Why We Procrastinate - 5 Reasons That You May Not Know

Procrastination is an emotional issue, not a time management issue.

We almost always procrastinate when our logic is overpowered by our emotions.

Logically, we know we should eat healthy food.

Logically, we know we shouldn't check emails first thing in the morning.

Logically, we know we should pursue our passion or start a business.

Logically, we know time is precious and we should say "I love you" while we still can.

But we don't because we let our emotions in the moment override our rational thinking, thus we procrastinate on things that should have been done.

Below are the 5 common reasons why we procrastinate that you should pay attention to.

#1 The task requires effort, it doesn't feel good to do it

As humans, we are hardwired to seek the easy, painless and quick path. Our brain craves for instant gratification.

When things are difficult and require effort, we procrastinate.

When we procrastinate, our brain releases the "feel good hormone" called Dopamine. Dopamine encourages us to continue the current behavior and therefore we keep doing the same activity and avoiding the hard work.

That's why it's easy, addictive and tempting to procrastinate.

#2 The task isn't interesting enough

We are social creatures who love to have fun with others.

To many people, playing World of Warcraft, watching Game of Thrones or immersing in the virtual reality of Pokémon GO are more fun than creating a life-changing 3 day seminar workshop that inspires others to take action.

Thus most people aren't "motivated" to do the work necessary and they are controlled solely by their pleasure-seeking nature.

The truth is while successful people also love to seek pleasure, they delay their short-term gratification and they focus on building their long-term, bigger, better real life pleasure.

#3 We don't feel the importance and urgency of it

When we don't have a big enough "why", we lack the emotional fuel to take action.

When we don't set deadlines with consequences, we feel like we have all the time in the world to "do it tomorrow" until it's too late.

A big enough "why" and a sense of urgency is crucial to make things happen in life.

You lack either one of these, you procrastinate till the last minute.

#4 Fear of Failure/Fear of Success

Strangely enough, fear of failure or success stem from the same thing - Fear of not being loved.

We are afraid that people might laugh at us when we fail.

We are afraid that people might judge us when we succeed.

Either way, we are scared that we will become the loneliest person on the planet and not get loved whenever we do something.

Thus, we try to avoid making mistakes by a procrastination strategy called perfectionism.

Perfectionism can be an attempt to avoid failure. Perfectionism can also be a method to avoid success.

The point is we keep procrastinating so we don't actually create any kinds of results - neither failure nor success. Weird right?

#5 Fear of Uncertainty

Whether you succeed or fail on your endeavor, the final reason why we procrastinate is that we are scared of asking ourselves the question, "What's next?"

We hate being thrown into the unknown. We don't want to feel losing control and not knowing what to do. Thus we try not to reach the end for fear that we might go insane.

Which of the 5 reasons above have you tried to delay making a decision? Which one or more have been your current procrastination strategy to avoid taking action?

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