A standard definition of what makes people procrastinate is that they simply can’t make themselves do what they want to do for various reasons. I believe that people don’t really ever procrastinate; instead, they do what they committed themselves to doing, knowingly or not.
The real question is how to figure out what we are already committed to, and more importantly, how to commit to that which will allow us to do actions that will be beneficial for us long term.
Procrastination happens because we believe that we are committed to one thing, but were in fact committed to something else without even realizing it. This we call the double bind—and this makes us ‘procrastinate’ – or in reality we just keep committed to the thing that is causing our second commitment not to happen.
We can never tell what we are committed to until we come up against adversity. When we come up against adversity and start procrastinating, we learn that we were not fully committed to that thing we thought we were.
But what is commitment and what do we need to understand about it?
1. We are always committed to something.
2. A commitment is a choice that we make; we always choose what we want to be committed to.
3. Commitment is a story we tell ourselves about the future.
Commitment comes from the future, and not from the past.
An important thing we need to understand is that the past was never responsible for our current state of affairs! Usually, we study the past and make predictions about the future based on that study. But in reality, it is the future that is responsible for where we currently are in life.
When we believe the past can predict the future, we limit ourselves; we do not allow ourselves to go beyond the point the past suggest we can get to.
In reality, the present happens because we are committed to the future we imagined… It is the future that got us to where we are right now, and it is the distant future that will guide us to the point we will be at in the near future.
The future is where you make new commitments. When you fully commit to something in the future to create the present you desire, you will simply not procrastinate.
The video will talk about this in much more detail, and will offer three action steps you can take to understand fully how this works and how you can get yourself to stop procrastinating (or rather – how you can get yourself to fully commit to one thing, instead of multiple things) so that you can commit to the future you’ve always desired.
