Psychological Reasons To Why People Procrastinate

As much as twenty percent of people identify a chronic problem with procrastination. That is a lot of potential work gone down the drain.

It is likely one of the biggest problems we face as individuals and yet it is not treated nearly as seriously as it should be.

Dr. Ferrari identifiest three basic reasons people procastrinate. They are:

- the thrill seekers that love to feel that adrenaline rush when they do something at the last moment;

- those that avoid or fear failure or even success. Their biggest problem is that they put too much thought in what other people think of them;

- people who simply can’t decide one way or another. They are afraid of the responsibility of making a decision, often forgetting that not making a decision is a decision in itself.

The thrill seekers often avoid projects that they perceive as boring or unpleasant. They thus often delay the project until the very last moment, at which point they are motivated by potential failure and punishment it warrants on one hand, and the thrill of success on the other.

Complex projects fall into this same category. When something seems overwhelming at first, instead of breaking it into small steps, procrastinators usually just delay starting work altogether.

People whom fear failure procrastinate subconsciously. They are usually afraid of what people will think of their work and how they will be judged as a result. They often think of worst case scenarios that paralyze them and as a result they procrastinate as much as they can.

People may also fear success. They are afraid of the way their lives would change if they actually hit the point of success they are aiming for. For example they may be afraid of too much attention from people as they do not know how to deal with it.

Indecisiveness is often a motive for people to procrastinate. They are afraid of making the wrong decision and thus they delay making the decisions for as long as they can, often making their situation much worse than just going with their gut. They too often imagine the worse case scenarios and the fear of failure simply paralyzes them.

What all procrastinators have in common is their love of distractions. They would often check their email, their twitter timeline or if they had any missed calls on their phone. They tell themselves that they will do something after they eat, then after their TV show, then after this and that, and eventually they never get around to doing what they have to, until the very last minute.

Procrastination is not something you are born with, rather you are thought. So it is important to look for uncommon ways to cure whatever is holding you back and making you procrastinate.

For example just telling a person who has a problem with procrastination to just do what needs to be done won’t work and is a silly request.

On the other hand many people have had success getting rid of procrastination with the help of techniques often used by people into self help movements, like hypnosis , subliminal or paraliminal audio or similar approaches.