An article in Psychology today claims that around 20% of people are chronic procrastinators and that figure may well be inflated as the true procrastinators would not have even replied to the survey on time. It is a trait which is widely disapproved of and is not really welcome in many aspects of life. However, underneath its apparent simplicity it can stem from wide a variety of causes.
The first is a fear of the outcome, if you endeavour to achieve you may fail. What happens if you join a gym and then in three months you haven’t been once? Wasted money, embarrassment and an ego hit; not pleasant.
The second is a lack of expertise. Day 1: You walk into the gym and then what? You have never done this before, you’re looking around and everyone’s doing different things, what do you do? Also what do you eat? there’s a million diet books out there and they all seem to contradict each other.
The third option is no ‘reason why’. If you don’t have a strong personal motivation to do it then you won’t do it.
The fourth is being too tired and busy, which I suspect is a common one. If you lack focus, are constantly distracted by your external world and are fatigued then spending time improving yourself may seem unnecessarily self indulgent and a waste of time and energy.
Lastly, the fifth reason is perfectionism. Most of us like to do things 100%, give everything we've got to get a real sense of achievement. Examples include, “I can’t afford to take the supplements so I’ll start later when I can“, or once “ I've bought some new gym clothes I’ll join the gym“. Even things such as waiting until you have more time off work or something like that holds back progress.
Luckily, there is a potential cure to this problem which seems simple but the science behind it is sound. A Russian scientist called Zeigarnik performed a study on task completion. She asked people to partake in a number of simple tasks and then half way through some of them cut it short, before the participants could finish. She found that when asked to recall all the tasks they better remembered the tasks which were incomplete.
So what does this have to do with procrastination? Well if someone can be convinced to making the first step, and begin the task then their anxious brain will keep reminding them to keep going, making them more likely to make the commitment and achieve their goals.
What is that first step? Well this Saturday RWL gym is having a free seminar to get you into the gym going mood and to get your foot on the first step of the ladder to the body that you've always wanted. Come along, it might just change the way you look at yourself forever.
https://www.facebook.com/JeffLynchRwlGymCoach
@JeffLynchRWL
No comments:
Post a Comment