Do you procrastinate?

Of course you do. All humans do. 

But more importantly, do you think of yourself as a “procrastinator,” and how do you feel when you think about yourself that way? 

Probably not great. 

We get so much socialization around productivity. In our society, productivity is good. Being busy is good. Being efficient is good. Doing the most things is good. 

And if those things are inherently good and moral, then procrastination must be inherently bad and immoral.

I don’t buy any of it. 

All human beings procrastinate. 

Our brains were built to avoid pain and seek pleasure - to keep us alive.

And procrastination is just us doing that. By definition it just means to delay action or to put off doing something. There’s nothing inherently wrong or bad about that. In fact, sometimes it’s really helpful. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it just is, and there’s no impact other than you shaming yourself unnecessarily. 

And if you want to do less of it, then by all means, work on that. I help women with this all the time. It can absolutely be done. 

But think about why you want to make the change.

Is it, at least in part, because you think procrastinating is bad and therefore you are bad when you do it? 

If so, consider addressing that as part of your process. 

Shame and judgment are crappy motivators. And they don’t tend to fuel sustainable change. Instead, they keep us stuck repeating the same patterns over and over again AND feeling bad about it. 

If you label yourself a procrastinator, and you're much more likely to continue procrastinating. Then you add the shame. And hide from the actual issues underlying the procrastinating. Then you procrastinate. And on and on.

Shame and judgment also create so much murkiness for us around what we want. If we believe something we do is inherently bad, then our goal is always to get rid of it entirely. 

Without any discernment over whether that’s actually what we want. 

Whether that’s actually what would serve us. 

Whether that truly matters to us. 

Whether there’s even really a problem. 

If you weren’t ashamed of procrastinating, how would you approach it? 

A ❤️ note to you: It is my life’s work to help women learn how to create more love, compassion, and trust for themselves AND still get what they want out of their career and their life. We’ve been taught that we need shame and judgment to motivate ourselves. But there is a better way. I can help you stop procrastinating, if you want, and change the way you talk to and think about yourself. Send me a DM or sign up for a free call with me at jenndealcoaching.as.me/consult to learn more.