‘Tomorrow after tomorrow, how many tomorrows are there? I live to wait for tomorrow, everything will be wasted.’
This widely sung song of tomorrow vividly describes the life state of many people who ‘procrastinate’ in doing things, and illustrates that great things cannot be achieved by always procrastinating.
‘Why do I know procrastination is bad, but I still continue to procrastinate?’ I believe you have doubted your life at some point, and procrastination has troubled your work and even your daily life.
Even if you are an organized or driven person, you may have found yourself unable to resist the temptation of social media or the Internet to put off things you originally wanted to do or take a break. If you’re struggling to meet ever-increasing deadlines and feel guilty or stressed about not starting earlier, maybe you’re not cut out to be a “procrastination artist.”
Many people often confuse laziness with procrastination, thinking that procrastination makes people lazy and vice versa. but it is not the truth. Compared with lazy people, procrastinators often have chronic procrastination, which has a profound impact on their daily lives - procrastination becomes a major part of their lifestyle and even evolves into a way of life.
The negative effects of procrastination may be as straightforward as being behind on a bill or tax bill, but when it causes high levels of stress or anxiety, the habit of procrastination may affect mental health. In severe cases, it may lead to dissatisfaction with family, friends, or colleagues and damage social relationships.
Psychology does not attribute your procrastination habit to a simple lack of perseverance. Behind the procrastination behavior, there are countless psychological factors.
In fact, when faced with a decision that is about to be made or something that needs to be completed, self-control is the decisive factor that drives us to complete the thing, and the ability of self-control is affected by motivation and the setbacks encountered along the way ( discouragement).
Although motivation generally comes from the expectation of reward for completing something, we may succumb to frustration if we encounter more obstacles in the process than we imagined. Often, we may stop trying because of fear of failure or other negative emotions, such as depression or anxiety.
Other types of hindrance may reduce our motivation. For example, when an expected reward is too far away, it may reduce the value of the reward. Psychologists call this temporal discounting. It’s natural for us to be attracted to activities with short-term rewards and lose interest in some long-term or distant rewards. The relationship between reward time and our perceived reward value is hyperbolic, that is, the discount rate decreases over time. It follows from this theory that the sooner we know we will receive a reward, the higher the perceived value of the reward.
Are you someone who likes to ‘procrastinate’? One test will tell.
