Procrastination drains you of energy; it sucks the life out of you.
You cannot be happy for long if you are continually putting off until tomorrow what you can and ought to do today.
Much of the time, when someone puts something off, it is unconsciously used as part of a will power strategy that forces the person into action, usually at the last minute when the stakes are highest.
You end up getting the job done in the knick of time, but there is no “hurrah moment” afterward because you are exhausted instead of energized.
That’s the negative use of procrastination.
But there is a positive part to this situation.
When you have a job to do and you’re not quite sure of how to get it done, you turn the idea (or goal) over to your subconscious mind in the form of a question and let it (your subconscious mind) work on it while you are doing something else, which includes, taking a rest.
The result of letting an idea percolate in your subconscious mind leads to ground-breaking ideas that give you more energy, more life, and more action.
In this case, you aren’t really procrastinating in the negative sense of the term. You are using your mind the way it was created to be used.
There’s the “ready, fire, aim” method, which can and does work for some people.
Then there’s the mind picturing method which gets you ready and hurls you into action in such a way that you get things done with effortless effort.
You put off taking action until you have supplied your mind with the goal picture. Once the mind knows the objective, it’s a snap to get yourself going.
When you understand how this type of positive procrastination works, you don’t beat yourself up when you take a break, because you realize that your best ideas often come when you aren’t consciously working on them.
Taking a walk, cleaning a room, jumping in the shower, and making time for a nap are all activities that may seem useless and counterproductive, but the creative engineer inside your mind knows better.
Negative procrastination drains you of energy while positive procrastination increases it.
Remove the albatross of taking immediate action off your neck for a few minutes and relax. Instead, sit in a chair and see yourself doing what you have been putting off doing. See yourself enjoying what you have pushed to the side.
Within 60 seconds of doing this, you will have changed your mindset. And you will begin moving toward what it is that you want.
Keep the following in mind today: You cannot take action without picturing yourself acting first. Likewise, you cannot procrastinate without seeing yourself procrastinating.
It’s the power of mental pictures.
I talk all about it in my audiobook, Theatre of the Mind, available at audible.com.
Matt Furey
