How to overcome procrastination

You must have decided by now to permanently change your habits - I get up 15 minutes early tomorrow to meditate in peace or do a detox smoothie before work. You enthusiastically sound the alarm 15 minutes early, and it’s like you can’t wait for that morning. It all lasts until the alarm rings the next morning.

Do you have the feeling that you are a completely different person when you make such qualities, and completely different when you need to apply those decisions? Often, even when we are familiar with all the techniques, tricks, and methods, it happens that we find ourselves in a situation where we simply do not apply what we have written in our planner.

Often there is neither knowledge nor effort between us and our goals, but PROCRASTINATION!

(Procrastination is delaying or avoiding something)

Procrastination is, for example, postponing exercise, postponing getting up early or writing the blog we want to publish, etc. Procrastination is an integral part of our lives and is normal as long as it occurs in moderation.

Procrastination is nothing but a habit, and we can change habits! Especially when procrastination becomes the main reason why we stand still and do not progress in any sense.

WHY ARE WE SUBJECT TO PROCRASTINATION?

We often associate procrastination with destructive notions such as laziness or lack of discipline alone. However, most procrastinate even though they are not lazy or undisciplined, which means that this claim is not the most accurate.

Some studies claim that procrastination is a completely natural human behavior that helps us cope with stress. Does studying for an exam cause you stress? To the non-evolved part of your brain, it is a message that learning is bad for you, which is why it draws your attention to all the other things you could do instead of learning. You take your cell phone and chat or surf the internet, stop focusing on learning and the exam, and immediately somehow feel better. The brain receives a reward and it is most likely that in the next such or similar situation, it will apply the same mechanism.

This explains that we are not actually postponing the task, but the stress we feel because of that task.

HOW CAN WE USE THIS KNOWLEDGE AND HOW CAN WE DECEIVE THIS MECHANISM OF OUR BRAIN TO DO WHAT WE WANT?

I'm sure you've heard of Mel Robbins' book called The Rule of 5 Seconds. The rule in this book says, for example, if you want to wake up every morning before your alarm, count 5-4-3-2-1 in yourself and one, before your brain even realizes what you're doing, simply - get up!

You can apply the same principle in any situation where you often have a habit of procrastinating. Due to the simplicity of this technique, many avoid it or do not take it seriously, but this rule has a scientific basis behind it.

RULE 5 SECONDS AND BRAIN ANATOMY

Our prefrontal cortex is an important part of the brain that is responsible for making decisions, long-term planning, and realization of our goals.

Imagine this situation. You may consider yourself a person who does not make your decisions quickly and easily. However, what if, for example, your child, pet, loved one or anyone else found themselves in a river and asked for help because they were drowning? Would you stop and think for hours about what you should do, or would you jump into the river without thinking and try to save him?

In those moments when you find yourself delaying getting up in the morning, exercising, or working on a task, all you have to do is activate the prefrontal cortex in your head.

HOW CAN WE STOP DISPOSING OF IMPORTANT THINGS?

The 5-second rule has helped hundreds of thousands of people around the world. It works because the countdown activity interrupts the normal sequence of behaviors that the brain does automatically (habits), activates the prefrontal cortex, and gives you five seconds to change normal behavior.

So the mechanism is very simple:

1. ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE NOT LAZY but your body has its mechanisms to help you cope with stress. (you have to understand that there is a part of your brain that has escaped the evolutionary process and that does not understand that if you are under stress it immediately means that we are being chased by a saber-toothed tiger

2. MAKE A SMALL DECISION THAT CONTRARY TO YOUR USUAL RESPONSE TO STRESS. If you generally delay your alarm when it rings, make a different decision the next morning and get up at the first bell. If you skip your workouts, force yourself to do the workout this time anyway.

3. COUNT 5-4-3-2-1 AND GO TO ACTION ONE!

You may be wondering why it is good to make a small decision and not a crucial and big one? In James Clear's book, The Atomic Habit, he illustrated the fact that the smaller the decision, the easier it is to start. And once you start, it's much easier to continue. As a result, 5 minutes of writing, running, or learning often turns into 60 or 90 minutes (which, if you chose that time immediately, would cause you stress and frustration).

James also says in his book that small successful decisions that seem negligible to you at first, build your self-confidence in the long run, change your mindset and give you a sense of control over life!

Have you perhaps used the 5 Second Rule by now? What are your experiences with that?

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