The real reasons for procrastinating

Welcome back to how to twenty-something with today’s episode being all about procrastination because I’ve noticed this to be a common theme amongst a majority of my clients as of late

Which makes sense since when you step into a coaching partnership with me you’re doing so because you want more out of your life

And either you don’t know what that looks like but are itching for a change or clarity, or you don’t know what steps to begin taking, or you’re scared to begin and therefore delay taking action 

So I step in and help guide you along that path

And what happens is I’m going to nudge you to trying new things, to step out of your comfort zone and out of the ordinary so you make forward trending progress week after week 

This newness and discomfort creates a battle in your mind which in turn causes you to push the action you need to be taking – also known as procrastinating what needs to get done

Luckily, working with a coach minimizes your procrastination because you’re being held accountable week after week

In the obvious sense, we procrastinate when we don’t want to do something or don’t feel confident about doing said thing and it can range from an assignment at work, to the dishes at home, to getting yourself to the gym on the weekend, to calling your mom when you have not so great news to deliver, to applying for a new job

Regardless of who you are, you have a tendency to procrastinate in some area of your life

So today’s episode is to highlight all the reasons you procrastinate, normalize this horrid habit, and then put measures in place to mitigate your procrastination tendencies

For starters, your reasons for procrastinating can vary greatly depending on the person you are and/or the situation at hand

Whether it’s a fear of failure, setting unrealistic expectations, poor time management, or something you just straight up do not want to do – you need to be able to identify why you’re pushing something off and then learn the ropes to completing the task anyways

So let’s start with the first reason behind your procrastination: your fear of failure or inadequacy – meaning you are afraid you aren’t good enough or that you’re going to do something wrong so you put off what you need to do to avoid potential disappointment 

This stems from a lack of confidence and possibly a lack of clarity of what needs to get done

Let’s take a work assignment for example, if it’s something you haven’t done before and your boss explains it all to you, but when it comes time for you to execute you don’t actually feel like you know what you’re doing

Your natural instinct is going to freeze

Ugh the worst is when your boss explains it, goes do you have any questions, you say no and then when you go to begin you have all the questions in the world and now have to back track to your boss with your tail between your legs

But going back to you freezing in place because you don’t want to come across as dumb or annoying or unqualified so you internally panic and the result is you delay doing the task

You don’t believe in your ability to get it done to a proper standard or are uncertain in what is required of you, but you know you have to get it done eventually

Like you can put it off and fill your day with other things but there is going to come a point in time where you need to complete it

What i want you to do from this point on is try

That’s the only way you’re going to learn

And you can admit that you have never done this before but gave it your shot and would love feedback and guidance

Or what I would do when I had my full time job and my boss would ask if I had any questions, I would respond with not right now, but I might once I get started

That way I’m communicating to her that she can expect a teams message from me with a question or 2

But it’s okay to get something wrong or to have to start over, it’s part of learning 

And when you’re in your twenties you are in the very beginning stages of your career that requires a lot of learning

So just be open to feedback, get in the habit of communicating, and not being afraid to ask questions, and most of all, part ways with your perfectionism 

Because it’s not going to be perfect the first time around, heck probably not even the second or third or ever 

Striving for perfection is an ideology that encourages you to hold yourself to unrealistic standards and then paralyzing you from messing up thus promoting your procrastination

It’s something that was instilled in us from a very young age with grading scales

Where getting a 100% meant you were perfect and you were praised as a result

But in the real world that’s not how things work

You don’t get graded on how you do life, yet we still strive for that unit of measurement to tell us if we’re succeeding or not

It’s pretty fucked up when you think about it

I mean the school systems are so outdated and inconsistent to the real world that it’s preparing kids for disappointment and discouragement when they grow up 

And then these fresh college grads are struggling to adapt to an environment they are drastically unprepared for

I have a client right now who is in college and when we first began working together he told me he wants to stay in school accruing different degrees because he can’t imagine his life without school

I told him that it’s my job to help him feel prepared for the real world so he can move on from school and begin his life as an adult in whatever shape that looks like

It became my job because the system doesn’t help you navigate adulting

Why do think i’m a coach for twenty-somethings

Which brings me to my next point behind procrastinating – delaying future events from occurring either because you’re afraid of the unknown or simply you don’t want change

Unfortunately, I have some very bad news for you and that is change is the only constant thing in life

I’ve done several episodes and workshops on this topic and last week Jenna even said it was something she wish she realized in her twenties – because change sucks it requires to step up and do something different which our brains hate

Sometimes you gotta rip things off like a bandaid because it’s going to be scary regardless 

Life is going to be scary, any new transition from your norm is going to be scary

And I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your twenties are filled with transitions

You’ve gone your entire life thus far with minor transitions, transitions you can expect, and you have your parents there holding your hand, as well as all of your peers going through the same steps at the same time

