What is the reason for procrastination and how to get rid of it
Procrastination is, in simple terms, the tendency to put off important things by being distracted by less important activities. The problem of procrastination can only occur in people with a certain vector. From birth, they have the ability for high-quality and systematic work, but these inclinations must be properly developed from childhood. If this cannot be done, then such people in adulthood will suffer from postponement and look for the reasons for this condition …
I considered myself a superhero. My superpower was to cope with pending tasks in one sitting just before X hour. I even chose the motto for myself: “Man-procrastinator: will do everything! But only tomorrow. And in accordance with it, she postponed important tasks for later.
The change came when I finally understood the unconscious reasons for procrastination and understood how it differs from laziness, apathy, depression and stupor.
Now I no longer need to translate the problem into a joke and justify myself by having a funny "superpower". I am learning to take on important things without hesitation. In this article, I share my experience in fighting procrastination.
What is procrastination
Procrastination is, in simple terms, the tendency to put off important things by being distracted by less important activities.
Such a definition quite accurately describes the phenomenon, but does not provide the keys to solving the problem.
There are many theories about different versions of the causes of procrastination. For example, there is a blogger who advocates that as many sites with useful, meaningful content appear on the Internet, so that a procrastinator person, even with a strong desire, cannot rush to aimless surfing on the World Wide Web. But this is a fight against the investigation.
Nature gives each person a potential determined by his mental structure - a set of vectors. The problem of procrastination can only occur in people with a certain vector. From birth, they have the ability for high-quality and systematic work, but these inclinations must be properly developed from childhood. If this cannot be done, then such people in adulthood will suffer from postponement and look for the reasons for this condition.
The first thing to do to get rid of the problem is to learn to distinguish procrastination from similar conditions.
Differences between procrastination and laziness and apathy
Procrastination is sometimes confused with laziness or apathy, although they are not the same thing.
Laziness is a manifestation of one of the two opposite forces that people live. This force is called mortido - the desire for a static state.
Its opposite is libido, which means more than just sex drive. It is a craving for life, movement, change.
Nature is wise and lets us live just as much energy as we are willing to invest in the realization of our talents. Fulfilled one wish - received twice as strong and a new portion of energy for its implementation.
Man is the principle of pleasure, we always go after great pleasure. But if we do not understand what we want and drag ourselves by the ears to an unloved job, innate desires are chronically not fulfilled and are reduced. Mortido begins to prevail - apathy sets in. The mechanism for the extinction of our desires is provided by nature so that a person dissatisfied with life does not harm himself and others, trying to get rid of psychological stress.
It is easy to conclude that the advice to have more fun and relaxation is not the best way to combat laziness. On the contrary, you need to realize your innate abilities and learn to get pleasure from their implementation in society.
Laziness is not directly related to procrastination, so let's return to the consideration of the reasons for postponing cases.
How it looks from the outside
On Monday, the editor-in-chief instructs me to write an article about the launch of a new volunteer movement in an orphanage. Deadline is Friday. I'm glad. A whole week ahead! During this time, I will study the topic in detail, select reliable sources of information, and collect interesting comments. The topic is so deep that no less than a newspaper page of the finished text will be released! Inspired, I start preparing for an interview with an expert. I start Google. Half an hour later, the keys under my fingers smoke, tapping messages to the bild editor. It's early December, but right now I decided to decide on the issue of photographing a festive article in a New Year's issue. Along the way, I solve other secondary and non-urgent work tasks.
The article about volunteers is still not completed, I am taking work home. In the evening, I open my browser in my dressing gown. And … I find myself in an online fashion store, placing an order for the purchase of a new blouse. Then I dive into the details of the scandal involving Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And finally, I am surprised that even a local manufacturer of paper clips has its own website. Friday is the last day of delivery. Feverishly finishing up an article about volunteers: there is nowhere else to postpone. No, this is not a newspaper page, as planned, but a scanty note. But the work is over and I feel relieved. Who am I - the irresponsible villain, the deadline? A shameless playboy who only wants to have fun? From the outside it may look like this. But how does the situation feel from the inside?
