Procrastination Triggers: Anxiety

By Julliet Mburu

Defined as a strong unease about something, anxiety is the leading cause of the prevalent "almost-there" disease.

Surprisingly, most of the time we normally don't know that we are anxious. This negative energy however sneaks up on us through procrastination. Could you be confusing the anxiety with general boredom?

One sure way of pin-pointing anxiety as the trigger is to face the task head-on. You may not be able to start the task with the required enthusiasm but its okay. The main idea is to just be aware that you are (once again) about to run from the task. At this point, pause, and ask yourself the following questions:

What does this (task) involve?

Can I do it?

What am I feeling?

Normally, we usually are able to work through the first two questions without much of a hassle. The last question we tend to avoid. Confronting feelings is one of the hardest tasks any human can undertake, more so when it involves admitting our failures and faults. This is why many people don't know that they are anxious, and that it's actually triggering their procrastination.

The upside of challenging our feelings is that, once addressed, the effects last a lifetime. By challenging that anxiety, you will be able to figure out if a particular environment is triggering the anxiety, or if you are over-estimating the task itself. The key here is to acknowledge that there exists a form of anxiety, and that is the first step towards the solution. You can never fight an adversary you don't acknowledge. Acknowledging anxiety is not the same as resigning to the anxiety. Dodging it only makes it worse, and it gets covered up by many other issues until you can't tell exactly why the task puts you off. To be honest, many of the things we find annoying are as such because they make us anxious and we don't want to admit it.

Once you have acknowledged whatever undercurrent is bubbling inside every time you think of the task, go back to the first two questions. Go through every step involved in the task and one by one, be mindful how each step makes you feel. You will be able to identify the particular steps that trigger any uneasy feeling, and take note. Also, ask yourself what it costs to go through all the steps. This way, you will be able to challenge every part of the task that acts as a trigger, and you will know where to ask for help, or when to take it slow and do more research.