- Morgane Self-Leadership Mentor
How to overcome procrastination - tips for entrepreneurs
Let's talk about procrastination, we've all been through that at some point... and it's ok. The goal of this article is to help you step into your next level of self-leadership on your personal development journey.
If you want to learn deeper about this and really step into leadership and become an incredible leader for your community, check my program or book a free call now and let's have a chat about it.
Map of this article:
- What causes procrastination (and what procrastination is not)
- Tips to overcome procrastination
- Benefits and outcomes of overcoming procrastination
- Your inner wisdom calling your attention (update of Oct. 20th 2023)
- More discipline won't solve your "procrastination issue" (update of Nov. 1st)
What can cause procrastination
There are a few things that can cause procrastination... But before I talk about them, let me first tell you what procrastination is not:
Procrastination is not laziness
Procrastination is common for high achievers actually but it is not a sign that you're lazy!!!
It often - ok, always - hides subconscious blocks so if you procrastinate, please don't think you're lazy, don't think bad about yourself, just see yourself as someone who needs to shift a pattern. And it's ok. We all do.
It doesn't mean anything about you as a human, it simply means you're human :)
8 causes of procrastination
a lack clarity on your next steps: you have goals and desires but you don't have a practical strategy to get there. Or maybe you do and you're not sure where to start exactly
you haven't found (yet) what sets your soul on fire, you procrastinate on things that you don't necessarily enjoy doing or you haven't fully unlocked your potential yet (it's not necessarily something big, it might just be a small shift, like giving yourself permission to do something different or to be yourself, for example).
overwhelm: there are so many possibilities, you have so many ideas... which one to choose? where to even start? and what if you choose the "wrong" one?
fear of missing out, making a mistake or failing, which causes more self-doubt
fear of success, fear of not being able to maintain the level of success once you'll have achieved it...
perfectionism: you want things to be perfect but you're not sure if they are
lack of support and encouragement to step into your power
self-sabotage (you're not aware of it, it's subconscious and it can be linked to a fear of success or a false belief according to which you're not feeling "worthy" or "good enough").
All of these things come from past wounds but you can change things and overcome any of these causes!.
At some point of your life, a situation happened and made that you stopped trusting yourself, maybe you were made fun of, shamed, belittled for an action you took or simply for being yourself... You of course know that this is not an excuse, because you're a powerful being, however, it's an explanation and it's important to acknowledge it so you don't think there's something "wrong" with you and you don't beat yourself up.
Maybe as a child you were yelled at for doing "something wrong" and your caretakers had disproportionate reactions, ex: you were punished for something insignificant that you for sure didn't deserve. Your defense mechanism and subconscious mind associated "taking action" or "being yourself" as "unsafe".
As a result, procrastination has come into your life like an uninvited and unwelcome guest...
Let me reassure you, it's very common, you're not alone and there's nothing wrong with you (so please hug yourself!).
Tips to overcome procrastination
Here are 9 tips I want to share to help you overcome procrastination:
self-awareness: be present with yourself, notice how you feel emotionally and mentally and be aware of your patterns, reactions and inner speech
prioritising and setting daily achievable goals: write your to-do list and prioritise what is urgent, important and what is not-so urgent (what I call secondary tasks).
accountability: hold yourself accountable during the day and at the end of each working day. If you need help, see if you can find an accountability partner, a friend or meet someone new online (ex: in a Facebook group) who'd need an accountability partner too.
reward yourself and your efforts: it doesn't have to be something big (although you can totally do that) but small rewards to keep your motivation going. Even your seemingly small wins need to be celebrated :)
remove any distractions: turn off notifications for a given period of time, have a glass of water next to you
deciding and committing to the task you're setting yourself to tackle, deciding to take the "scary action" even if it is "imperfect"
work on your growth and success mindset: journaling is your bestie: if you notice that you have a fear or that something is blocking you, journal about it, be there for yourself.
If you need help to remove these subconscious blocks so you can create your thriving business, my 8-week program can help you do that. Not only will you uncover subconscious blocks and shift them, but you'll walk away with actionable steps to achieve durable results. Check it out HERE.
monitor your inner speech: be gentle with yourself and reformulate your sentences when you notice you're not being friendly towards yourself :) this will help you shift your patterns of self-sabotage and increase your self-confidence and self-esteem.
meditate: this will help you clear your mind and get back to your own center, to your own heart and focus on the present moment.
Here is a quick guided meditation that can help you create peace in less than 2 minutes (yes, it doesn't need to take you longer :) )
Benefits and outcomes of overcoming procrastination
The good news is that you can end this pattern of procrastination and heal what's causing it so you can:
silence your mind to make it work for you (and not against you, bye bye nasty little voice)
be able to hear the voice of your heart (= your intuition)
trust yourself to make decisions that move your life and business forward
focus on taking actions that bring results
All of this means
more joy
a more loving inner speech,
improved mood & health
increased productivity
therefore more free time with your loved ones or do all the fun activities you enjoy :)
increasing your impact and become an even more powerful leader to your clients and community
more success and more fulfilment
This post your confirmation that what you're working towards and desiring is valid and definitely achievable - if you ever needed a sign ❤️
If you feel you could benefit from teaming up with me for 8 weeks so you can develop an unshakeable solution-oriented mindset & overcome the limitations holding you back from having a thriving business through energy and subconscious work and a tailored coaching plan, check my program HERE.
Feel free to contact me for any questions.
Your inner wisdom calling your attention (update of Oct. 20th 2023)
No! The fact that you procrastinate does NOT mean you're lazy!
