(Cont'd)

For some individuals, the fear of success or the fear of failure can be one of the triggers. Many people are really afraid of success. They are afraid of the responsibility associated with success so they sabotage their chances by failing to act, by procrastinating. Others are afraid of failure. They are not confident in their ability to achieve the task, to do it well, so they procrastinate.

Others may like to organize their lives so as to avoid stress. They therefore seek to spend as much time as possible doing things they enjoy and they procrastinate when confronted with the less enjoyable things that they need to do. For example, at work they prefer to attend a luncheon meeting instead of preparing the report. At home, they prefer to play golf instead of cutting the grass.

Others who procrastinate could also be going through a very difficult period in their life and may be feeling depressed. Their energy level would therefore be down. They would not feel motivated and it would take a great effort for them to start to act again.

So what can we do to reduce procrastination? First it would be useful to recognize what we procrastinate about. Making a list of the activities we try to avoid or delay is therefore an important first step. Once we have done this, we can consider a number of options related to the activities we've identified. First, we should determine if we really need to do these things ourselves or whether they can be delegated for someone else to do. If we really hate cutting the grass, maybe finding someone to cut the grass for us is really the answer.

However, for the tasks that we must do ourselves, it is very important as a second step, that we plan the specific time when we will be doing them if we really want to avoid procrastination. For example, if every working day we should be making 10 prospecting calls in order to achieve our sales target, we need to plan exactly when we will be making these calls in our day timer. In fact we should try to plan to get the calls done as soon as possible in the day and to make these calls a priority, so as to develop a positive habit about making prospecting calls once and for all. To motivate us to complete the unwanted tasks we can also reward ourselves - as a third step - when we complete the tasks every day. After making the 10 prospecting calls, we can for example take 20 minutes and reward ourselves with a nice Cappucino.

There is of course the issue of will power. Even if an activity is on our to do list, we still need to have the will power to go ahead and do it, otherwise, it's very easy to get distracted into doing something else. And in order to develop our will power, there must really be a desire to change our behavior when we catch ourselves procrastinating.

So developing our will power is an important factor especially when we tend to fear failure, tend to organize our lives to avoid stress or when we are going through a difficult period in our life. We can develop our will power best through self-talk. Let's say that instead of making those dreaded prospecting phone calls which had been planned at a given time each day, we catch ourselves conducting research on the Internet, this being an activity which we enjoy doing. We can begin with the following self-talk: What am doing right now? Right now, I am conducting research on the Internet yet I should be making my prospecting phone calls. I will stop my research right now in order to make the calls. Here I go making the calls. One minute later, if I have not begun making the calls, I start the process of the self-talk again and again, until I have picked up the phone and have started to make the prospecting calls.

Of course, if we are having problems with procrastination, it is always useful to work with a professional coach who can help us stay on track.

George Beshara is the Author of Managing My Life: Managing My Time, which is available exclusively through members of the Managing My Life Network.