How it feels from the inside
The editor gives the assignment, and I am glad that there is a lot of time to prepare. In my mind, a perfect article is drawn, which I can polish to perfection in this time. The Word document is replenished with new ideas for the future text, its plan is almost ready. And suddenly I stumble on some legal issue related to the work of a volunteer organization. I need to consult with a legal scholar to continue working on the article, but nothing comes of it, and I get bogged down in details. The brain whispers: let's take a break.
And then consciousness seems to turn off, and the hands themselves enter the password for the page on the social network. In this case, the internal state is poisoned by a sense of guilt. I know that I have a very important task ahead of me. I understand that I am doing nonsense and wasting my time. But I can’t help myself! It is as if I am being guided by an external force that I am unable to resist.
A simple feature originally from childhood
At the training "System-vector psychology" by Yuri Burlan, I realized in a new way the idea that a person always strives for pleasure. It was the satisfaction of procrastination that led me to procrastination. It's not a lack of self-discipline or a passion for momentary pleasures. How can you like the disgusting states that postponement leads to? The answer lies in childhood experiences.
It turns out that postponing any business - a term paper, an engineering project, an apartment renovation, or a trip to the store - is a consequence of the process of potty training that was wrongly experienced in childhood. Who would have thought that the fulfillment of serious, "grown-up" affairs is hampered by long-forgotten childhood experiences!
An unexpected connection is explained by the fact that potty training is an important stage in the formation of the human psyche with an anal vector. Such a child should not be rushed. We need to give him the opportunity to calmly bring the purification process to the point. This will help him grow up as a professional who is able to distinguish between clean and dirty in every sense of the word. If in the "barrel" with the true, the true, there is at least a "spoon" of the erroneous, false - the expert will find it and remove it.
Rushing a child with an anal vector during potty training gives him stressful experiences and confuses the natural principle of pleasure. In this case, he retrains and begins to achieve a balanced state of brain biochemistry not from cleansing, but by postponing the trip to the toilet.
As a result, when he does go to the pot, he gets painful, unpleasant sensations. The double trap slams shut. The child begins to procrastinate because in this way he has learned to get satisfaction. In addition, the intimate process of cleansing now gives him pain, and he seeks to avoid these sensations as long as possible.
This principle is fixed in the psyche from childhood and begins to determine the fate of a person with an anal vector. He begins to bring inexplicable satisfaction with the postponement. He himself is not aware of this pleasure. Moreover, the more important the upcoming business, the more you want to postpone it. After completing the postponed task, relief comes - this sweet feeling closes the circle, reinforcing the destructive mechanism of procrastination.
The terrible thing is that a person with such a mental trait is able to receive, albeit small, pleasure from doing nothing. At the same time, action, overcoming is associated with pain - the more difficult it is for a person to achieve, dare and work in order to experience greater pleasure. But realization in society presupposes work. Procrastination, in fact, condemns a person to vegetation.
In the psyche of the anal vector, there are other features that may look like types of procrastination, although in fact they are based on a different principle.
Resentment
Can arise from loss of a sense of security and safety during childhood. This happens not only in families of alcoholics or brawlers. There are many examples when a child loses security in houses with an atmosphere of external well-being. This happens if a baby with an anal vector is not praised enough, is interrupted, and is not allowed to complete what he has begun at his own pace. The result is a resentment that he risks carrying throughout his life.
A person with an anal vector is inclined to react with resentment to injustice in adulthood. For example, a thug's boss did not appreciate his professionalism and threw such a person out of work.
The result of grievances is the same - over time, a person is more and more attracted to the sofa. The skill of social fulfillment begins to tend to zero.
Perfectionism
It happens that a person with an anal vector is poisoned by the viscosity of thinking. His innate desire to perfectly complete whatever task he undertakes makes him overly obsessive about details. As a result, he has an unquenchable desire to achieve perfection, it is difficult for a person to bring things to an end.
Fear of dishonor
This fear is inherent only in people with an anal vector and sometimes takes on exaggerated forms, making a person unable to take on an unusual business.
Stupor
The psyche of an anal person is rigid. It is difficult for him to switch from one to another. In a multitasking environment, such a person can fall into a stupor.
Additional factors that make procrastination worse
Other vectors also have states that are similar to but not procrastinated. They can exacerbate the inability to start a business on time.