Then you graduate and your life becomes a blank canvas where you’re the paintbrush creating all these twists and turns that are going to look very different from the people around you

Because you’re all going to move at different paces, go through life in different orders, and have entirely new experiences 

The rest of your adulting life is going to be brought on by new transitions 

And it’s always going to feel scary and foreign, because it is

You have no way of knowing the outcomes so you might as well do it anyways or you’ll get to a point where you have no choice but to do it anyways

Here’s my most recent example, I’ve been working at two gyms as well as running my online business for three years now

My clientele where I do 1:1 training has been growing steadily since beginning and my frustrations with my other gym has been growing steadily since new owners took over in july of 2023

These frustrations have ebbed and flowed and at the start of this year it’s been one aggravating interaction after another

So by the end of January I had a conversation with my coach about maybe my time there is done

But I wasn’t ready to part ways just yet, only because I was afraid of losing money and of not being able to fill my time that I’ll gain back

However, the energy that was boiling inside of me every two weeks or so because it would be one stupid ass thing after another, was also not doing me any favors

So when i spoke with my coach we talked about my strategy of an escape plan so that I’m not just losing an extra thousand dollars a month but gaining it elsewhere which also required me to know what that means and looks like

By the end of February, things had calmed down so I decided you know what this is fine, I can stay until fall, and delay this transition a little bit longer, which is also when I plan on engaging in more speaking events across college campuses

And then another blow came and I found out my pay was being docked without my knowledge

At that point I reached my tipping point, officially, deciding that when one of my clients gets cleared to return to the gym after surgery I would part ways

Which would be at the beginning of April, so I had officially decided that my time at this gym was to last for one more month

I actually ended up pushing up my timeline and not waiting for my client to return because of how much this owner and having this gym in my schedule was taking from my life so instead of early April, I gave my notice at the end of March

When all of these shenanigans began, I realized that I was staying comfortable with my income from my two gyms that I wasn’t really trying hard within my business to obtain clients 

Sure at first it helped me feel relaxed around my business, but it definitely shifted to a state of comfort

And I was scared to leave that comfort and transition away from group fitness

So I continued to procrastinate my departure until the universe and the shitty owners left me no choice 

Is it scary? Fuck yeah

Am I glad I left, fuck yeah

So just know that when it’s time to step up into a new level of you, you’re going to resist, you’re going to be scared, you’re going to want to take a step down and seek more comfort 

But life is filled with growth and you’re listening to this podcast because you are growth minded

So tell your self-doubt, your fear of the unknown, your scaredy cat brain to shut up and acknowledge that you’re uncomfortable and you’re scared and then take some kind of action anyways

You need to get the ball rolling so the momentum will build

My coach literally told me to just say ‘i’m uncomfortable’ and flail my arms around like ooooh I’m so uncomfortable and honestly, it helps

What also helps, is creating a plan to ease your mind into this transition

For me, that meant putting a lot more effort into building up my client base online and at the gym, while also planning for what I was going to do with my newfound free time 

By the first week in March, I realize how much of my time was being put towards group fitness and away from networking opportunities as the time always seemed to conflict with one another

And I realized I have two workshops I want to put on between April and May and I need the time back in my schedule to work on them!

So, to recap: reason number one for your procrastination is your fear of failure and reason number two is avoiding discomfort

The third reason behind your procrastination is more for those pesky little tasks that you delay doing until the very last minute or feel like there is not enough time in the day to get everything done, both of which come from poor time management

This is honestly the easiest type of procrastination I encounter with my clients and probably the most obvious when you think about ways you procrastinate

I led a time management workshop last year for a networking group because of how common it is to let things slip through the cracks or if you are someone who lose tracks of time/can’t plan for time accordingly

Time management is simple when you break it down: it’s being realistic to what you can accomplish in a given timeframe and being realistic with how long something is going to take

And I teach this to my clients in the form of creating checklists both for the day and for the week

With the daily checklists, you’re forced to think about the duration and organization of your day to ensure everything gets completed without the stress or the scramble

Creating checklists forces you to look ahead at things you’ve already committed to, as well as getting an idea of what you need to accomplish that might not be calendar specific

It helps you stay organized on what you need to do as well as where you have free time to either relax or add something in

And this can be in relation to your work day, your weekends, and before and after work hours

I find that most people do not do well with time blocking their calendar, so checklists allow your day to be a little more fluid, knowing that there are going to be certain things that are time blocked like meetings or events, and other things that give you more flexibility 

Besides, creating checklists also gives you an amazing sense of accomplishment as you move through and complete item after item and who doesn’t love a sense of accomplishment

I say this all the time, but one of the biggest lessons my clients takeaway from working with me, is to think with their future self in mind

Having a solid morning and evening routine is one way to do that, the other way is through checklists that force you to look ahead to the next 24 hours and/or several days

