What Is The Hardest Addiction To Break?
An addiction is a biopsychosocial distress characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences.
Procrastination is the most difficult biopsychosocial distress to break free from because it is a societal norm to put something off to another time or day without impunity.
Furthermore, procrastination is the fear of success and a fear of failure. Your procrastination could be because you are afraid of success. As a result, you hold back or choose an easier course of action. If you succeed what goal will you face next? You might sense the heaviness of success and the responsibility with it.
One of the first studies to document the difficulty of procrastination was published in Psychological Science in 1997. APS Fellow Dianne Tice and APS William James Fellow Roy Baumeister, then at Case Western Reserve University, rated college students on an established scale. They, then, tracked their academic performance, stress, and general health throughout the semester. Initially, there seemed to be a benefit to procrastination, as these students had lower levels of stress compared to others. Presumably as a result of putting off their work to pursue more pleasurable activities. In the end, however, the cost of procrastination far outweighed the temporary benefits. Procrastinators earned lower grades than other students and reported higher cumulative amounts of stress and illness. True procrastinators didn’t only finish their work later — the quality of it suffered, as did their own well-being.
Perhaps, it seems less frightening and much easier to procrastinate and live on the philosophy of:
How many of these ways to procrastinate do you use?
- “When I get around to it.” Avoidance
- “Someday, I’ll….” Avoidance
- “One of these days…” Avoidance
- “I tried. It didn’t work, so I guess it wasn’t meant to be.” Cop out
- “When I get a chance I’ll…” Avoidance
- “I don’t have enough time.” Avoidance
- “I’m not inspired.” “Nothing inspires me.” Avoidance
- “I need to find balance in my work and home life.“ Avoidance
- “I can’t overcome the overwhelming responsibility.“ Avoidance
- “Nothing I can think of is original enough.“ Excuse – Jean-Luc Godard said, ‘It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.’”
- “Too much competition.“ Avoidance
- “My expectations are too high.“ It’s easy to get high on the idea of executing your idea. You daydream about how great it will be, the recognition and acclaim that will inevitably follow its launch. You build it up so much that the reality of actually executing the idea starts to seem unappealing. Ze Frank calls un-executed ideas ‘brain crack’. It is a dangerous addiction. Excuse
- “It isn’t the right time to do it.“ Excuse.
- “I need to plan everything first.“ Avoidance
- “The production will take too long.“ Excuse
- “The idea isn’t polished enough yet.“ Excuse
- “It will take too much time.“ Excuse
- “I need to do more research.“ Excuse
- “Not enough time.“ Excuse
- “I have young children. They need a lot of my time.“ Excuse
- “I don’t have the money.“ Excuse
Moreover, achieving small goals is a step in the direction of a bigger goal. For instance, stop worrying about a big goal and rack up small goals that add up to the big enchilada.
Furthermore, people procrastinate because they are afraid of failure. “What if I fail? I’ll be the laughing stock of everyone I know or who knows me.” To avoid this feared humiliation, people avoid expressing their dreams and desires, thus they do not set a plan to accomplish them.
Besides, waiting (procrastination) is a trap. Reasons to wait can be conjured up. The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons, and results, and reasons simply don’t count.”
If you are a frequent procrastinator you might need assistance to discover what prompts you to sabotage yourself. There is no better time than now, to discover how you can eliminate the bad habit of procrastination. It is easier than you think. Learn how in a 20-minute FREE, no-obligation conversation. Click here.