A clinical psychologist explains how to stop procrastinating

How can you stop procrastinating so much? There are so many reasons why people procrastinate. In high school, I slacked off because I had a fear of failure. If I failed a test because I didn’t study well, I knew I wasn’t stupid, I was just lazy. But if I studied and failed, that meant something was wrong with me. But in college, I usually procrastinated because I didn’t know how to finish my assignments. Now I usually avoid work because I’m a tired, middle-aged millennial struggling to keep up with my two kids. The first thing to do is understand the function of your procrastination. What are you avoiding? What emotions are coming up? What are you afraid might happen? Then you need to think about what will help you to make contact with your goal. In high school, I needed to accept that low grades didn’t mean I’m a failure as long as I learned from them. In college, I needed to understand how to ask for help, and present day me needs to shrink down the difficulty of my work so I’m not so overwhelmed. A great place to start is just talking to someone about your procrastination. If nothing else, they could be a great source of accountability to help you take that first step forward.