STRUGGLING WITH PROCRASTINATION? MAYBE IT’S ANXIETY
We’ve all been there: knowing there is a thing we have to do but finding every possible reason not to do it. Procrastination involves putting off tasks or responsibilities as long as possible, sometimes even past relevant deadlines. While occasional procrastination is common and generally not concerning, frequent procrastination can have negative academic/professional, relational, and even financial consequences.
If you are a chronic procrastinator, getting to the root causes of why you procrastinate can provide helpful insight toward shifting this pattern. One potential root cause worth exploring is anxiety.
The Connection Between Anxiety and Procrastination
Anxiety tends to lead to avoidance, and avoidance can look a lot like procrastination. The mechanisms underlying anxiety-based procrastination include fear of an unwanted outcome, fear of failure or not being good enough, and general overwhelm that makes it hard to do anything at all.
Let’s explore some examples. Say you need to pay your credit card bill and you are procrastinating doing so. You are putting this task off because it requires you to look at your bank account to make sure you have enough money to cover the bill. You feel anxious about learning what your current financial reality is, so you keep this anxiety at bay by simply not engaging this task.
Or perhaps you have a paper to write for school or a presentation to create for work. Every time you tell yourself you’re going to work on it, you end up doing something else instead. You realize that it is not simply that you are deferring this task because it is boring or unappealing, but because you fear on a deep level that you won’t be able to do a good job on it. If you don’t try then you can’t fail, and it’s easier in some ways to deal with the fallout of delaying doing the task then to face the anxiety of giving it a real try and then feeling like your efforts (and by extension you) weren’t good enough.
Last, say you are simply feeling overloaded. You didn’t sleep well last night, your thoughts are racing, you feel nervous energy coursing through your body, you can’t focus. You may have a number of things to get done but you aren’t doing them. It’s not because you don’t want to do them or don’t believe them to be important, it’s because anxiety symptoms are making it impossible for you to concentrate and take intentional action.
The Vicious Cycle & How to Exit It
Procrastination makes total sense as a coping mechanism for anxiety because it works in the short-term. You likely will feel relief in the moment if you put off doing something that brings up anxiety for you. The problem, however, is that the longer we procrastinate the more our anxiety tends to grow. This reality creates a downward spiral of increasing anxiety and increasing avoidance in response to it that can have serious consequences if not addressed.
So what can we do about it? If you identify as a procrastinator, first get curious about what drives or motivates your procrastination. Why do you keep procrastinating even when you don’t want to or recognize that it creates unnecessary stress for you?
To be clear, not all procrastination stems from anxiety. But it’s very helpful to know if your procrastination does. When anxiety-driven, it is unlikely that standard advice for overcoming procrastination, like goal setting, eliminating distractions, or rewarding yourself for completing tasks, will be effective for you because these strategies don’t address the root of the problem.
What will actually help you is treating the anxiety that underlies your procrastination. Working with a therapist will give you personalized and adaptive insights, tools, and strategies you can use to lower your anxiety so that procrastination is no longer needed as a coping mechanism.
Please note: This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a licensed mental health provider or other healthcare professional for guidance related to your specific mental health or medical concerns.
