Feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and downright tired? Yep, it is an experience we’ve all had as leaders that can easily lead to us putting off important goals for a later date. Procrastination is a bad leadership habit that we’ve all been guilty of at some point or another. We’ve all failed to act, missed a deadline, and fell short of reaching a goal or achieving a milestone.
There is a myriad of reasons why we procrastinate. Outside of not having enough willpower or being mentally exhausted, the motivation may simply be we aren’t strong enough to push ourselves to act when we should. Interestingly, even with a strong motivation, anxiety brought on by a fear of failure could deter us from taking action.
As it turns out, there is more to this dilly-dallying and shilly-shallying than just a bad habit that provides a sense of immediate gratification. In the study, I’ll Go to Therapy, Eventually, featured by Psychology Today, a connection was identified between procrastination, mental health and stress. Are we left squarely at the mercy of our procrastinative tendencies? Absolutely not! There is a vast array of actions we can take to rid ourselves of the procrastination monster: