#67 How To Overcome Procrastination

Procrastination is not a character flaw or a laziness problem, it is often our brain’s way of avoiding an uncomfortable emotion. We break down the real cost of delay and share simple, practical steps to rebuild self-trust through action. 

• procrastination as avoidance, not lack of discipline 
• the short-term relief that creates long-term stress 
• how broken promises to ourselves erode confidence and identity 
• sneaky procrastination patterns like researching, planning, and overthinking 
• how the four temperaments procrastinate differently 
• the key question to unlock change: what am I unwilling to feel 
• five tools to move into action, including smaller steps and timed starts 
• progress over perfection and rebuilding self-trust with tiny commitments 

If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at Sharon K Coaching.com. That's Sharon the Letterk Coaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform. And feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard. 

Click the link below to set up a free discovery call to begin your transformation today.  Or email me @ smurph923.sm@gmail.com to find out more about how I can help.  

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Transcript

Welcome And Summer Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to my podcast. My name is Sharon Murphy and I'm a certified life and mindset coach and I help women who seek to be happy and holy. Each week I'll bring you tools and insights to help you on your journey to the heights. I'm so glad you're here. Hey everybody. I hope you're all doing well. I am really delighted to be with you today. Summer is feels like in full swing, although it's technically not summer at the time of recording, the official date, but my kids are out of school, and so it feels like we're on summer break, let's just say that. So we're in summer mode here where I live and I'm enjoying it. The schedules are a little bit more laid back in some respects, but I have a really, really full summer. I really do. We're trying to take care of a lot of things, and this, what I want to talk to you about today, this topic is appropriate for me in my own life in so many ways and what I'm dealing with right now. There's a lot of projects I'm trying to get done around our house. We have some plans later this summer for my daughter's wedding. We're hosting the night before the wedding, just some friends that are coming in from out of town. And so I'm trying to get a lot of things done in my yard that honestly I've been wanting to work on for a few years, many years in some cases. And this is what I want to talk to you about

Procrastination Is Not Laziness

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today. It's something that every one of us has struggled with at some point, I'm sure. And that is procrastination. You know what I'm talking about. It could be that email that you've been meaning to send. Maybe it's a conversation you've been avoiding, or there's a project that's been on your to-do list for weeks, months, maybe even years. Could just be something as simple as a doctor appointment that you need to schedule that you haven't done. Or how about this? An exercise program that you were going to start on Monday and now it's three Mondays ago, maybe longer. We've all been there. This shows up differently for all of us at different points in our life. And yet the problem with this is when we procrastinate, what we tend to do is label ourselves. If we do it on long enough, if we live in a place of procrastination, it becomes habitual. And we start to identify with ourselves as being undisciplined. We start to feel like maybe we're not productive or that we're a little bit lazy. How many times have you, you yourself said or heard somebody else say, I'm just a procrastinator? But guess what? What if procrastination isn't actually about laziness at all? What if it's just simply a strategy that your brain uses to avoid something uncomfortable? Because that's actually what it is most often. It isn't a productivity problem. It's actually an avoidance problem. And until we understand what we're trying to avoid, we're going to continue to stay stuck in these patterns of procrastination. And here's the thing I want you all to know: this is really important. Procrastination isn't a character flaw. It's been a coping strategy you've used to avoid feeling something. And I'm going to say that again. Procrastination isn't a character flaw. It's not just the way you're wired. It's not just who you are. It's been a coping strategy that you've used to avoid feeling something. So what do I mean by coping strategy? And why do we do this? Well, we believe procrastination is offering us something. That's why we do it. So let's just imagine that you have a difficult conversation that you need to have, whether that's with your spouse, boss, a friend, maybe it's with one of your adult children. You know the conversation needs to happen. You know this. And you've probably played it out in your head a little bit. And you know that avoiding it isn't helping it. And yet somehow you find yourself doing something else. Maybe you all of a sudden are reorganizing your closet instead. You're decluttering a drawer, or you're you're doing any number of things. Why do you do this? Well, your brain believes procrastination is protecting you. It will tell you things like, you'll feel more like it later on. Now isn't the right time. You'll do it when you feel ready. Or maybe you think you need to prepare a little more. And the truth is, is procrastination, it is actually offering you some temporary relief because you're avoiding that uncomfortable feeling that you're going to have doing that thing, whatever that is. So it does eliminate or remove the discomfort for the moment. But the problem with this is that while that discomfort it decreases temporarily, it over the long over the long haul, the long term, the stress actually increases. So let's just talk about even for exercise, okay? You know you want to start an exercise routine. So today is the day you're going to go out for a walk or a run or you're going to go to the gym, whatever that might be. And in the moment, very often we know this, we don't feel like it. And so we say, I'll start tomorrow. And of course, in that moment, there's a relief. You're not going to do that thing because maybe you, like I said, you didn't feel like it. Immediately you feel some relief or the pressure is relieved. Let's just say that. But the reality is is still in your mind, you know you want to do that thing, or that you should do that thing, that that's good for you. It's it's going to help you in some way, or that it needs to happen. So then that's still is it's nagging. It's still there. That thing that you know you should do or that you want to do, because for some reason it's going to help you become a better person or a better version of yourself, that task doesn't disappear. It just follows you around. And it's almost like it's like a backpack that you never take off. And every time you have things that you should, you know, that you feel like you should be doing, I don't like using the word should, but that you have deemed as good for you, or you set up a kind of a life plan and this is something that you're working towards. Whenever you don't do those things that you set out to do or that you've committed to doing, it's like you just put more weights in that backpack. And that backpack gets heavier and heavier.

The Hidden Cost Is Self-Trust

SPEAKER_00 5:50

So let's talk about if we think it's offering us something, what are the hidden costs of procrastination? Now, most people believe that the biggest cost of procrastination is just that you're not being productive or that, you know, they kind of deem themselves as undisciplined. And I don't really think that productivity is really the loss here. I think that the bigger cost is lost confidence or belief in yourself. Because every time we make an agreement with ourselves or we commit to something and then we fail to follow through, we actually weaken our trust in ourselves. And this may sound silly or it might sound like it's not a big deal, but it's much bigger than you think. What happens is in our minds, we start to have these beliefs that are formed of I never do what I say I'm gonna do, or I can't count on myself, or I'm always behind, or whatever that might be. And you may not even realize, and I'm sure you probably aren't that you're you're believing or thinking these things, but they're there and they're in your subconscious. And this is the way you start to form an identity of I'm just a procrastinator. So the next time you make a decision to do something, there's a part of you deep down that really doesn't believe you're probably gonna do it. And that kind of narrative becomes very damaging, much more damaging than that unfinished thing that you didn't do. And over time, like I said, it doesn't just affect what we do, it begins to affect who we believe we are. So, how does procrastination show up in real life? These are just, I'm just gonna give you some examples, but this can apply to any area of our lives. And sometimes it's very obvious, like there's a project that you haven't started. I was talking about some things in the yard in my own experience, in my own situation right now. Just for an example, we want to do some small things. Of course, we want the yard to look nice now. Does this all need to happen because of this one evening? Absolutely not. But I'm kind of using this as an excuse to kind of like this this stuff needs to happen now, right? So it's kind of giving me a deadline that I need to have things done by. And what uh one of the things is our garage doors need to be repainted. And those are the big, the big doors, the the electric or the ones that go up for we where we pull into our garage, but also the service doors. There's a number of other things, but that's just one example. Now, I've that's needed to get done for a number of years now. And it's taken that this event is happening for me to get to it. Now, I it's not just me involved, my husband's involved as well. And there's other issues at play here for us. We're very busy, and so it's just kind of it didn't have high priority because it they didn't look that bad. So maybe that's not a great example, but it it has forced us to say this is when this it needs to happen now. We've been putting it off. And for some people, they probably would have tackled it right away. But for us, we put it off. And that could be for any number of reasons. It could be just the the work involved, it could be the fact of that we had to throw money at it, you know, whatever the reason is. So for you, again, it's the project that you haven't started, but it could be as simple as a phone call that you know you need to make. It can show up in sneaky ways as well. And what that can look like is researching instead of deciding. Now that's another example. We're also getting new patio furniture for our back, back porch, our back patio area. Our stuff that we had had was getting old. And again, the last couple of years we knew we probably needed to get some, but we didn't do it. And so my husband and I have been looking. We went to several stores, we looked around and just there was a lot of reasons we didn't find the stuff we were looking for. We were looking for some, you know, it needs to be durable enough, we want it to be comfortable, we didn't want the cushions to be too light. So we have these things that, you know, criteria that need to be met. Well, we started looking, you know, looking online because I was like, we need to make a decision. Thousands, thousands. Just on one website, we found over 7,000 patio sets. Now, do those all fit fit our criteria? No, but I'm just saying there's no shortage of patio sets available to us. And yet I'm still struggling to make a decision. I've narrowed it down to like six or seven, and now I'm asking other people's opinions. So I'm doing a lot of researching when really all I need to do is just make a decision. You know, I I've kind of played with that a little bit in my own mind as to what am I trying to avoid. And I think for me, I just don't want to get this stuff and spend this kind of money and then realize that it's it's not what I wanted. So for me, what I'm trying to avoid is the fear of being disappointed. And so that's just an example to give you what I'm talking about. That's the way it can show up. It's just doing a lot of researching, which is what I'm doing. I can look like planning, doing all sorts of planning instead of just starting. We can do that with workout routines. We can get all these plans and spend all our time doing this. And really, you just need to get out and start exercising if you need a workout routine. You can tweak the plan at any time, but we spend a lot of time on those things. And it's the same thing with learning instead of practicing. We read about things and we study when really we just need to get out and practice. Sometimes it can just look like thinking things through too much instead of just taking action. And by doing these things, whether we're researching, planning, learning, thinking, none of those are moving the needle. They might be a necessary part of making a decision, but we stay there and they feel like we're making progress because it seems like we're working on it. But deep down, we're just circling around it. We're circling around that thing instead of doing

