Powering Through Procrastination
A four-part series by Robin Mahle-Piccione.
We’ve all struggled with procrastination at some point in our lives. Especially as busy business owners, everything seems to demand our immediate attention. Learning how to power through procrastination, and prioritize along the way, can be instrumental to moving the needle in your business growth and for high performance. This four-part series is designed to help you identify which type of procrastination styles apply to you, and how to overcome the urge to put things off until tomorrow.
Part 4: Procrastination by imposter syndrome.
It’s plagued every capable member of today’s modern society at some point. Not one of us is perpetually capable of living up to the impossible standards that we perceive around us. There’s always going to be opportunities for us to strive to be “more” or “better” or something other than what we are right now. This plays into our procrastination the same way perfectionism does. It stops us from moving forward due to a fear that it won’t be good enough. A fear that trying in and of itself will expose the things that we are not more than it will highlight the things that we are.
Here’s what our brains are telling us when we’re procrastinating due to imposter syndrome:
- “I am not good enough to do this”
- “I am concerned with what other people think of me.”
- “If I don’t do this right, I will be denied future opportunities.”
There are two tools I want to put into your toolbox to help you conquer imposter syndrome and move forward towards your goals.
1. Growth Mindset
The “Growth Mindset” is often explained in juxtaposition to the “Fixed Mindset” and is well represented in this graphic:
First and foremost, strive to adopt the growth mindset for yourself. Embrace the fact that you are a learning, evolving, growing entity that is capable of continuous improvement.
Be proactive in shifting your mindset. Learn to recognize the times you might be sitting in the fixed mindset, and actively replace your thoughts statements from the growth mindset.
Be conscious of the statements you make that you would like to change and put them into a table that replaces your fixed mindset with a growth mindset. For example…
| Replace This Thought | With This One |
| “Feeling frustrated is a reason to give up.” | “Challenges help me learn.” |
| “I stick to what I know.” | “I like to try new things.” |
| “Failure is the limit of my abilities.” | “Failure is an opportunity to grow.” |
Your personal roadblocks might be different from these, so it’s important that you listen to what’s holding you back and that you make a concerted effort to overcome it. I would love to see your charts, so mark them down and reach out to connect.
Another important step is learning to recognize these mindsets in the people around you. You may tend to see that supporters have the growth mindset, and critics have the fixed mindset. Imposter syndrome sneaks up on us when we compare our abilities to the perceived expectations of our critics. Instead, focus on the encouragement you might receive from your supporters. They will be happy for you just because you tried. So, stop procrastinating, and start trying. When you try, do your best. Your best is good enough, especially when you’re always getting better.
2. Dialectical Thinking
Dialectics teaches us that every given situation contains more than one conflicting truth. Go ahead and read that again, because that one short sentence is actually a lot to process:
Every given situation contains more than one conflicting truth.
The most common example of dialectics is looking at both sides of a coin. It is because you see heads on your side of the coin that I will see tails on my side. When we’re holding up a coin, it’s easy to realize we can flip it around to see what the other person just saw, or both come around to the same side so that we can see the same thing. However, most situations in life are not as easy to dissect. I encourage you to take note of the multiple conflicting truths that are in your everyday life and embrace this opportunity to retrain your brain.
Be mindful of your full surroundings. Observe what other possibilities may exist. Take a moment to explore a truth that you hadn’t instinctively seen, and allow yourself the curiosity to ask, “If that is true, then what else could be true?” This practice literally reprograms the amazing neural-processing power of our brains and gives us back the ability to choose a perspective that we otherwise might have overlooked. Dialectics allows us to replace our procrastination mantras with new opportunities.
When we learn to think dialectically, our brains are telling us:
- “Nobody is better than anybody else.”
- “I can be an expert at what I am doing AND still have room for growth.”
- “I can make mistakes AND still be the best I can be.”
Overcoming procrastination is a process. You can’t expect to flip a switch and have new habits. Let the understanding of these four points of procrastination be your blueprints and put these new tools to work building new habits and a more productive mindset.
