I know, I know. You saw the word procrastinate and rolled your eyes. However, I promise you, I’m not here to hound you with boring facts and yawning statistics or even judge this fact because at some point in our lives, we will all do it. Trust me, you won’t be alone.

Coming from a serious expert in this devine study, I think we all know that feeling of waking up in a bad mood and really just unmotivated to do even the things that makes us happy, never mind the things that are head bangers to us all. But, what exactly is procrastination, besides the point of not doing something?

To me, I look at it as “falling and not being able to get back up.” Most of the time, I find myself slipping in a sense of trying to get my crap together. When you get caught up in your thoughts and become lost in your head, it gets harder to focus on school and jobs and honestly, general things like cleaning your room and doing chores and even being respectful.

 At some points, I feel we have all lagged in those responsibilities and have been stuck in situations like these. But, it’s okay because we all fall and we all get stuck and we all have struggles in our lives that sometimes it becomes hard to handle alone. And that’s when you reach out to someone you trust and talk to them about the things that stress you out almost daily.

And you are right. It isn’t that easy to ask for help. But when it comes to you, you should stop at nothing to make you better and clearer when it comes to arranging your thoughts and struggles. It’s always good to ask for help and stay after school to receive that; even from the teachers you think don’t like you or vice versa.

I’d like to say we have all caught ourselves saying, “I think I’m actually going to clean my room today” or “Yeah, maybe I should do my homework…” and find yourself 10 minutes later on your bed literally watching Netflix or music videos, maybe even sleeping? Well, if that’s a yes, then I can safely say that in the mind of a procrastinator, we find that doing something – honestly anything – results in being really stressful. It doesn’t even matter how big or small the assignment is, it’s just stressful in general. Especially if there is a due date for it relating to homework and classwork and work from your job. But it’s not just avoiding it or freaking out because you have to “get up and do something;”  it’s everything else that follows.

Usually what happens in my head is that when a new task has been introduced to me and it “must be completed by Friday,” I find myself focusing so much on that due date or how important it is to get done instead of thinking about when I should start it because like now would be a great time, right? But then that thought honestly becomes very loud and progressively gets more intense as I sit in my chair and pretend as if I seriously have this “under control.” 

But, I think the main problem with procrastinators is that when something actually IS important -being an essay, cleaning your room, homework, chores, etc. – we focus ALL of our time on, “I’m never going to get this done.. I don’t have enough time.. I’m never going to be able to finish this on time.. I can’t do it” instead of thinking, “Okay, I know when it has to get done.. maybe I could stay after and ask for help.. I know I can do this if I just get started.. don’t focus on it so much.. it’s not that bad.. I got this.” 

One important part of helping yourself out knowing that you procrastinate is believing in yourself that you CAN get something done. And I know it’s not easy because it’s very hard to just *poof* shut off your thinking and not worry about something and justify it, but having yourself to help guide you through something comes a long way.

But then there is also that factor of, “this is useless.. I don’t WANT to do this.. I WON’T do this.. I DON’T CARE to do this.. I don’t NEED to do this.. SCREW THIS.” Well then, in that case, good luck Charlie because you’re going to need it. 

That right there is a FIXED MINDSET. Remember that gem?? Haha, you’re welcome for bringing that annoying head-scratcher back but listen, it’s true. If you go so long with thinking that you can’t do something, and I’m not saying that procrastination isn’t a serious thing and that you’re just telling yourself you can’t do something, but that thought becomes stuck into your mind and grows and grows and gradually gets worse over time and turns into negative things like, “I’m not good enough.. I’ll never be good enough.. What if i’ll never be good enough.. I’m stupid.. This is pissing me off.” Hard to believe right?? I’m being serious, though. This really does/can happen. 

Take it from me, honestly. Here I am, a junior in high school, still having this issue. But, I’m telling you that the best thing to do is positive self talk. Giving yourself kudos for a great test or quiz grade or giving yourself credit for doing something you never thought you could do, goes a very long way in the process of becoming a hard worker. 

You really can get out of this slump if you just believe in yourself that you ACTUALLY have things under control and that you actually CAN get something done. And if I’m telling you that you can do it -literally ME out of ALL people- you CAN do it. It just all comes down to YOU and what YOU can do you help yourself believe that doing anything is possible. Because I believe so. 🙂