Why am I procrastinating? 7 Potential explanations

​Procrastination affects almost everyone at one time or another in their life.  For some it is a continuous habit, ​a not-so-endearing character trait; for others it may be a situational thing and doesn’t affect too many events in their life. There are a multitude of reasons why people procrastinate. No two cases are the same. You may procrastinate for any reason or; for any combination of reasons. If you want to overcome your procrastination, you need to ask yourself one key question:

​It takes a little courage and a great passion for self-improvement to ask yourself, with honest intentions, ‘Why am I procrastinating?’. If you are prepared to take the issue head on, here are a number of the potential reasons that you should consider:

No one likes to admit that they fear something, but fear might just be the reason you put off doing what you know you should do.  Whether it’s fear of failure or fear of success, it’s still fear.  Fear is often mocked but it is an incredibly powerful emotion. Fear can have a paralysing affect where it seems to place an impassable wall in your path.  Some people have amazing ideas and the intelligence to bring those ideas to life but due to overpowering fear; they never take the action necessary to realise their dreams.

If you procrastinate compulsively, it may be due to one of two opposing fears; the fear of success or the fear of failure. Most people understand the fear of failure but few consider the fear of success. When you take the time to consider how your life would change if you were actually to achieve your goals; the additional pressure and expectations etc.; you may find that to be frightening thought.

​To discover the truth about fear, read 5 Truths about fear which serve to empower you.

You don’t place a high enough priority on the task at hand, it’s not vital and so it’s not worthy of you beginning it.

You know the task needs to be done and you may already have decided that you’re the one who must do it. However, there is always something else more important on your to-do list that keeps bumping that particular job back to the bottom.

When this happens, you need to evaluate the actual importance of the task and make a clear decision about this.

Maybe the task really is not that important and you accept that you are not going to be able to find time for it anytime soon. In this case, you need to communicate this to any other people who may be affected by this. You then need to decide if it is better to delegate or outsource the task or, defer it indefinitely. Either way, you will find that once you have made a clear decision, a great deal of stress disappears.

If the task is really important, then you need to just get started. Once you start, you will find some momentum kicks in to help you get the job done.

You may procrastinate beginning a project because you simply don’t know everything you need to know in order to complete the task.  You may not have consciously admitted this to yourself, but deep down you know it and it’s coming out as an aversion to starting the project.

This is usually a clear sign that you haven’t broken the project down into its smallest tasks i.e. poor organisation. If you had, you would realise that the first task is to identify the information that you are lacking and take action to get that information. Then, you can start the project.

The same applies when you are lacking the skills. If is a task/project that you should be taking on; you need to make acquiring the skills the first task. Once you have the skills, you can then complete the job.

​If you do not have an effective learning plan, you can learn to create one with Accelerate Your Performance.

Life is busy.  You may have a lot on your plate and you feel that you just cannot get to that task. Therefore, you have to keep putting that task off.

If you find yourself using the busy excuse; be suspicious. 90% of the time, the busy excuse is just a pile of nonsense. Most people who are busy are busy doing the wrong things. Before you accept the excuse that you are too busy, assess your priorities. Is every task you are working on more important than the task which you are putting off?

If they are not more important, you need to remove one or more of the less important tasks so that you can get the important tasks completed.

If they are more important, you need to communicate this fact to anybody who may be affected by the delay. You can then decide if it would be better to hand the task off to somebody else.

​If you don’t have an effective organisation system, read Why you need an effective organisational system to learn the importance of having your own system.

​If you repeat any behaviour, it is usually because you have benefitted from this behaviour in the past. When you procrastinate, you get to avoid doing something which you probably don’t really want to do. This is a benefit. If you have gotten away with it in the past, you are likely to continue to doing it.

In some cases, you may have someone who constantly steps in to bail you out. If you procrastinate, they will step in and take over the job to make sure it gets done. Deep down, you know this and, if you don’t like doing the work, you find ways to procrastinate until they feel the need to step in.

In some other cases, it may be that people wait for a period for you to do the work and then they move on. They just accept that you are not going to do it and, either they go ask someone else to do it or, they do without.

In both examples, you benefit by not feeling like the bad guy because you never said ‘No’ though you never wanted to do the work. You will still be perceived as the bad guy though others may never say it to you.

The benefit of your procrastination could even be as simple as it allows you to tell your story about how everybody is making too many demands of you. The work that you are not getting done seems to support your story until people take a closer look at what is really happening.

​You will find 18 strategies to help you understand and tackle your procrastination in this article.

Some of the most common reasons for procrastination are that you feel somebody else should be doing the job or, you don’t think the job is worth doing. If you feel that you have a genuine case on either of these points, you may decide to have a civil discussion with your boss where you can make this case.

If it is a case of you having to do the job, then imagine the consequences if you don’t do it. Also, imagine how much better you will feel once it is off your plate.

When you find yourself incapable of committing to your job, it may be a sign of a bigger issue. I know that in my life, inability to commit to a job has been a sign that I didn’t really want to do the job anymore. That it was time for me to move on. When I realised this, I was able to start my search for a new job. It was then easier to commit to the job that I was in because I wanted to ensure that I left on amicable terms; leaving goodwill behind me.

When you feel that you can’t commit to the job, you need to find the reason why. For example, it could be one of the following reasons:  

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These are just some of the reasons you may be lacking commitment. Whatever the reason, you are being paid to work and, you are spending a great deal of your life in work so; you need to find an amicable solution for all concerned.

​To understand why you need to overcome these commitment issues, read The benefits of self-discipline.

Sometimes, there isn’t any other reason. You just don’t want to do the job, so you don’t bother. This is actually the most worrying excuse. Where this is a regular occurrence, it is often a sign that you are not happy in your job and you might need to consider a move.

This is another area where you need to pay close attention to your reasons for not wanting to do the work. As mentioned above, it could be a simple reason of needing to move onto a new job and, the challenge that comes with it.

In some cases, it can be more severe. You need to consider whether this apathetic attitude exists outside of your work. If it is something which impacts every area of your life, then the problem is not the work. You may be suffering with esteem issues or, you may even be depressed. If either is true, it is important to see your doctor, who can advise on the best course of action.

​It may sound like a simple question but if you are procrastinating and, you would like to stop procrastinating, then you need to be honest with yourself and ask the question ‘Why am I procrastinating?’. Ask the question of yourself, with honest and open intentions. Take some time to reflect upon the potential reasons; some of which are outlined above and you will begin to find some answers that you can work on. Defeating procrastination can take time but once you do so, you will find that you get more valuable work completed in less time; with less stress.