Adrenaline addiction
It is due to the presence of a skin vector. Normally, its owners are the most disciplined and punctual. They can calculate the deadline required to complete a task with an accuracy of the minute and meet it clearly without even looking at the clock. But if in childhood they did not learn to follow the regime, then in adulthood planning problems can arise.
In this case, they may have an unconscious desire to postpone everything until the last moment. At the same time, their source of pleasure is the maximum mobilization of all resources in a stressful situation, a feeling of adrenaline. Having quickly coped with a difficult task, they get the desired feeling: "I am a winner!" A certain addiction arises - I do it at the last moment and enjoy it. It is easy to guess that these people are the first to look for a solution to the problem of procrastination in scheduling the day (skin desire for organization), although this is useless in this case without awareness of mental processes.
Latent depression
Another type of “false procrastination” is difficult to track down as it is associated with intangible desires. People with a sound vector are subject to it. From the outside it may seem that they are unreasonably shirking work. Instead of getting down to business, they can think about philosophical categories, immerse themselves in computer games, or even sleep for half a day.
This is due to the fact that the unconscious striving of the sound vector is not satisfied with the joys of the earthly world. Sound scientists themselves do not always realize that they want to know the laws by which physical and metaphysical forces rule our world. If this desire is not satisfied, they feel life is meaningless, which discourages any desire for action. I would like to escape from dullness into sleep or the virtual world of computer games, TV series.
Particularly strange in this light seems to be the advice of psychologists to make a list of “wish-lists” in the fight against procrastination in order to prioritize the most pleasant things. Depressed sound people don't want anything at all.
Mental features
The climatic features of countries largely determine the worldview of the people inhabiting it. In Russia, with its harsh natural conditions, it was not always possible to count on the fact that the results of labor could be used. A dry summer could destroy the entire crop. This was imprinted in the collective unconscious of our people - the famous Russian expression "at random" appeared. A person with a Russian urethral-muscular mentality is close to the idea that the matter can be accomplished somehow by itself "at the command of a pike." At the moment of danger, the Russian people tend to "pile up with the whole world", and if there is no need for active action, you can "lie on the stove." (You can read more about the urethral mentality in the article Mysterious Russian Soul …)
Why procrastination has become a hot topic in recent decades
The world is accelerating. The anal phase of development was replaced by the skin phase. Social values have changed dramatically over the years. In the Soviet Union, they respected professionalism - a concept close to a person with an anal vector. Now the opposite values have acquired importance - success, dexterity, communication - the qualities of the skin vector. It is especially difficult for people with an anal vector to fit into the changed rhythm and adapt the changes, which causes a massive surge of negative states in people with this type of psyche.
Coping with procrastination
When I realized what the psychological reason for procrastination was, for a long time I could not recover from amazement. It was not easy to agree that the essence of the life deferred syndrome boils down to childhood experiences that are not even accepted to be discussed in society.
This realization swept away any romantic flair from the concept of procrastination. It was also difficult to admit that all the books I read about getting rid of procrastination did not move me towards solving the problem. But at some point, I began to feel that I belonged to a certain secret club of procrastinators, I met another meme on this topic on the social network with a smile and the thought “our man”. I was sorry to lose this involvement and admit the uselessness of the accumulated knowledge.
However, only awareness of the problem could bring me relief. Considering that procrastination drove my fate to a standstill, I took the main step in the fight against procrastination - I began to work to understand my own childhood psychotrauma as deeply as possible.
Procrastination in simple words
So, procrastination, in simple terms, is a double trap waiting for people with an anal vector. Yuri Burlan at the training "System-Vector Psychology" describes the mechanism of its occurrence so easily that people with any level of psychological training get the opportunity to get rid of this problem by realizing it. See one of the reviews of a person who has freed himself from this psychological trap:
The effect of procrastination on a person, pair relationships, the results of the team and society
Every year life is accelerating and the ability to adapt to this rhythm is indispensable for a modern person. Those who do not fit into this stream risk being left on the sidelines.
Procrastination takes people with an anal vector out of the brackets of what is happening, which damages both themselves, our pair relations, and the collective as a whole.
Is this what we want for ourselves?
If you have any questions - write, I will answer them in the comments to the article.
