Remember that that each step forward is a powerful move towards where you wanna go. So every time that you wanna self-deprecate that you didn't finish the full task, I, I challenge you to stop and to say, okay, but what, what parts did I actually accomplish? If you'd like to talk about how coaching can help in terms of.
Working through something like procrastination and you'd like to book a time with me, feel free to do that anytime@coachwithKamini.com and until next time, stay well.