Once, a king and a lazy man named Ramu were very good friends. One morning, the king said, “Why don’t you do work to earn some money?” Ramu said, “No one gives me job. My enemies told everyone that I never do any work in time.” The kind king said, “You can go into my treasury and collect as much wealth as you can, till sunset.” Ramu rushed home to tell this to his wife. She said, “Go and get the gold coins and gems now.” “I cannot go now. Give me lunch first.” After lunch, he took a nap for an hour. Then in the late afternoon, he picked some bags and started for the palace. On the way, he felt hot so he sat under a tree to rest. Then, two hours later, he got up to go but saw a man showing some magic tricks. He stopped to watch for an hour again. When he reached the palace, it was already time for sunset. The palace gates had been shut. So Ramu had lost a golden chance because he had not learnt the value of time.
Does this story relate to you? Does this happen to you?? What do you think is this?? Laziness!!!; Yes, the first step towards Procrastination.
So know what is procrastination and what does this do to you?
Procrastination kills our Time and BOOM we realize that we are out of time ,we are close to the deadline, close to our important meeting without preparation, to kick start our personal goals like weight loss regime, healthy food and many more.
I am sure some or the other time you might have pondered upon to the excuses like “I need to be in a right mood”, “I will do it later, may be tomorrow”, “I am tired”, “Too much to do”.
We all know that everyone has 24hours! isn’t it? Then how some successful business people Beat Procrastination to take their business to new heights, Why some other Beat Procrastination to climb the success ladder in their respective field while many Beat Procrastination to have healthy and fit lifestyle. Think of a time when you Beat Procrastination and achieved what you wanted!!
Procrastination is an act of pointless and unnecessary delay. According to a report 85% students Procrastinate and around 50% adults mount Procrastination. We humans are procrastinating for centuries, it is related to a lack of Self-Control and majorly Mood Regulated.
First and foremost, thing to Beat Procrastination is to list down Time Wasters of your day. So, sit with pen and paper and list down on which activity you spend more time and think and understand if it is really important.
get rid of unwanted tasks or activities and make room for important and essential tasks/activities. In other words, get sorted with “What I want!” against “What I should!”
Start your day by Visualizing yourself achieving your goals. Image the emotions when you achieve your target. Our Brain affirms the desired outcome when we visualize. Visualization programs our Brain and generates internal motivation towards our goals.
Many times, we Procrastinate things that don’t motivate us. So, what should we do for such goals that are important but don’t motivate us? For all these cases, set up some Rewards for yourself. Our Brain is hardwired for pleasures instead of pain. So, if the goal or task is Pain then accomplishment should be Pleasure. Like all of us, our Brain also loves Rewards. It will arise motivation to do something and cherish the reward afterward.
Apart from goal setting, chunking down goals to tasks and setting up strict deadlines, the above methods are vivacity towards achieving them.
NLP rewires our Brain and has fabulous tools and techniques to Beat Procrastination.
Dipika Amlani
Life Coach and NLP Master Practitioner-NFLP, USA.
Dipika Amlani 