{"id":41370,"date":"2016-05-26T20:24:37","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T04:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/?p=41370"},"modified":"2017-05-27T08:49:59","modified_gmt":"2017-05-27T16:49:59","slug":"how-to-unearth-the-root-cause-of-your-procrastination-and-its-not-laziness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/how-to-unearth-the-root-cause-of-your-procrastination-and-its-not-laziness\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Unearth the Root Cause of Your Procrastination \u2013 And it\u2019s Not Laziness"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><\/p>\n<p>Why are you procrastinating? While superficial answers may come up (such as a lack of time management), there is often a <em>real\u00a0<\/em>reason why you are procrastinating \u2013 and it is not laziness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To surrender bad habits, understand your emotions thoroughly and be in control of them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Get to the root of your procrastination. Once you are able to identify why you truly are procrastinating, it becomes much easier for you to stop procrastinating.<\/p>\n<p>Procrastination is a symptom, not the issue.<\/p>\n<p>Procrastination manifests in your mind \u2013 the more connected and conscious you are of yourself and your life, the easier it becomes for you to understand where your procrastination truly stems from and subsequently stop it.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>A Simple Way to\u00a0Get to The Root of Your Procrastination<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The process of discovering the true cause of procrastination is a process of constant internal probing. Basically, you ask and answer a series of self-administered questions. If this is your first time doing so, it may be difficult, but keep trying and you will get to the root of your procrastination.<\/p>\n<p>First, ask yourself why you are procrastinating.<\/p>\n<p>Then keep probing deeper. And deeper.\u00a0Ask yourself why, and go in-depth into how you are feeling and what is truly responsible for those feelings. Or ask yourself: Why does that matter?<\/p>\n<p>Continue until you hit the jack pot.\u00a0How would you know if you have hit the jack pot? You\u2019ll just know it \u2013 something in your heart will go \u201cClick!\u201d and for that temporary moment, you\u2019ll feel enlightened about this new discovery of yourself.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Common Root Causes of Procrastination<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>1) Insecurity about one\u2019s abilities<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nMost of the time, we are just afraid because of a lack of self-confidence in various aspects of our lives\/ character\/ looks\/ relationships. We go into a vicious cycle of self-doubt and negativity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2) A subconscious fear of something negative happening<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For instance, I realized that I have not cleaned my room in weeks. Here is my thought process to get to the root cause of my procrastination:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWhy am I not clearing up my room?\u201d -&gt;\u201dI have no time\u201d -&gt; \u201cThat\u2019s not really true, you have time to be on social media\u201d -&gt; \u201cI don\u2019t see cleaning my room as something important\u201d -&gt; \u201cI am scared of being unproductive and not focusing on tasks that\u2019s important\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The truth was that cleaning my room was an important task, but I didn\u2019t want to to it because I\u2019ve always associated cleaning as a very\u00a0unproductive activity. Add that to the fact that I hate being unproductive, and you have the reason why.<\/p>\n<p>The root reason for the same task will differ from person to person.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3) The activity has some form of implied meaning to you which you associate with negatively.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My friend has the same problem of not packing up his room, but due to reasons that are very different from mine.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWhy are you not clearing up my room?\u201d -&gt; \u201cI am too lazy\u201d -&gt; \u201cWhy are you too lazy to clean your room?\u201d -&gt; \u201cI am immature to do such adult tasks\u201d -&gt; \u201cWhat?\u201d -&gt; \u201cI guess I just don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m mature enough to do such adult tasks like cleaning\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When I probed deeper, I realized that it was because he saw packing his room as a very \u201cadult\u201d thing to do \u2013 and as someone who has just reached the age of being a legal adult \u2013 he was not ready to be seen as an adult. (That is, he is insecure about his maturity).<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How About You?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>What\u2019s one task which you are procrastinating really badly on? Think of just one.<\/p>\n<p>Then, I want you to think of why you<em> really<\/em> are holding it off.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<br \/>\nRaelyn Tan is a blogging and digital marketing strategist at <a href=\"http:\/\/raelyntan.com\">Raelyn Tan<\/a>. She helps bloggers and online entrepreneurs build a solid and thriving online blog business. <a href=\"http:\/\/raelyntan.com\/traffic\">Sign up for her free 12 Day Blog Traffic Mini Course<\/a> to get 12 days of strategies to skyrocket your blog traffic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Get to the root of your procrastination. Once you are able to identify why you truly are procrastinating, it becomes much easier for you to stop procrastinating. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/how-to-unearth-the-root-cause-of-your-procrastination-and-its-not-laziness\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12163,"featured_media":41474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[45,32,17,6,39],"tags":[4354,66,186,4629,5071],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Unearth the Root Cause of Your Procrastination \u2013 And it\u2019s Not Laziness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Get to the root of your procrastination. 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