A SUCCESS HINDERING HABIT WE ALL NEED TO STOP

This is something students do a whole lot. You know what, it not just students its every one. We all are guilty of this act. This may be because its the easiest decision or because we apparently, work better under pressure. Yeah, with that last statement, I am guessing you all know what this article is about. And yes, you guessed right. Its PROCRASTINATION.  Procrastinating is "putting off intentionally the doing of something that should be done".

WHY PEOPLE PROCRASTINATE

People procrastinate for different reasons. But I am only going to be elaborating on the common ones. So read on to find out why we procrastinate, the effects it has on us and how to stop this success tapping act.

Lack of Interest

A lack of interest plays a vital role on procrastination. Say there is an assignment or a task at the office assigned to you to be delivered on a specific day and it so happens that you have got little or zero interest in that module or task, the lack of interest would cause you to fish out for all the reasons as to why that assignment/task cannot be done "at the moment". At the end, we find ourselves in a last minute .com situation. 

Lack of Motivation

It so happens that some people are not self motivated. They actually need that extra push from someone before they can get something done. This category of people would leave things until the last minute as well as saying "there is time, there is time". And result, no time at all. Again, find themselves in a last minute .com situation

And the most common excuse:

I WORK BEST UNDER PRESSURE! Yeah don't we all hear that a lot, especially from students? These group of people have convinced themselves so much that they now even believe that they actually do their best work under pressure. I personally call that pure laziness. And no, students cannot possibly get a 3000 words assignment done in the span of two days. Remember there is research involved. Research that has to be from credible sources (newspapers, journals, textbooks, etc). This is a lot for a student to get done in just two days. By the time these are all left till the last minute, the work tends to be rushed with little time to do an in debt research or deliver the best work that they could have. So yeah, you might work faster under pressure but certainly not better.

THE EFFECTS PROCRASTINATION HAS ON US. 

Procrastination has more damaging effect on us than we care to realise. If you are a procrastinator I would advise that you be careful. Procrastinating is a success sucking habit, makes you lose loads of opportunities and denies you the ability of being your best self. When we procrastinate, the quality of the task done is usually poor. This is because we have accumulated a lot of work and chosen to rush through it at the very last minute and overwork the brain. So we end up not caring about the content but the finish product.

"Procrastinators earned lower grades than other students and reported higher cumulative amounts of stress and illness. True procrastinators didn’t just finish their work later — the quality of it suffered, as did their own well-being."

 Eric Jaffe 

When you procrastinate, you think you are saving time but in reality, you are actually wasting more time. I bet you can imagine how much time have been wasted every time you put off doing something. The saying, "time waits for no man" is word. When we as students procrastinate, we end up "over-learning" because we have wasted and misused the time we had. "Over-learning" is when we just learn the facts of things just because we have to know them for an exam and forget everything the week after. In secondary school, my teachers referred to it as "La cram, La pour, La forget". Which is not exactly the best way to study or go through school.

Not only does this habit cause you to "over-learn", it also encourages plagiarism. You know, copying and pasting from other sources and not acknowledging the writers. You can easily see how procrastinating can make you do this. I have a couple of friends at uni who usually leave their work till last minute with the illusion of "I work best under pressure" and they usually end up with not so great grades and a high percentage of plagiarism. This is obviously due to the fact that they had less time to review the materials, make sense of what the authors are saying, make their own notes, paraphrase and reference properly.

HOW I OVERCOME PROCRASTINATING. 

One and the most important step of overcoming procrastinating is to accept the fact that you procrastinate. Being in denial is the worst thing that could ever happen because you fail to see that you procrastinate which leads to you not trying to overcome or sort out solutions on how to stop the habit.

Secondly, I give myself a deadline for everything I do. Normally, assignments have their own deadlines but I set my own deadline for about a week or so before the actual deadline and just train my brain to believe that is the actual deadline (sounds farcical but it works). By doing this, I don't keep telling myself "I have enough time" and then just leave the work. Instead, I do the work because in my head, the deadline is closer. 

