How to Overcome Negative Emotions and Procrastination
Negative emotions play a significant role when it comes to procrastination. We’ve all been there at some point or with some tasks. Something needs to be done (usually unpleasant) and we keep pushing it to be done later.
Why Self-regulation is the Key to Success?
Self-regulation is important if we want to avoid procrastination and meet our goals. Self-regulation is a way to deal with daily desires and temptations that get in the way of completing tasks that will lead us to accomplish our goals.
There are so many fun things that you can do and sometimes working on your goals is not the fun part. When we decide to self-regulate our emotions, we can ignore temptations while pursuing things that matter.
How to Overcome Negative Emotions and Procrastination: Have a plan! Achieve Your Goals!
Self-regulation of Negative Emotions
Negative emotions feed on meeting our desires and temptations by amplifying the importance of desires and discouraging self-awareness. These negative emotions can lead to procrastination which further leads to a negative outcome.
Negative emotions undermine our ability to regulate our emotions, thoughts, and behavior. Once we fail to self-regulate, we can start blaming ourselves which in the long run has a direct impact on self-esteem.
This is a vicious circle that can only be broken by the self-regulation of negative emotions. If this circle is not broken it can only lead to failure of meeting our goals.
Why Self-regulation Can be Difficult?
Self-regulation fights against the “feel good now” desire where we are pushed to indulge in pleasurable activities by reducing self-awareness and awareness of what matters.
Our goals will reward us once we meet those goals which is not now (most likely) while we get immediate rewards with temptations and desires that pop into our minds.
When we develop a negative habit of focusing on pleasures, we lose self-awareness, and our ability to monitor our emotions and behaviors is gone.
What to Do When We Fail to Self-regulate?
When we try and fail to self-regulate a few times, we can become discouraged from any further attempts to self-regulate our emotions.
It’s important to stay on track from one moment to another until we develop a new habit. Remember, employing good habits is harder than bad habits. The second thing that matters is not being too harsh to yourself. Try to avoid perfection because you will never get there.
Procrastination Starts in the Morning
How to fight procrastination and the negative emotions that follow? If there is only one piece of advice that someone could give to you regarding procrastination it would be – do the most important thing of the day first thing in the morning.
Procrastination starts in the morning! If you can knock down that one big task first thing in the morning you will avoid procrastination for that day. Before negative emotions creep in, try to complete the most important thing of the day right after your shower, breakfast, and coffee. You will feel good about the day ahead when you complete that one task before noon.
What If Negative Emotions Overwhelm You?
Negative emotions can overwhelm you and it’s hard to simply ignore them. However, it’s less likely that those negative emotions will creep in first thing in the morning. Changing your behavior is no easy task. If you add personality traits and low emotional stability then it can be even more difficult.
Why Self-regulation Matters?
Self-regulation is a habit that you can develop as any other habit. All you need is to be persistent. You can be synced in with negative emotions chronically. Try to fight the feeling of self-blame and avoidance. Self-regulation is crucial when it comes to success. Being self-disciplined is probably the most important trait that’s common among all successful people. If we want to achieve success, we have to work for it and if we postpone the work that needs to be done we are less likely to succeed. Here, it’s important to understand that there is no such thing as perfection so don’t beat yourself if every day is not perfect. Don’t beat yourself at all. Focus your energy on work that matters not on thoughts that will not get you where you need to be.