How Temperament Shapes Delay

SPEAKER_00 10:56

that thing. So I want to talk a little bit about what this looks like for the four different temperaments. I've talked about the temperaments before. In the work I do, I think it's really, really important for people to understand the way they're wired. There's four of them. So if you're if you don't love the temperaments, you know what? Bear with me. I'm just gonna give you a brief description as to what they are. If you understand them, it can help you so much to understand yourself and the people around you and the people you love or work with and how they react and respond to situations and how they show up. So I'm just gonna dive into that really quickly here because the reasons for procrastination for these four different temperaments can look very different. So the first one is choleric, and just to give you a brief description, Cleric is very naturally driven. They're very decisive, they're very goal-oriented, they're kind of leaders and pioneers in their field. They can seem kind of strong personalities, kind of dominant, but they get things done. And so at first glance, you might think that clerics that they don't procrastinate, but they absolutely can. And the reason they procrastinate is because they fear failure or a loss of control. If they can't do something exceptionally well, they may delay starting it altogether. They may also procrastinate on tasks that they consider inefficient or unimportant or beneath their abilities. They just don't think that they're important enough. Their thought process might sound something like, if I can't do it right, I'll wait, or I'll do it when I have enough time to do it perfectly. And then the result with that is that basically there's important things that get delayed while they're waiting for ideal circumstances. Another reason that they put things off is because they don't want to look like a like a fool. Like they're very concerned with their competence. And so that's that's another that's another thing for them. The next temperament is the sanguine. Now, the sanguine is the one who loves fun. They love to be spontaneous, they like excitement, they're very outgoing, they're very charismatic, energetic, and they often procrastinate because they're distracted by something that's more fun or enjoyable. Sanguine doesn't typically wake up and just decide to avoid responsibility. That's not, that's not the case. They simply find something else more interesting. They may start out on the path and they they have every intention of accomplishing what they're going to, but they can get pulled away very quickly by something else that's more, I always like to say, that's more shiny or glittery. That's something that's more interesting to them. So their their thought process sounds more like I'll get to it later, or I work better under pressure. That's a very sanguine thing, is they actually prefer to just, they have to feel that pressure. Or they feel like they have plenty of time. I have plenty of time to get to that until suddenly they don't. And so for the sanguine, procrastination is often driven by our desire for immediate pleasure or enjoyment rather than the delayed reward. They have a hard time sticking to accomplishing something and seeing, seeing it through to the end or seeing it the long term because they're they're more concerned with immediate fun or gratification. Now, the next temperament is the melancholic. The melancholic is very thoughtful, detailed, conscientious, and often perfectionistic. The melancholic is more of an introvert, they're a very deep thinker, and they have very high ideals, which can be great in a lot of areas of their life. This actually is my primary temperament. For a long time, I just saw it as a negative. We hear something about somebody being melancholic, you tend to think they're down, they're sad, they're negative. But truthfully, they just hold, they have very high standards and very high ideals. And they are very introspective, thoughtful, very deep. Can be a great at all great attributes. But as you can imagine, they struggle with procrastination more than the other temperaments, usually. And it's not because they just