Episode 11
· 14:13
Moving Minds Forward Procrastination. Why you put it off, and why it was never really about laziness. People aren't broken, and there's always a way forward. I know, because I've lived it. I left school at 14 with nothing, joined the RAF at 16, and spent thirty years in sales or hospitality.
Gary Johannes:Then, in my late forties, I started again. And at 60, I walked out of King's College with an MSc. So when I say change is possible, I'm not guessing. I'm Gao Jahannes, Solution focused hypnotherapist, founder of Inspire Inspire to Change. One condition per episode.
Gary Johannes:What's going on? What's keeping it going? And what actually helps? Let's go. Procrastination.
Gary Johannes:I want to clear something up right at the start. Because almost everyone gets this wrong, including the people who do it. Procrastination is not about laziness. Let me say that again. Because if you've spent years calling yourself lazy, this matters.
Gary Johannes:Procrastination is not laziness. A lazy person doesn't care. A procrastinator cares a great deal. That's exactly the problem. The caring is what makes the task feel heavy enough to avoid.
Gary Johannes:You know the pattern. There's a thing you need to do. You know it matters. You might even want to do it. And yet, you find yourself wiping down the kitchen, checking your phone, suddenly fascinated by anything that isn't the thing.
Gary Johannes:And underneath it all, a low of guilt that gets louder the longer you leave it. This episode is about what's really driving that, and why understanding it is the first step to changing it. We're going to cover what procrastination actually is, what's happening in the brain, what causes it, and what keeps it going, and what actually helps. And I'll leave you with one thing you can take away today. If this is the first time you found us, hit subscribe wherever you're listening.
Gary Johannes:Every episode covers one condition, the same honest lens. There's a lot more to come. Now, let's get into it. So what is procrastination, really? Procrastination isn't a time management problem.
Gary Johannes:It's an emotional management problem. That one shift changes everything. When you face a task, your brain doesn't see the task. It feels something about it. Boredom, pressure, self doubt, fear of getting it wrong, the weight of not knowing where to start.
Gary Johannes:And those feelings are uncomfortable. So the brain does exactly what brains are built to do: It moves you away from discomfort and towards relief. You pick up your phone, the bad feeling lifts instantly. The relief is the whole trap, because it works. Just for a moment, you're not alone in this.
Gary Johannes:If this is you, you are in enormous company. Around seventy percent of university students identify as procrastinators, half of them consistently. And to a degree, that's causing real problems. And it's not just students. One study found that up to ninety four percent of people say procrastination has a negative effect on their happiness.
Gary Johannes:There's even a price on it. Leaving things to the last minute is estimated to cost the average person around £29,200 over a lifetime. So if you've been quietly believing there's something wrong with you, hear this. This is one of the most common human struggles there is. And it's common because the wiring behind it is completely normal.
Gary Johannes:So what's happening in the brain? Two parts are having an argument, and one of them almost always wins in the short term. On one side, you've got the prefrontal cortex, the planner, the part of you that thinks about the future, sets the goal, knows the report is due Friday, and that you'll feel better once it's done. On the other side, you've got the limbic system: older, faster, and far more interested in how you feel right now, than how you'll feel next week. When a task triggers discomfort, the limbic system flags it almost like a threat.
Gary Johannes:And the quickest way to shut a threat signal down is to avoid the thing causing it. So you avoid. And the moment you do, you get a hit of relief. The brain notices relief, and it fouls it away. That worked.
Gary Johannes:Do it again. That's negative reinforcement. And every time the loop runs, the pathway gets a little stronger, and the habit gets a little more automatic. There's one more piece. The brain heavily overvalues reward that's available now over reward that's available later.
Gary Johannes:Future you, who has to do the task, feels almost like a different person. Person. So present you quietly hands them the problem, again and again. So what causes it in the first place? Underneath most procrastination is a feeling the task has stirred up.
Gary Johannes:Fear of failure is a big one. If you don't start, you can't get it wrong. Perfection is another. If you can't be perfect, beginning feels unbearable. So you don't.
Gary Johannes:For a lot of people, it's overwhelm. Too many choices, too big a task, no obvious first step. So the brain simply freezes. Low confidence and self doubt feeds straight into it. So does anxiety.
