Beat Procrastination With Your GPS (Goal Positioning System)
Angela Booth
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Summary: You can end procrastination forever, and move confidently towards your goals.

Category: Small Business

Words: 1000

Beat Procrastination With Your GPS (Goal Positioning
System)

Copyright © 2003 by Angela Booth

** The first article about using your GPS: Use Your GPS (Goal
Positioning System) To Achieve Your Goals, appeared in Issue 28
of CSB. Go to

http://www.digital-e.biz/newsletter.html

and click on Archives to read it. ***

Researchers estimate we only use around two to ten per cent of
our brainpower each day.

This means that much of the mental processing power you've got is
rusting away, unused. This is literally true, because when your
brain cells die they aren't replaced. If you could find ways to
access more of your fantastic brainpower, what could you achieve?
Could you double or triple your current income?

The first article on your GPS (Goal Positioning System) outlined
how you use it. Here's the process in a nutshell: you set clear,
time-limited goals, you visualize yourself successfully
completing tasks and achieving your goals every day, you use your
intuition, you write ABOUT what you want, and why you want it,
and you create and use a daily task list.

The key to accessing more of your brainpower lies in the tasks
that you procrastinate on. When you resist something, the
resistance uses up more energy than completing the task. Your
resistance also leads to feelings of guilt and unworthiness, and
these feelings lower your overall effectiveness, which means you
use even less of your total brainpower.

Here's how to use your GPS to tackle your procrastination:

=> Write down where you are, exactly what you want to do, and how
you want to feel while you're doing it

But I already know what I want to do, you protest.

Yes, that's true. But part of you is weaseling out. Your left
brain might want to complete the task, but if you're
procrastinating, it's a sign that your right brain and your
unconscious mind have other ideas. For whatever reason, they want
no part of the task and will do their best to ensure that you
don't do it.

Procrastination's insidious. If you're procrastinating, you'll
find any number of super-logical reasons NOT to do the task.
You'll suddenly remember those phone calls you have to make. Or
that you haven't called your mother all week. Or that you really
need to check on how your online auctions are doing.

Let's imagine a scenario. Let's say you're procrastinating on
mowing the lawn. The grass is almost to your knees and your
house-proud neighbors are so peeved that they turn away when they
see you.

Take out a pen and paper and write down where you are, what you
want to do, and how you want to feel while you're doing it.

You'll find that as you're writing, the other parts of your brain
will start to kick in. As you write: It's Tuesday, almost 4pm,
and I'm sitting in the kitchen having a cup of coffee. I want to
go and check the mower, and mow the lawn. It will only take me
half an hour, and I'll feel energetic and pleased with myself
while I'm doing it. The lawn will look great.

Mowing the lawn is a simple enough task, and once you've written
it down, chances are that you'll march right out and do it,
because the unconscious resistance you have to the task just
melted away. I have no real idea why writing things down ---
where you are, what you want to do, and how you want to feel
while you're doing it --- works so well in combating
procrastination, but it does. Try it.

On the other hand, you may get real feelings of conflict when you
write down what you want to do. If that happens, keep writing.
Ask yourself (in writing) what the problem is. Maybe you'll
write: I haven't got time to mow the lawn. I should be working
on that presentation I'm giving next week.

Aha! Now you're getting to the nitty-gritty. Your procrastination
about the lawn-mowing and subsequent frustration with yourself is
masking your real problem, which is anxiety about your upcoming
presentation.

You can deal with that, now you know what it is. You could write:
I will mow the lawn and feel great while I'm doing it, and then
I will work on the presentation for an hour. I will feel relaxed
and calm and confident while I work on the presentation.

You'll be amazed that once you've written down the real problem,
it's no longer such a big deal.

Keep writing, until you feel an emotional shift. You'll soon get
ideas on how to solve the problem, and then you'll hustle right
out and get your lawn mowed. And oddly enough, you will also work
on your presentation, and you'll enjoy it.

=> Trick yourself

Nine times out of ten, the above process will work like the
proverbial charm.

But what happens if you can't even force yourself to write? This
happens because when you procrastinate, you procrastinate for a
reason. If that reason is powerful enough to stop you doing the
task, and it may also be powerful enough to prevent you using
this simple writing process.

All is not lost. Trick yourself. Tell yourself that you're going
to list ten places you could go on vacation. Or that you're going
to write a shopping list. Begin writing your list, and after
you've written a couple of items, start using the GPS process.

Write about where you are, exactly what you want to do, and how
you want to feel while you're doing it. You'll be amazed and
pleased that you've conquered your procrastinaton.

A benefit of this process is that once you've used it a couple of
times, because you know you can eliminate your procrastination
anytime you want to, you'll procrastinate less.

If procrastination is a problem for you, use your GPS. The
process works.

~~RESOURCE BOX: PLEASE INCLUDE IF PUBLISHING~~
Multi-published author and copywriter Angela Booth crafts
words for your business --- words to sell, educate or persuade.
E-books and e-courses on Web site. FREE ezines for freelance
writers: http://www.digital-e.biz/

About the Author

Writer, author and journalist Angela Booth has been writing successfully for print and online venues for 25 years. She also writes for business.
On her Web site http://www.digital-e.biz/ she conducts workshops and courses for writers.