Laziness is not the cause for your procrastination, Resistance is.
Have you ever wondered why you cannot continue sticking to your new habit despite having so much motivation? Now, your answer might be, because of “laziness,” which, in fact, is not true. Procrastination is the sole reason for your slacking.
Whenever you want to start a new habit, you think of its outcome before even realizing it if you can adapt to it. And by that, I mean, Suppose you want to wake up early in the morning because of its benefits, so you set the alarm at 5 or 6 AM, but you don’t think of any tasks you would do after turning off that alarm. And, when the alarm rings, you turn off that alarm or hit the snooze, and then you convince yourself to sleep again. This is when mental resistance comes into action.
Now, what is Mental Resistance? And why have I said it is the cause of procrastination? In my words, Mental Resistance is an alert notification that our brain sends whenever we try to do any work or habit. In his book “The War of Art,” Steven Pressfield defines Resistance as a repelling force that aims to prevent us from doing our work.
Resistance fills our minds with fears and consequences of the work. It enables itself when we seek discomfort — pushing ourselves to get out of our comfort zone. Resistance kills motivation. House chores — making the bed, cleaning rooms, washing the dishes — aren’t just physical activities you have to do; they are mental obstacles competing with all other hurdles for energy. When starting to do work or maybe a habit, mental resistance pushes us a notification. It can also be a question asking what the importance of this task is? And whenever we cannot think about its importance or the reward after completing the task, we fail to do the task, and thus, resistance wins by preventing us from doing the task.
We can’t entirely remove procrastination from our life, but we can reduce it to an extent. And it is only by winning over our mental resistance. There are various steps to overcome procrastination. In the previous post, I have talked about how we can build habits that actually last.
Working on to-do lists, reading motivational quotes alone won’t help you overcome mental resistance. Rather, doing the work, despite all the probable consequences that your brain might tell you, will help complete the work.
