Merry Christmas Eve,

Procrastination is a real struggle for many of us. But it isn't a motivation or time-management issue. It's an emotional one. Read more below.

And I have a special message for my Christian performers with anxiety. Scripture offers us some guidance and I thought that as we celebrate our Lord's birth, this would be the best time to share it.

May God bless you and your family this holiday season.

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How to Finally Stop Procrastinating

Are you inconsistent or have a hard time getting started?

Do you keep putting your goals off until tomorrow, but tomorrow becomes today and then you put it off again until a deadline forces you to finally take action?

Good news: You aren’t lazy, you don’t lack self-control and you don’t need to improve your time management skills.

The issue is an inability to tolerate negative moods such as boredom, insecurity, frustration and anxiety. You take action to feel better rather than action to make progress.

Procrastination works because it provides immediate relief from the hard, anxiety producing tasks. Running away feels better than staying present … at least at first.

You already know that procrastination creates more stress and anxiety in the future. We are wired for immediate gratification, even at the cost of long-term success. But because procrastination works in the short-term, we go back to it again and again.

The solution is to find a better immediate reward than avoidance. Something that can relieve our feelings in the present moment without hurting our future goals.

Try these to reduce the stress of what you’ve been avoiding:

• Forgive yourself when you procrastinate. When you beat yourself up for avoiding, you make the whole thing more miserable and then want to avoid it more. This increases your chances of procrastination!

• Use self-compassion. This is an under-used performance enhancing technique. Do you perform better when others around you are encouraging or when they are negative and critical? Talk to yourself in a way that is helpful not hurtful.

• We procrastinate when we feel overwhelmed. So focus you attention on the one next step. This is manageable and reduces stress. Then you action is rewarded with success and anti-procrastination momentum builds.

• Make you temptations more inconvenient and make what you want to do as easy as possible.

🥇If you need help managing the emotions that keep you stuck in procrastination, I’m available for individual consultations at https://dreddieoconnor.com/telehealth-services/

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A Christmas Message

For my Christian athletes, finding the overlap between their faith and sport psychology often helps them the most. Colossians 3:23 is a verse we have frequently discussed. 

From the sport psychology perspective, anxiety is often caused by a feared negative evaluation by others. We do not want to disappoint our coaches, teammates or parents. We don’t want to disappoint ourselves. 

This performance anxiety interferes with our ability to focus on the task at hand. Focus strategies that bring you into the present moment help. 

But as Christians we have an additional incentive from Scripture. God instructs us to do our very best in everything we do for Him. He loves excellence. 

“… if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8.

We worship Him by playing our best for Him.

God wants our best, honest effort and accepts our failures. He forgives our sins. He will certainly forgive a turnover or missed tackle. His love does not depend on our performance.

Let me say that again … Your worth does not depend on your performance. You are loved exactly as you are. 

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8.

So when we worry about pleasing others, our human masters, we can release our anxiety and perform for an audience of One. 

Let go of the outcome and focus on the process in the present moment. Give excellent effort with gratitude to our Lord who has blessed you with skills and opportunities to play.

This Christmas we are reminded that God came into the world as a vulnerable infant to save us. 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16.

That gift of Christ Jesus began on Christmas Day.

We can thank Him and praise Him by playing for Him.

Merry Christmas, my friends. Merry Christmas. 

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Dr. Eddie O’Connor

www.DrEddieOConnor.com

DrEddie@dreddieoconnor.com