Gary Johannes:And for people with ADHD, the wiring around motivation, reward, and getting started makes all of this considerably harder. That's not a character flaw. It's a difference in how the brain handles task initiation. And the modern world pours petrol on it. Your phone is an endless supply of instant, effortless relief, sitting right next to the hard thing.
Gary Johannes:Modern life doesn't exactly make it easy. So what's keeping it going? This is where procrastination becomes a cycle that feeds itself. You avoid the task. You feel relief.
Gary Johannes:So far, so good. For about five minutes. Then the guilt arrives. The self criticism. Why can't I just do this?
Gary Johannes:What's wrong with me? And the guilt and the shame don't motivate you. They do the opposite. They make the task feel even heavier and more loaded the next time you look at it, which makes avoiding it more tempting, which produces more guilt. Around it goes.
Gary Johannes:And here is the cool twist. The worse you feel about yourself, the harder starting becomes. Shame is not a fuel. It is a break. People people think they need to be harder on themselves to break the cycle.
Gary Johannes:Almost always, it's the harshness that keeps the cycle spinning. So what actually helps? The solution focused approach doesn't start with the task. It starts with a different question. What does life look like when you're not carrying this?
Gary Johannes:What would an ordinary Tuesday feel like if the thing got done early, and the rest of your day wasn't shadowed by it? What would you notice about yourself? What might other people notice? What would become possible if this wasn't taking up so much room in your head? That matters, because the brain needs something to move towards, not something to escape.
Gary Johannes:Then we get curious about the pattern. Without self attack, when do you avoid? What feelings show up just before you reach for the distraction? You're not looking for someone to blame. You're looking for a moment where the choice actually lives.
Gary Johannes:This is where Solution Focus, hypnotherapy, does something specific. In trance, the prefrontal cortex, the plantar, stays engaged, and the nervous system drops into a state of real calm. From that calm place, the brain isn't in threat mode, so the task stops feeling like something to flee. We work with the subconscious to lower the discomfort the task triggers, and to rehearse the feeling of starting calmly, easily, without dread. And because the brain doesn't sharply distinguish a vivid rehearsal from a real experience, that practice starts to build the pathway for doing it for real.
Gary Johannes:The three pillars do a lot of heavy lifting here. Positive interaction. Telling someone what you're going to do, or simply working alongside another person, lifts the load and adds gentle accountability. Physical activity burns off the anxiety that's fueling the avoidance, and gets the brain into a doing state rather than a stuck one. And positive thinking, not forced positivity, but deliberately noticing the things you did start.
Gary Johannes:The small wins, the progress begins to rebuild the confidence that procrastination quietly eroded. And sleep. A tired brain has even less prefrontal capacity to override the limbic pull. Rested, starting is easier. It really is that basic.
Gary Johannes:Before I close, one thing you can take away today. The next time you catch yourself avoiding something, don't try to do the whole task. Just commit to five minutes. Set a timer if it helps. Tell yourself you're allowed to stop when it goes off.
Gary Johannes:Here's why it works. The hardest part is almost never the task. It's the starting. The dread your brain predicts is nearly always worse than reality. Five minutes in, the discomfort has usually faded, and more often than not, you'll keep going, because starting was the whole battle.
Gary Johannes:And if you do stop at five minutes, you've still broken the avoidance loop and shown your brain the thing was survivable. Five minutes, that's the gap where it turns around. If you're listening to this because procrastination has been making you feel weak, or useless, or like everyone else has something you're missing. I want to say this clearly. You are not lazy.
Gary Johannes:You're someone whose brain has been choosing short term relief over short term discomfort, exactly as it's wired to. That's a pattern. And patterns can be changed. And the version of you who starts sooner, carries less guilt, and gets things done with a bit more ease, that person may be a lot closer than you think. Understanding what's going on is where it starts.
Gary Johannes:You've just done that, and quietly, that's a step forward. That's it for this one. If it was useful, subscribe, and you'll catch the next episode. There's a lot more to come. Something you'd like help with.
Gary Johannes:Inspire two Change has solution focused hypnotherapists across The UK, in person and online. Everything's on our website at inspiretocange.biz when you're ready to take a look. No rush. Whenever you're ready. See you on the next one.
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