Staying motivated can be tough at times; especially when you’re exhausted or not seeing the results of your hard work. It can be easy to fall into a loop of procrastination and this can be particularly challenging if you’re an entrepreneur! Creating your own schedule can truly be both a blessing and a curse. Regardless, it’s important to disrupt patterns in order to make changes. This applies to anything you want to improve in your life. Here’s how to disrupt the cycle of procrastination.
Get Up & Walk Around
If you’re feeling uninspired, get out of your current environment and go for a walk. If possible, walk in an area with greenery and trees. Green is a soothing color which helps inspire creativity and clarity. I use this technique regularly, and yes, it really does work. It’s also backed up by science. Dr. Marily Oppezzo, a researcher at Stanford University completed a study which showed that creativity increased by 60% when subjects went for a walk: “For almost every student, creativity increased substantially when they walked. Most were able to generate about 60 percent more uses for an object, and the ideas were both ‘novel and appropriate,'” Dr. Oppezzo concluded in her study. Fast Company also recently covered this topic and found positive results as well.
Keep All Personal Social Accounts Out of View
Social media platforms can be a major distraction. When you really need to lock down and complete a task, you must stay off social media. This means not having any sites open in your browser and also putting your phone away to avoid being distracted by notifications. We understand social media can be part of your job (it is for us as well), but most of the time anything that is happening on social media can wait.
Realize There’s Never A “Right Time”
We’re going to break it to you softly: the “right time” does not exist. The “right time” is a fictional comfort zone created by our minds to keep us from facing fear and moving forward. Anything you want to do or change you can start right now; right in this moment. Even if it’s just baby steps, there is never a right time to start anything. You just have to dive in and do it.
Realize That You’ll Feel Much Better After
Having a task hang over your head is like having a really annoying monkey on your back. The procrastination monkey doesn’t want you to get anything done! He seems like fun, but he’s really a soul-sucker who probably lives in his parents basement. Tell him to take a hike. When you know you have to get something done, you can never fully relax or shut your mind down. Got insomnia? It’s possible you’re procrastinating on something. Once you stop procrastinating and start moving forward, you’ll feel 1,000 times better. You’ll sleep better. You’ll have more confidence, and best of all, you’ll feel even more momentum and motivation to get things done! One positive action leads to another.
Be Accountable
Reveal to your friends and colleagues that you will have a task completed on a specific date. Blast it out on social media, send out a mass email with an announcement -whatever you do, make yourself accountable to others! It’s a lot easier to get something done when others have expectations than to keep pushing a task off because you haven’t given yourself a deadline.
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