You can decide whether you want to create your weekly checklist sunday night or monday morning and your daily ones either first thing in the morning or the last thing at the end of the day

You could even create it for just at work and have it be the last thing you do before you clock out for the day or the first thing you do when you clock in

What you put on your checklist is going to be contingent on where you feel you need the most work in managing your time

There is no wrong time or way to do it, but it just helps you get an idea of what you’re focusing on that day or week and how much time you have to complete said items

Because some days are going to be heavy meeting days, other days will be empty, and most of the time you’ll have a cross between the two

And it is much less stressful to go through your day when you know ahead of time what needs to get accomplished and the time you have allotted to get things done

Being able to forecast how long an item on your list will take is going to come with practice 

For example, if you’re new to the gym, you might not know yet how long you’re going to need to get to the gym, warmup, workout, get home, and either shower and get ready for work, if you’re going in the morning, or shower and get ready for the end of your day, if you’re going after work

But the more you go, the more you’re going to get a better idea of how much time you need and then can plan your schedule appropriately

I would say, if you’re first starting out with improving your time management skills, give yourself a generous amount of time

If you think something is going to take an hour give yourself an hour and a half so you can have a little buffer just in case you budgeted less time than what you really need

And the extra buffer gives you a chance for brain breaks, should you need them

Which is actually a good segway to sharing how you can overcome procrastination, especially when you really really don’t want to do something

There are two ways to go about this and I’m going to break down how it’s task related and life events related

In regards to assignments or tasks, tell yourself to work on something for 5-10 minutes, set a timer, and get to work

When you tell yourself you only need to put effort towards something you don’t want to do for a short amount of time, it makes it a lot more digestible and doable

And more times than not, you’re going to wind up spending more time completing it – even if it’s 20 minutes instead of 10 

The shorter time frame is to help you get the ball rolling because that’s the toughest part when it comes to doing things you don’t want to do.. Just getting started

Then once you begin, you realize it’s not so bad or hard and you’ve built up the momentum to continue and do more than what you would’ve done if you had just kept pushing it off further and further into the future

The second key to seeing your task through to the end is to give yourself those brain breaks I just mentioned

Step away from what you’re doing for 5 to 10 minutes and let your brain refresh so you can continue working

When I had my full time job, I would recruit my coworkers to take walking breaks

We would go for a 10 minute walk around a pond nearby and come back refreshed

One of my clients goes back and forth between working on an assignment and playing video games to help keep his brain focused

So your break can be a walk, it can be scrolling on social media, it can be reading your favorite book, or playing a video game

It’s up to you to decide what way is going to serve you the best and let your brain reset so you can go back to focusing on the primary task at hand

When it comes to procrastinating life events – you need to break down the end goal into baby steps for you to carry out week by week

Or, in other words, create a game plan or a road map that you can easily and realistically follow, and breaks things down into those bite sized, less scary, pieces

If you are constantly staring that bigger picture in the face, you’re going to paralyze yourself from taking any action, but when you take one little step at a time you let yourself more closer to your target and it doesn’t feel so daunting

But, regardless of the type of procrastination you are falling victim to, you need to reward yourself for seeing something through to the end

Celebrate your accomplishments, give yourself something to look forward to for when you do complete your items or move another step closer to what you’re working towards

That way you feel even more inclined to sit down and strategize what you need to do and how you’re going to do it, and then begin taking action towards it

But here’s what I want to end this episode with, and it’s by telling you your procrastination is normal, but it is most definitely not helping you

It’s usually a symptom of your deeper fears like the fear of failure, the fear of making the wrong choice, or the fear of success, all of which I’ve mentioned throughout this episode 

When you finally move past all the resistance in your mind that is inviting you to procrastinate, you allow yourself to step into full control of your life, achieve your goals, and build up the proof that you can do hard things

All of which helps you build up your confidence, both in yourself and in how you handle any situation moving forward

Take any action, messy or not, say yes before you know how, do it scared

And as a result you’ll have less anxiety, more discipline and resilience, and see yourself as a capable young adult who can do anything you set your mind to

Your tendency to procrastinate is a direct reflection on your self-confidence

So hopefully after listening to this episode, you have a better idea as to where you procrastinate in your life and the baby steps you can begin taking to nip that bad habit in the bud

And know that procrastination is a battle everyone deals with and if you need help dealing with your own brain and resistance, that this is something I am really good at helping my clients overcome

All you have to do is click the let’s chat link in the show notes and schedule a time to talk with me, as I would love to help you

Otherwise, this does conclude another episode of how to twenty-something, if you liked what you heard, learned something new, felt called out, or know someone who is a massive procrastinator then share this episode

And tell them not to procrastinate listening as it’s only 25 minutes of their life

But seriously, help me expand my reach to all of the twenty-somethings out there who definitely need to listen to this podcast

And as alway, I can’t wait to be in your headphones again next week with another brand new episode