Intentional Excellence

Procrastination - Vice or Virtue

Procrastination gets a bad rap! Whenever most people believe that they are procrastinating, or even hear the word procrastination, it's like fingers on a blackboard in the mind, a snake in the grass on the path to mental well-being. It has an unsettling effect and a heavy emotional feeling. Not often is procrastination thought of as a desirable trait, and you'll find very few resumes or CV’s with procrastination as a sub-heading!

Most people feel that they procrastinate at least some of the time. So first thing, if you feel as if you’re procrastinating, be careful not to beat yourself up for it. Simply (easy to say, eh) relax and accept that it's happening and it's not necessarily “bad”, it just “is”. Once the value judgment has been removed, it’s much easier to create a new paradigm. That new paradigm could be something like “sometimes I postpone activities for no good reason but I know I always complete the things that are important”. By adopting that inner mantra, or something similar that works for you, you’re freeing yourself from your own judgment and criticism, and allowing intuition to create a hierarchy of importance that will fuse your intentions with your actions. And create new results!

Another idea for consideration is that procrastination is not always undesirable. You can likely recall times when you felt you were procrastinating and something good happened that actually would not have had you not been delayed. I recall an instance where I had a really complex and important report due to a government agency by a particular date. Several times I dove in and started and restarted parts of it, but always seemed to get distracted. I finally stayed up all night working on it the day before it was due, sometimes frantically, until it was completed. I decided to take a nap before taking it to FedEx, and was awakened soon after by a phone call from my client. My expectation was that he wanted a status report. Instead he related that they had discovered a problem with their data and was elated that I hadn't sent the report yet. The lesson - it's important to recognize that what seems like procrastination in the moment may not always be that. It could very well be a subtle message from a higher place.

It’s important to know exactly what procrastination is in order to deal with it. It is a feeling and it’s originating from the inside, it’s not the result of outside events and circumstances. The feeling is the result of your thoughts, specifically your judgement thoughts, all of which are built on beliefs about your life that very well may not be true. It’s only bad if it’s judged by you to be bad .

There are solutions to avoid the undesirable feelings around procrastination. Firstly, recognize that all feelings are caused entirely from your thoughts, and other more desirable thoughts are available in every moment. And then you might create a new, desirable feeling by acknowledging that the thoughts are serving you, even though you don’t know how. By all means, love your procrastinating self!

Acknowledging that procrastination is just something you’re Doing, not something you’re Being, will keep you in the flow of life without wishing and hoping things were different. Let your intuition guide you and you will always get things done on perfect time, Universe time!