Would you like to know the most important thing about procrastination? … come back tomorrow… and I’ll tell you!! Ha – ha!
The thing about tomorrow is – it never comes! Because tomorrow, today will be yesterday and you will have missed that opportunity. “Yesterday you said tomorrow”.
If this sounds like a mind game – it’s because it is. Procrastination is something we do in our mind to avoid taking ACTION.
What is Procrastination?
Procrastination is the act of unnecessarily postponing decisions or actions.
Between 15-20% of adults are chronically affected by procrastination.
Procrastination is not a result of poor time management nor another word for inherent laziness. It is a symptom of an inability to regulate emotion. When faced with an unpleasant task, we experience unpleasant feelings. They can range from “Ew, dirty dishes are gross” to deeper feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt and anxiety.
Every time the opportunity to exercise comes around you can choose to take action or you can procrastinate. Sometimes we are just afraid of making the wrong decision so we make no decision at all. But even if we make the wrong decision, that’s 1-step closer to finding out what works.
A Light Bulb Moment!
Thomas Eddison was asked if he was disappointed that it took him 100 attempts to get the light bulb to work, but the saying goes that he said he found 99 ways that it didn’t before he found that one that worked! Not that I think it will take you 100 attempts to find the fitness regime that works for you.
A Solution For Procrastination
On a solution for procrastination, there is a whole industry grown up around Mel Robbins and the “5-Second Rule”.
The 5 Second Rule is simple. If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill it. The moment you feel an instinct or a desire to act on a goal or a commitment, use the Rule.
OK, so you’ve been thinking of joining a gym – let’s go, you’re going to pick up the phone and book an appointment at the gym. Ready – 5-4-3-2-1-GO!
Here’s another one : the 5-minute Rule. It works like this: You force yourself to work on a task for just five minutes, with the understanding that you can quit after five minutes if you like. With this new condition, the brain is “tricked” into now seeing your gargantuan task very differently. The chances are if you start with 5 minutes, you’ll probably do more!
More Solutions to Procrastination
- Enlist the help of a friend – arrange to meet at the gym.
- Increase the reward of taking action – do something enjoyable after your workout (not food rewards!) e.g. meet/walk with a friend, browse clothes shopping with a view to a reward for a month of exercising.
- Increase the pain of procrastination – There are many ways to force you to pay the costs of procrastination sooner rather than later. For example, if you are exercising alone, skipping your workout next week won’t impact your life much at all. Your health won’t deteriorate immediately because you missed that one workout.
The cost of procrastinating on exercise only becomes painful after weeks and months of lazy behaviour. However, if you commit to working out with a friend at a certain time on a certain day, then the cost of skipping your workout becomes more immediate. Miss this one workout and you look like a jerk. - Use Visual Cues to trigger your habits and measure your progress.
We use this in our gym by producing a chart each month with every member’s name on it and a line with the days of the week. We ask them to fill in the plan for workouts for the month by circling the days of the week they PLAN to do a workout. Then each time they DO a workout they tick that circle.
That way they can see (and so can everyone else!) how good they were at sticking to their plan.- Visual cues remind you to start a behaviour. It is much easier to stick with good habits when your environment nudges you in the right direction.
- Visual cues display your progress. Everyone knows consistency is as an essential component of success, but few people actually measure how consistent they are in real life. A visual cue that tracks your progress avoids that pitfall. Making progress is satisfying and visual cues provide clear evidence of progress. As a result, they reinforce your behaviour and add a little bit of immediate satisfaction.
- Visual cues can have an additive effect on motivation making the behaviour more addictive. As the visual evidence of your progress mounts, it is natural to become more motivated to continue the habit.
So, no excuses, now – don’t delay – make that decision TODAY and take action! 5-4-3-2-1- GO!
Call us on 023 92 520025 or fill in the form below and we will contact you.
