Overcoming Procrastination

How to Beat Procrastination and Overwhelm Using Your Animal Nature from Pip McKay on Vimeo.

Have you ever wondered why it is that just when you have the most to do that is when you want to do the least? Why when your most overwhelmed thats when you procrastinate? Well the answer is not in the logical brain because lets face it, its not logical. The answer lies in a little know secret of our psyche called the animal nature. You see as human beings we are an unusual animal because we are both Pray and Predatory. The Pray part of our mind wants us to run away from danger, like a horse being chased. And predatory part wants to set goals and goes after them like a lioness hunting. So what does this have to do with procrastination? Well when we procrastinate we are behaving as if all our tasks are lions surrounding us and we dont do anything because we are stuck in fright. We are afraid that if we do one task another task will attack us from behind so we are keeping all the tasks in site thats why when you ask someone what they are overwhelmed about they say EVERYTHING!!! Then when we see an escape route between the tasks or lions we run off and find ourselves watching a rerun of Game of Thrones or even the washing up looks attractive. So what do we do instead. Well we need to switch over to our predatory mind. This part of the mind plans and strategies because thats what a lioness does when she hunts. I mean a lioness doesnt go OH my Gosh there are too many Zebras I am overwhelmed. No she goes yay so many zebras which is the best one to go after right now. So instead of seeing tasks as attacking you we want to see tasks as opportunities to eat. So if you are overwhelmed about everything then pick the most important task like writing your book. Everything else can wait for the next half an hour. Then switch on your lioness by breaking the task down into bite size pieces. Set a task to do 300 words in the next half and hour and dont do anything else until it is done. This is like a lioness hunting she decides on her target, focuses on it without distraction. Then she keeps going until she has brought it down. Once you have finished you will feel nourished and have more energy for everything else you need to do in the day. I would love to see your comments so write down what is your favourite way of overcoming overwhelm.