Procrastinate or No Procrastinate? that is the question.
While coaching nothing frustrated me more than to have to watch a kid look around the group before exceeding his stasis*. As if he needed their permission to do better. We have all acted like this, as we wait to take action for fear of failing. No doubt playing out that scenario in our head of all the ways it won’t work. Instead of how a Richard Branson just goes for it.
Certainly, the identity the procrastinator creates around himself and the persona others see him as can serve as a deterrent to breaking stasis. No doubt in order to take that action, the player or businessman must have enough belief in one’s own resources to take on the inevitable shit storm they are about to create.
Perhaps stasis is OK because it feels safer. Maybe, its just less work. Whilst perhaps Branson just makes bigger messes that he knows he has the mental and physical resources to organize them into massive money making businesses. Maybe, Branson has a bigger vision that compels him to say. “screw it, move on and do it” when its time to take action.
A nice article on Branson and the motivation for this article.
*Stasis From Wikipedia: “Stasis (from Greek “a standing still”) may refer to a state of stability, in which all forces are equal and opposing, therefore they cancel out each other.”
From Websters: “State or condition in which things do not change, move, or progress”.
Richard Branson talks to TED’s Chris Anderson about the ups and the downs of his career, from his multibillionaire success to his multiple near-death experiences — and reveals some of his (very surprising) motivations. Vik Nithy is the founder of 3 companies at the age of 20 including how own marketing consulting firm. His left after school Vik has been extremely successful despite being diagnosed with ADHD after finishing his school exams. Developing his passion for cognitive neuroscience, educational reform and the potential of young people.
“So when we procrastinate, we experience a mild anxiety response to a theatening stimulus which just happens to be an assignment that you may have to complete….This is the part of your brain, the voice in your head that reacts to the threatening stimulus of an essay.You might find that the task is overwhelming and you don’t know where to start…So perfectionists use procrastination as a self-handicapping tool to avoid personal failure. Now, your prefrontal cortex, it knows that this is a stupid decision. You know that failure is a positive learning experience and that it’s better to be safe than sorry. But remember that your amygdala is about subconscious reactions. So how can we overcome procrastination if we have a monkey in our brains making decisions on our behalf? The answer is something called “metacognition”: thinking about thinking. So we have to acknowledge that we aren’t gonna be the ones making the decision to study tomorrow. We’re gonna have this spontaneous lazy monkey making decisions on our behalf because we’re too scared to do it ourselves. And there is a few things that we have to plan in order to overcome this:
We have to plan goals. So plan exactly what you need to do, split it up into parts, and we find that the task is a lot less overwhelming for our inner monkey.
Plan time. So figure out exactly what you’re gonna get done in what time frame and remember guys,this is not something you need to do everytime you need to study,this is just something that you need to get into the habit of doing automatically when you realize that you need to get something done.
Plan resources. So if you spend ten minutes before you start working to get everything you need in the table in front of you,you can’t go ahead and later convince yourself that you need to use Google or you need to go on Facebook to get something because everything you need is in front of you.
Plan the process. So research has shown that if you visualize the process of doing something, the task becomes easier to do. If you close your eyes and think about what you need to do,then, you brain is tricked into thinking that you’ve done it before and it becomes so much easier to get things done.
Plan for distractions: so you know that you monkey mind is gonna wanna check Facebook every five minutes. You have to make a commitment to stay focused and not get distracted.
And lastly plan for failure. So, say you’re doing a maths problem and you come to a question that you can’t do. This is usually the time when people decide to take a five-minute break! I know that the saying “Don’t give up!” is cliché but I think that when it comes to roadblocks when we are trying to do something it’s especially relevant, and it’s not just while we are studying, it’s in every part of life.
If we procrastinate when we come to a roadblock, then I don’t think we’re ever gonna get around to solving the problem. You have to learn to grind your teeth and get through It. Oh dear! So, this quote said: “Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” and it’s by Napoleon Hill. So I think, as students, the number one reason why we tend to procrastinate is because we don’t think the conditions are perfect for proactivity. We wait until the weekend to write an essay, we wait until we’re in the “zone” to be creative, we wait until we have money to give to charity…I think that if we get into the habit of planning, thinking about thinking and getting things done Quickly then the world becomes our oyster and our future will become a lot more prosperous.”
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