How I Overcame Procrastination
I used to be the queen of procrastination (I struggled with it for YEARS), and it affected almost every area of my life, especially my health. I put things off constantly, important things, and I lived with that heavy, nagging stress in the back of my mind all the time.
I can confidently say it’s about 95% better than it ever was, and it has improved my life (in health, my business, relationships) so much by drastically reducing stress, supporting my nervous system, and helping me grow in areas of my life that I felt stuck in.
So I’m going to share with you what helped me get there!
What procrastination really is
Procrastination isn’t laziness. It’s putting off something you know you should do, even though you’re aware that waiting will only make it more stressful and harder later.
What I’ve come to realize is that procrastination usually isn’t about the task itself… it’s about the story our mind creates around it. Our thoughts blow it up, making it feel overwhelming, heavy, or intimidating, when most of the time… it’s really not.
The mindset shift
The biggest shift for me was realizing this: Doing the thing is almost always easier than avoiding it.
When you do the thing, it’s over with and you feel relief. You get a sense of accomplishment. It’s a win on every level.
When you avoid it, the stress lingers. That nagging feeling follows you around for hours, days, weeks, and sometimes even years. Avoidance causes suffering, but action ends it.
Getting honest with myself
At some point, I had to be brutally honest: if I kept procrastinating, my life was only going to get harder. I wasn’t going to get where I wanted to go, in my health, my work, my business, or my personal life.
Procrastination was keeping really me stuck. And I reached a point where staying stuck felt worse than doing whatever it was that I was avoiding. So I became willing to do what felt hard.
And once I did the thing, it wasn’t nearly as hard or overwhelming as it felt it was going to be.
The thought is worse than the thing
Most of the time, the idea of the task is what’s overwhelming, not the task itself. It feels hard in the beginning, but once you start, it’s usually manageable. Sometimes it’s even easy.
What actually helped me overcome procrastination
Break big things into small steps. When something feels overwhelming, don’t try to tackle it all at once. Break it down into smaller, doable steps and focus on just one at a time. Small steps feel safer, lighter, and much easier to start.
Accept that it will feel uncomfortable, and do it anyway. There is nothing that will magically make the urge to procrastinate disappear. If you wait for it to feel easy, you’ll wait forever. The only way through procrastination is to act despite the discomfort.
Use the after-feeling as motivation. Remember how good it feels once the thing is done. The weight lifts. You check it off your list. You build trust and confidence in yourself every single time you follow through.
Repeat it until your brain rewires. Every time you do the thing instead of avoiding it, you teach your brain that it’s safe and manageable. Over time, this rewires your neural pathways. What once felt hard starts to feel easier. Eventually, taking action becomes your default.
Give yourself patience
This didn’t change overnight. It was a journey. There were weeks I did really well and weeks where I slipped back into procrastination. But I always came back and tried again.
With consistency, I formed it as a new habit. My brain learned a new pattern. And now, procrastination and the desire to avoid things is almost nonexistent.
