How many days a year do you think you procrastinate?

According to one 2015 study, in the UK Britons procrastinate 24 days a year.

Or 11 hours a week.

While in the U.S., Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago and author of Still Procrastinating: The No Regret Guide to Getting It Done claims that around 20% of U.S. adults are chronic procrastinators.

Meaning it’s not something they do occasionally, but it’s a major part of their lifestyle. They pay their bills late, put off working on projects, even file their income tax returns late, costing them on average $400!

Procrastination has many negative effects, but the one that goes unnoticed for many is the impact it has on a person’s mental health.

Knowing you keep putting something off that you should do but aren’t can begin to wear a person down.

Procrastinating, especially on something important can be stressful, impact your health and sink your chances of creating the life you want.

If it’s so bad WHY do people do it?

As practitioners of NLP, that’s not the most interesting thing to ask.

What is?

How?

How do people procrastinate?

And more importantly…

How do people who don’t procrastinate organize themselves on the inside to take action quickly and do so consistently?

You see everyone procrastinates some of the time, but not everyone is a procrastinator.

The solution to stop procrastination is already within you.

Think about it.

There are activities in your life that you have absolutely no problem taking action on.

It’s easy and happens automatically.

Maybe it’s checking your phone first thing in the morning, or watching Netflix or working out.

Everyone has times when taking action is easy and automatic.

How do you do those things?

Become curious.

What if the thing you normally procrastinate about (like getting out of bed, working out, eating healthy foods etc.) you did easily and almost without effort.

It’s possible.

Next time you find yourself procrastinating about something important, instead of doing what many people do, which often is:

1) ignoring it and pretending it’s not important

2) labeling themselves as a procrastinator and just ‘who I am’

3) telling themselves a well used excuse about why doing this thing now isn’t as important as something else…

Step back and take a moment to figure out how you have created that result?

If you’re familiar with NLP strategies you can use this model on yourself to pattern it out. And then contrast it against a context of when you never procrastinate.

Train in the new positive way of behaving and link the benefits of it across the rest of your life.

There’s many ways to stop procrastinating. To start doing more of the things that will really benefit your life.

This handy FREE 8 Step Guide shows you one way to stop procrastinating today.

Download it today.

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