Procrastination: Laziness or Hidden Fear?

You have a task to do, something you should do, an assignment, a presentation, something important in your email account, and you are about to start it and suddenly you have the urge to clean your desk, scroll your phone, or watch one more video.

This we tend to refer to as laziness.
But is it really?

However, my point of view is that procrastination is not about laziness very often. Even more commonly, it is the fear in broad daylight.

Laziness Is Passive. Procrastination Is Emotional

The real laziness is to have no desire of doing anything.
But procrastination is otherwise.

When you procrastinate:

• You contemplate the task all the time.
• You feel guilty not to get started.
• You strain on yourself mentally without straining on the job.

Laziness does not sound like that.
It resembles internal opposition.

And resistance generally is not without cause.

The Fear Behind the Delay

When you take a closer look, it can be seen that procrastination usually conceals one of the following fears:

• Fear of failure: What will happen to me, in case I do it and fail to make it good enough?
• Success phobia: What would happen incase of expectations?
• The fear of judgment: What people will think?
• Terror of unhappiness: If not perfect, it is tragic.

Then, not to endure the pain, we procrastinate.
It is safer to procrastinate than to fail.

The Cycle That Makes It Worse

Here’s the tricky part:

• You delay the task.
• Anxiety increases.
• Deadline pressure rises.
• You rush at the last minute.
• You are stressed or unprepared.
• Confidence drops.

Then your brain learns:
“See? This is stressful.”

And the cycle repeats.

With time, procrastination ceases being a habit; it turns out to be a person.

Modern Distractions Make It Easy

Well, to tell the truth, the modern world can offer people no better chances to procrastinate than it does.

There’s always:

• A notification
• A new video
• A message
• A quick distraction

Distractions do not make procrastination it facilitates it.
Still, the underlying cause is emotional uneasiness.

It’s Not About Time. It’s About Emotion

There are numerous time management productivity tips.
Poor scheduling is not normally the issue with procrastination; it is about the feelings that a task enjoys with you.

If something feels:

• Overwhelming
• Unclear
• Risky
• Boring

Your brain seeks relief.

And scrolling is less difficult than beginning.

What Changes Everything

I think that it is not really just work harder.

It’s asking:

• What am I afraid of here?
• The question is what is the least I can do?
• What in case this does not have to be perfect?

Frequently, as soon as you start to do it even five minutes, the fear will be forgotten.

Action works at a better rate of reducing anxiety than avoidance will ever work.

The fact that you procrastinate does not mean that you are a lazy person.

In more instances, it is an evidence that something is important to you, and you are afraid of failing to live up to it.

Maybe the question isn’t:
“Why am I so lazy?”

Maybe it’s:
And what am I defending myself against?

Since when you see the fear, you are not merely going to fight procrastination -
you outgrow it.