The Now Habit

The Procrastination Coping Mechanism 

Procrastination works, temporarily, to protect people from self-criticism, shame and anxiety. That is, procrastination isn’t crazy; it’s just an ineffective way of coping with problems you create. Most procrastinators submit their work on time – but at great cost and loss of quality work. Chastising procrastinators never works; it merely reinforces the self-criticism at the root of the behavior. People use procrastination to cope with “low self-esteem, perfectionism, fear of failure and of success, indecisiveness, lack of work-play balance, ineffective goal-setting and “negative concepts about work and yourself.” They focus on what’s wrong with them instead of simply focusing on doing the task.  

Fear of failure and of success arises from the presumption that your work is the core of your identity, so you feel any criticism as a criticism of you as a person. To eliminate the fear of failure, accept feedback about your work without seeing it as a judgment of your worth. Fear of success occurs when finishing a task leads only to higher expectations...