don't care, it's because actually they care too much. Their standards are so high that they try to make everything the perfect decision. So brings me back to my patio furniture that I'm having a hard time deciding on. I just want it to be the right stuff. When I mean the truth is, is that if my husband went and surprised me and bought patio furniture, if I gave him some criteria, I probably would have been happy with it. For me and for other melancholics out there, you understand this. We tend to overanalyze, we over-prepare, we overthink. And so the thoughts that melancholics have is what if I do it wrong? What if I miss something important? What if it's not right? Or what if there's a better way? And this creates this perfectionistic attribute. It just creates paralysis, which is never good. And so, therefore, that's the reason that melancholics typically will procrastinate. Now, the final one, the final temperament is the phlegmatic. The phlegmatic values peace, harmony, and comfort. They are kind of the peacemakers. They're usually the ones kind of in the background, don't say a whole lot. They're not the loudest in the room, they're not always giving their input. They kind of, there's very much a harmonious element to this temperament. They're very great people to be around. They often procrastinate because they dislike pressure, conflict or disruption. Pressure is a big one for them. They don't like to feel pressured. A phlegmatic may delay making decisions because it creates tension. They may avoid difficult conversations because they don't want conflict. Again, their values are peace, harmony, and comfort, right? So the pressure goes against comfort, peace and harmony. Obviously, they don't like conflict. So when they're pushed to make decisions where they can see it might create some tension within different people or situations, sometimes that difficult phone call that they will avoid that. And they may postpone action because remaining where they are feels more comfortable in the moment. Again, you're delaying and putting off some sort of uncomfortable emotion. They don't like the discomfort. And their thoughts sound a little bit more like, let's just leave things the way they are, it's fine, or I'll deal with it later, or I don't want to upset anyone. But unfortunately, avoiding, you know, when you avoid discomfort today, it actually just creates greater discomfort tomorrow. We talk about exercise routines, the discomfort of getting out and doing something that's hard and pushing your body, you know, you're still going to have that discomfort. It's going to build and build and build as you continue to feel less in shape or, you know, whatever you might be dealing with, health-related. So the common thread with all of these, with each temperament, they all have different reasons for procrastinating, but they they share the same common thing. And that is that they're trying to avoid an uncomfortable emotion. Now, some of those emotions that are common that we're trying to avoid when we're procrastinating is fear, uncertainty, disappointment, maybe embarrassment. That's a big one for the cholerics. They don't want to, they don't want to look like a fool. They don't like to be embarrassed. Overwhelm can be another one. Conflict, failure, perfectionism, boredom. Just remember, the task itself, whatever it is that you're putting off or avoiding doing, that's rarely the problem. The problem that we need to focus on is the emotion that we're attaching to that task. That's everything. What are we, what are we feeling about that task? So we got to get really clear as to what we're trying to avoid. With that, when we're stuck in these situations, there's a question that really needs to be asked. And this is this is what changes things is what am I unwilling to feel? So it's not about, you know, why am I lazy? What's wrong with me? Why can't I be more disciplined? The question to ask yourself is what feeling am I trying to avoid? Because once you can identify that emotion, that task becomes easier to understand. Now, just understanding the emotion, understanding this is super important, but we still need to figure out how to move from procrastination into

