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Today, we will be discussing procrastination. We will be exploring why people in general - including ourselves and clients - procrastinate on certain tasks.
Ironically, procrastination has its benefits. That is why it is so hard for us and your clients to stop this habit. It is not an easy habit to overcome because procrastination benefits us in many ways.
Why is it difficult for ourselves and clients to stop procrastinating?
When your clients procrastinate, they get to temporarily escape stress, pressure, fear or some other negative emotion. It makes them feel good right here in the moment.
Obviously, this will backfire because the tasks remain undone, stress can accumulate and get worse. So, this is a temporary feel-good tactic which will create a lot of frustration in future.
Another benefit people get from procrastination is that, they get to avoid conflict. If they want to make a decision which other people may not agree with, they will sit on that decision to avoid arguments or any form of conflict.
Also, sometimes, when we procrastinate, our problems get solved on their own. For example, our colleagues or our loved ones will ‘rescue’ us and help us to finish our tasks. As you can see, procrastination has its benefits and that is why it is so difficult to kick this habit.
The four mindset causes of procrastination in coaching clients
Other than the above benefits, what else can cause your clients to procrastinate on their goals or on certain projects? Well, procrastination can be caused by our mindset and way of thinking. I will be sharing with you 4 mindset causes of procrastination today.
The first mindset cause of procrastination is the classic fear of failure. Your clients are fearful of making mistakes and making the wrong decisions. Some of them are afraid of the external consequences of making mistakes.
They are afraid of disapproval from their family members or disapproval from their boss or coworkers. Some of them feel that making mistakes will tarnish their self-image. They feel that people in their lives will question their abilities and competence if they fail. This intense fear of failure can cause them to want to avoid potential mistakes and hence, they avoid tasks and projects.
The second mental cause of procrastination is perfectionism. If you notice that your clients take a very long time to finish projects or if they obsess over little details which are not very important, they may have a perfectionist streak.
Perfectionists tend to also do a lot of research before making small decisions. For example, let’s say you have a client who wants to launch a side hustle. And you notice that she is taking 3 weeks just to decide on branding colours, or she is taking weeks to decide which platform to host her website. Or you may notice that she is spending weeks doing research on forums, Facebook Groups or watching endless videos just to decide on a business name. These are traits of someone who may be suffering from perfectionism.
As we can see, trying to make the most perfect decision for everything is going to take a long time. Her projects will move very slowly and she will not be very productive. Perfectionism is another mindset cause for procrastination.
The third mindset cause of procrastination can be the lack of self-belief. This happens when they feel overwhelmed about a project. When your clients feel that they do not possess the energy, time or the skills to do a certain project, they may procrastinate on it. That’s because they may experience great inertia just to start on this project.
Sometimes, your clients underestimate their own capabilities because they have low confidence in their abilities. This low self-belief will make it very difficult for them to start the project and stay committed to it.
They may avoid taking new action, they may avoid anything that is slightly challenging because they don’t believe they are capable of it. As a result, projects are not done, or they take too long to be completed. They may even give up half way through the project because it feels too difficult and they do not believe they can do it.
The next mindset cause of procrastination is intense negative focus. For example, let’s say your clients have a goal which they really want to achieve. However, for some reason, they never get started on it.
One possible reason behind this inaction is the intense focus on negative aspects of this goal. If they want to start a new business, for example, they may keep procrastinating because they keep focusing on how difficult it is. They may focus on how difficult it is to do marketing, or focus too much on how difficult it is to be consistent on social media. Focusing too much on the challenging aspects of accomplishing our goals is a surefire way for anyone to procrastinate on them.
If you have clients who have low self-confidence and low self-belief, you can download my free workbook and share this workbook with them. You can also use this free workbook as a lead magnet to get more signups to your mailing list.
I hope this has been helpful.
I will see you in my next blog post and podcast episode.
Shikah
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