What if you could see procrastination as the voice of your inner wisdom calling your attention to what’s not aligned, something that needs to be addressed…
More discipline will NOT solve your procrastination tendency
Procrastination is the symptom of something deeper that you haven’t seen yet.
When you procrastinate, it’s not that you don’t want to work. So don’t judge yourself for a symptom you’re feeling.
It’s simply something within you that’s seeing the work or the result of the work as a danger.
Let me take an example:
As an entrepreneur, you’re desiring more success, more income and you KNOW that the task you need to do will move the needle forward.
Yet you procrastinate.
The reason is that there’s a part of you (your subconscious) that associates the task that will move the needle forward with success. In parallel to that, your subconscious also associates success with danger. But consciously, you don’t know that yet.
For example, this fear of success might be based on the fact that as a child, you were told that money is the root of evil and people will judge you as greedy. Or maybe you’ve been told that if you have a lot of money, people will take advantage of you.
Whatever you were told as a child was flagged as “dangerous” by your subconscious.
Therefore by procrastinating, your subconscious mind s trying to protect you from what has been labeled as “dangerous” when you were a child.
So even if you consciously “know better”, you’re still operating from an old programming and your reality (and income) is being impacted.
When you work on rewiring the core programming, that’s when you’ll get rid of procrastination.
Sounds simple on paper, right? Awareness does help!
But the real work is to deactivate and rewire the original programming so that you can shift from seeing more money and more success as danger. Instead you can create safety within so you can allow yourself to receive. And that’s exactly what my clients and I do in my 8-week program Unshakeable.
Check out my “Unshakeable” if you’d like to shift old programmings and claim your inevitable success!
More discipline won't solve your "procrastination issue"
Raise your hand if you think more discipline will “solve your procrastination issue”
Ok don’t get me wrong, self-discipline is important and we all need it to an extent.
The REAL question is “why are you procrastinating in the first place?”
Procrastination is ALWAYS the symptom of a deeper “issue”, a deeper “cause”.
Discipline will only solve the symptom, by “forcing you to do what you think you have to do”.
This will keep you in a “work more, struggle until all falls into place”. But sometimes that’s the most counter-productive thing to do.
Why do you need to “force your way through”?
It’s your inner wisdom (or Higher Self, however you want to call it) calling your attention to something that’s not in alignment or that’s contrary to your subconscious identity (the beliefs you hold as true, your core programming from childhood)
So discipline won’t solve anything if you don’t address the root cause of the resistance.
So next time to feel you’re procrastinating, pause for a second and ask yourself what you’re REALLY feeling when you think of that next task you need to do.
maybe you’re feeling discouraged
maybe you’re afraid of what will happen when you finish the task: what if it doesn’t yield the results you desire?
maybe you’re afraid of succeeding (or not being able to maintain your level of success once you succeed)
And whatever reason you will find when you journal on this is the actual belief you will want to start rewiring!
If you need support in understanding why you’re procrastinating in the first place…, I’m inviting you to join my free training “Rewire these 5 beliefs to build a thriving business”.
Procrastination is NOT laziness - here's my client's perspective shift
What if "being lazy" was just an illusion, a label created to shame people and create feelings of guilt. Shame and guilt are ALWAYS useless! They're part of the mind drama that keeps us trapped in a loop and endless cycle of distraction.
I've seen people labelled as "lazy" by some because they found a simpler way to do something - I call it creative and genius to be honest!
What if all this time you’ve been hard on yourself, thinking you’re lazy and mediocre was simply due to the fact that you haven’t found your purpose yet?
Finding your purpose will shift your perspective of yourself for the better
Let me tell you Sav’s story.
Sav came into my world struggling with feeling lazy and mediocre, and I asked her one question that changed her life… This is the power of coaching!
I quote her own words “I’ve always thought of myself as lazy and mediocre in the past but I’m slowly changing that”
Here’s the shift of perspective I offered her: what if you’re not lazy and not mediocre, what if you simple haven’t found what lights you up yet?
Cue the brain explosion and a-ha moment!
After understanding herself more, Sav was able to heal and forgive herself.
Fast forward to now? She has a thriving business!
This is a glimpse into how I help my clients develop a thriving business through mindset rewiring with my R.O.S.E. framework©.
R is for Realization: first bring awareness on what’s standing in their way in their current situations
O is for Observation: once you gained awareness, you detach from the mind’s stories and become the observer, that’s when you deactivate impulsive reactions
S is for Shift: Once you’ve observed, you can respond from a place of power (vs reacting impulsively, or getting lost in a loop of thoughts, perpetuating the negative pattern)
E is for Expansion: once you’ve detached from the story, you can create new habits, thoughts and patterns that will enable you to grow and expand
If I hadn't asked that question to Sav, she'd still be running blindly, beating herself up in a direction that's not leading her to her best reality
She'd be spending who knows how much more time, money and energy to "be better" when in reality, she simply needed to find what lights her up...
The reason why my clients were able to get results like 78% increase in income is because I've been there myself, walking blindly and I found my way, so I'm able to spot the trap that my clients would be falling into and help them avoid it...
You see, this was literally after 20-min of talking and Sav already had this epiphany…
That’s what happens with the power of coaching.
If you want to also get life-changing brain-explosion moments like my clients, check out this page: Unshakeable or contact me and let's get in touch! Don't overlook the power of a simple conversation, while it doesn't oblige you in anything, it could also be the start of your new thriving life for more wellness, freedom and income!
I'm looking forward to connecting with you, Take care, Morgane