Third and lastly, I reward myself for every task I finish. I put off watching movies, going out with friends to the movies or to eat until I actually meet my target. So when I meet the deadline I had set for myself, I reward myself by watching a new episode of a series I love, a new movie, go cinema, or go eat with my friends. Knowing that I get to do all of these or one of these when I get something done in time, I get motivated to do things now rather than later because the later I put off reaching my target, the later I get to do any of those things. So say a new episode of Games Of Throne is released, and the only way you can see it is if you get your assignment done right or meet a target. Would you rather start the assignment immediately or put it off till whenever? Yeah I thought so.

So yeah, a reward system is an amazing way to overcome procrastinating but you have to be true to yourself to get the most out of this technique.  

References
Procrastination: (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/procrastinate).
Image Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lack-interest-studies-sajjad-ali
Image Source: http://www.halogensoftware.com/blog/how-lack-of-motivation-is-killing-your-company
image source: https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/t/under-pressure-deadlines-workload-37904618.jpg

YOUR SITUATION TODAY DOES NOT DEFINE YOUR TOMORROW

Every now and then I look at myself and cannot help but thank God for where I am. Events in my life has made me really and truly believe the saying "every disappointment is a blessing". We as human sets directions for ourselves, we see where we want to go and usually know how we are going to get there. But sometimes, life does not happen the way we plan and that does not mean our life is over. Instead, in every situation you find yourself, give thanks! Because even though we fail to see it at the time, it just might open doors to new opportunities we never even dreamt of.

 In my final year in high school, my friends and I had already planned on going to the same university and staying in the same accommodation off campus. We went to the library to study together for the entrance exams we had to write to get into the university. Basically I had my life planned out and was all focused on everything falling into place just as I had planned it.

Just as life would have it, it did not go quite as well as I had planned. The day of the exam came, I went on to write it and felt quite confident afterwards. But lo and behold, two weeks after, the results were out and I did not make it. I was few marks away from the pass mark for the university I had chosen. I felt so disappointed, felt like my life was crumbling down and I could do nothing to help it. The feeling was overwhelming that I disassociated myself from everyone at the time. I started thinking of other universities I could go to that would accept my grades. I found one, although I didn't really like it, I was ready to accept it. it was either that or staying home for a whole year and take those exams again.

I was not thinking straight I just wanted a quick solution that will help me avoid everyone’s judging comments. I was so caught up in the pressure of starting university with my friends that I was willing to settle for less. I was letting the situation define me and take control of me.

“In fact, your circumstances will generate an excuse factory in your mind which will produce a thousand reasons why you can’t make the progress you were hoping to make. They will convince you that you can’t change, that you can’t solve the problems you’re facing, that you need surrender to an inevitable fatalism.”

At a point I got tired. I just got tired of the stressing, I got tired of the thought of what people would say. I got tired of pushing valuable advises, I got tired of being ruled by the situation. So I stopped. I stopped all of the stressing and stopped allowing the situation rule my decision. I decided to accept the situation and be open minded. I decided to involve the one person who has promised to provide all my needs according to His riches (which I had forgotten to do before).  So I stopped dwelling in what had happened and involved God.

When I started to think things were not going to look up, they did. I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel! I got the opportunity to school in the United Kingdom which would not have happened if I had passed that exam. I would not have had this opportunity if things had gone my way. So yeah, man proposes but God disposes. And when He does, He goes all in for you! 

You might be going through tough times, you might be in a situation where a solution seems farfetched, it might seem like your world is crumbling right before your eyes and you are left feeling helpless. But always remember, you are not in it alone. You have got God at your side who is waiting on you to reach out to him, for you to ask him and receive abundantly way beyond your imagination. 

“We should always pray for help, but we should always listen for inspiration and impression to proceed in ways different from those we may have thought of.”

– John H. Groberg