I was asked recently, if Hypnotherapy can help with procrastination.
I thought, how could I explain this without reeling off a list of top tips? Let’s face it, procrastination isn’t a conscious choice, and it can be very frustrating, demotivating, debilitating and miserable.
So WHAT is procrastination?
It’s about avoiding something we don’t really want to do. The ‘pain of the moment’. If we feel negatively about the task at hand our anxiety rises, so to ease the discomfort we put it off for later.
If you have a ‘to do’ list, how often do you do the easy, quick jobs first and put off the more involved or painful ones until later?
When going through your emails, how often do you do the ones that involve a quick reply and the ones you don’t want to do, you mark as unread and save for later?
Sometimes the tasks are related to our work place and sometimes they’re goals we’ve set for ourselves, that we never seem to make time for. Have you ever wanted to learn an instrument or another language? To take up a sport that you would love to try or join a pottery class? To obtain that qualification to take you further up the career ladder?
We have desires to live much greater than we currently do, but procrastination robs us of the thing that we truly possess, the present moment.
We love to put things off, so we can have instant gratification now. But unfortunately, this can lead to problems, as the more we put something off, the more our anxiety around the situation gradually increases.
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow, by evading it today” – Abraham Lincoln.
So WHY do we procrastinate?
Let’s be clear, laziness is not the main reason behind procrastination. There are a variety of different reasons:
- Fear of failure
- Fear of looking foolish
- Fear of success
- Fear of taking risks
- Fear of the unknown
We all have motivation to do things. Our inner hopes and fears are what guides that motivation. So, what makes us put off certain tasks?
It’s not our fault! Our brains have two minds!
The intelligent sensible mind – When we operate from this part of our mind we are positive, motivated, rational and wise. We get answers by making a proper assessment of a situation. We are solution focused.
The primitive emotional mind – Is instinctive. It performs around 88% (based on neuroscience research), of all the activities we do throughout the day, on automatic! Such as walking, breathing, driving etc. But it also includes how we think and it’s very negative. It’s all about basic survival and is where our flight, fight and freeze responses come from. These are all subconscious actions.
If the primitive mind feels you are in some sort of crisis, if a situation appears like a threat, if it feels that you are going to be uncomfortable in any way, then it will take over from the intelligent sensible mind and all logical, rational reasoning will go out of the window. This is because the primitive mind has bypassed the intellectual mind and is getting you ready to fight, flight or freeze. It thinks you are in a dangerous situation.
The anxiety we feel in a ‘dangerous’ situation is caused by our own negative thinking. Negative thoughts and behaviours around the task you need to get done. We also often negatively think about money, love, ourselves, the future, the past. We are creatures of habit and if we have destructive habits in place that have developed over a lifetime, this could cause a negative momentum about all the ways we could fail, how hard a task could be, how we’re not good enough.
So how can we get our thinking back into the intelligent sensible mind?
HOW can hypnotherapy help?
Using Solution Focused Hypnotherapy, we are able to utilize a person’s subconscious to enable them to create new habits and change their perspective on life and get them back in their intelligent mind. By focusing on your strengths and creating a positive new view of yourself, you can change your behaviours to line up with your new perspective and goals.
How you view yourself is an automatic process controlled by the subconscious mind. When we change those negative thoughts to positive thoughts then creating new habits becomes much easier.
- Thinking, interacting and being active in a positive way
- Being kind to yourself
- Helping you to feel motivated and focus on your goals
- Helping you to get a good night’s sleep. Sometimes procrastination can be from lack of energy caused from lack of sleep
Hypnotherapy isn’t a magic wand, but if you have the desire to change, then it can help to motivate you to create new habits.
So in answer to the question, “can hypnotherapy help with procrastination?” The answer is “yes it can!”
Procrastination wastes not only money and energy, but also the one currency you can never get more of: TIME!
If you would like to book an initial consultation, then please contact me through my website or on
Email: info@carolineevanshypnotherapy.co.uk
Tel: 07765 692 072