Five Ways To Start Now

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action. So let's talk about five things that can help you at least learn to take action and how you can implement these in your own life. So the first one that I have is just to make the task smaller. Make the task smaller. Your brain loves manageable. So instead of say you've got a big presentation or something that you're working on. So instead of, you know, I need to write this presentation, just focus on, I just need to open the document. I just need to begin. I need to start. Or, you know, instead of we have these big lofty plans of I need to get healthy, I need to start an exercise exercise routine. Focus on just taking a 10-minute walk. Just that's all I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go for a 10-minute walk and then take action because action creates momentum. And then momentum creates the motivation. We a lot of times we're waiting for motivation, and that's the it's the wrong way around. It's the other way around. We need to just take the action which creates momentum, which then moves us into motivation. I always need to begin with action. Now, number two, and I think this one is a big one, stop waiting to feel ready. This is probably one of the biggest traps, is that we s we think we're gonna wait until we feel ready or feel motivated. Successful people in any area of their lives don't wait for motivation. They don't need, they don't wait to feel a certain way. This is when I really want to just I want to step back and say our feelings and our emotions are really important, but we we've gotten to a point in our world where I think we let that drive our decisions in every area of our life, and we need to be really careful because our emotions aren't always, I don't want to say accurate or helpful, but they shouldn't be the drivers of why we do what we do. Because if we're always waiting to do something until we feel like it, I've talked about this before in other episodes when I would try and say something to the kids about we're gonna clean today or we're gonna do this, and they're like, but I don't feel like it. And I I don't know why I did this, but my response was always like, Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't ask if you felt like it, because it has nothing to do with how you feel. If it needs to get done, it needs to get done. And the same is true here in this why we in procrastination. It's true for our exercise routine routines, it's true for those difficult phone calls. We're not ever gonna feel like having that difficult conversation. We just need to do it anyway. It's just ignoring the feelings and taking the action first. Now, the third one that I'm gonna offer you is just setting a timer. So if you have something that you've really been putting off, just set a timer and just say, I only need to work on this for 10 minutes. And the truth is that most resistance occurs before we even start. And once we're moving, the continuing of it becomes easier. We know this when we are talking about exercise routines. I do this when I'm cleaning my house because to clean my house is kind of a big process. And it so I I love a clean house, but I struggle to spend that much time cleaning and I just it gets very difficult for me to do. So I just set myself up and say, I'm just gonna clean the bathrooms, I'm just gonna start. And I'm not even cleaning for 10 minutes and I'm I'm good to go. I almost always I don't know actually that I can recall a time where I didn't finish. Because once I'm doing it, I'm fine. I'm in it. That resistance is prior to it, not during it. Now, number four, focus on progress, not perfection. Perfectionism is one of procrastination's favorite disguises. This is true for the most. Melancholics primarily, but it's true for all the temperaments. Getting something done is almost always better than having it done perfectly. So the goal here is just movement. It doesn't have to be perfectly mastered. It doesn't need to be done perfectly. There's a saying that my coach likes to say, and I use this in my own work, is that B minus work is better than no work than not getting it done. We don't need to put out A plus work all the time. B minus is usually good enough. And we just need to be willing to do the work, whatever that is in whatever area of your life. Start the project, make the phone call, whatever that is. Now, number five is build self-trust. So every time you keep a promise to yourself, even a tiny one, you're strengthening that self-trust. I talked about that earlier, about the what we begin to believe about ourselves. As you continue to take progress action, as you can continue to focus on making progress, what happens is you begin building self-trust. This is so important because if you've been procrastinating for years, this is going to take time to rebuild. And so don't start with huge commitments. In order to build self-trust, start small. Just give yourself little things to work on and commit to doing them. And your self-trust will build and it'll continue to gradually build. And then you'll be able to take on bigger things that you've been putting off. When you

One Small Step And Closing

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learn to follow through and commit to it, you begin to trust yourself. And that's where you start to gain confidence. One of the greatest lies procrastination tells us is that you'll feel better later. But later, as we know, often becomes next week. It might become next month, maybe next year. And sometimes we wake up and we're wondering why things haven't changed or why I haven't gotten to it. Or sometimes we wake up and we feel just overwhelmed with all the things that we need to get done or should get done or want to get done. I just want to tell you that in order for us to change our lives and to move forward and to stop procrastinating, we need to take action. Action will create clarity about what the next right step is. Action creates confidence. Action creates momentum. We don't have to know what every step is going to look like. We don't know how it's all going to go. When we're starting bigger projects or when we're doing things, once we begin, very often we're going to know what the next steps are. And you don't have to wait to feel ready. You don't have to eliminate fear. You just simply need to take the next step. Commit to taking the next step, no matter how you feel. So if you've been procrastinating on something important in your own life, I just want you to identify one thing today, just one. And start by asking yourself what it is that you're hoping to avoid feeling by putting that off. Just to get curious. What am I trying to avoid? And then instead of asking yourself how you're going to finish this thing or how you're going to tackle this, instead ask yourself, what's the smallest action that I can take right now? What's the thing I can do to take action? And then just do that because overcoming procrastination, it's not about trying to become someone who's completely different than who you are. It's not about becoming super productive or going headfirst into everything you do. You don't need to change your personality or become someone else. It's just about becoming a person who's willing to feel uncomfortable long enough to move forward. And that's a skill that every single one of us can learn. Thanks for tuning in today, for giving me your ear, your time, and your attention. I don't take that lightly. Until next time, onward and upward, my friends. To the heights. Thanks so much for listening today. If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at Sharon K Coaching.com. That's Sharon the Letterk Coaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform. And feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard.