You avoid the unpleasing feelings of that task by following some illusions like “I have time to do that later”, or “I am not in the mood to do it right now”. And after a week you feel so bad you didn’t use those empty days to do something. You swear the next time you will use your time properly, but without noticing it you fall in the same circle again.
Why do we procrastinate
Have you ever asked yourself why don’t you procrastinate activities you are passionate about? That’s because the same way how darkness is just the absence of light, so procrastination is just the absence of passion. You can realize there is a need to do that task now even though results will appear only in the future, but you are just using the wrong goals to motivate yourself.
Getting money is a great goal to work harder. So is getting A grades on high school to study harder. But are these goals enough to recruit your heard and soul? I don’t think so. There are a lot of better things you really love to get than money and A’s. Those are things that can really motivate you to do something in the best way, they can make you really passionate about your activity. (Read: How to overcome passivity)
My example in studying
When I was in high school, one of my teachers suggested me to enter a olympic competition in biology. He told me that if I was able to study 2 hours a day only biology I could win that competition in my area, in my country and maybe in Balkan level. And that was what I did. I don’t remember one day I didn’t study biology books. I had to study even the most detailed things, I hadn’t pass anything without learning even if it looked unimportant.
When our school made some competition with other schools, I was the one completing biology test with 0 mistakes. I was so lazy to study for exams, I couldn’t study even 10 minutes for it, however I could get the maximum grades easily because I have studied everything 2 years ago. (Read: How to get motivation to study hard)
Unfortunately I didn’t competed in that olympic competition because I was fired from school in the last 3 months of the last year due to fighting with one of my teachers. However they needed some of my other talents. I was the one who could create some scenarios for our last Party, I was doing their organization since the beginning. So I made a good deal and I got the last year without any problem.
Now, I am not saying that lack of passion is the only reason why people procrastinate, I am sure there are other psychological reasons too, but the most common one is the lack of a great and attractive goal that can really motivate you. (Read: The psychology of motivation) If my main goal behind studying was just getting good grades, I wouldn’t study so hard biology. And I am not showing off with this, no one remains in history for studying biology hard, I just used this story as an example to explain my idea.
As Robert said in his book Far from it, aiming high and not reaching it, will make you achieve more that aiming something achievable and reaching it. You will find clues in yourself and in everybody else about this truth. So don’t overlook it.