How To End Procrastination By Keeping Agreements With Ourselves

I am so grateful for all the wonderful feedback about the last tapping script “Tapping for “I never get what I want”.

Yes, acknowledgement must perceed healing.

We are who we are, and deserve to be successful because of our story, not in spite of it.

As you move forward on your journey to success and healing, I’d like to offer you another thought:

A simple, but effective way to deal with procrastination.

I have yet to see a person who doesn’t suffer from procrastination, on one level or another.

Postponing what we know we should do, not “feeling up to it”, low self esteem and doubting that we can finish what we start, all these and more can be indicators of being stuck.

Now, you may say “I would never procrastinate in my work, but my family suffers at times from me not being available.”

Or for you it might be more true to say “I am just too busy to get to working on my goals. There is always too much to do and not enough time in the day to do it.”

Trust me, I am not just talking theory here – I have been there myself, many times.

I guess we all have, would you agree?

I’d like to share with you a simple revelation that has been changing the world for me as well as my clients who are working on their business and are striving for success:

Your self esteem and trust that you start and finish what you want is in direct proportion to how you handle and keep agreements with yourself.

Let me explain:

Every day, we make agreements with ourselves.

We say we would exercise, declutter, take care of ourselves, make those phone calls, eat better, pay the bills on time, write that newsletter, take the kids out to an event, go on a date with our partner, write that thank you note, ….you get the idea.

Some of those agreements are important and easy to keep, others are constantly on the back burner.

Some of these agreements are because you truly want what you say you want, some are made out of guilt, to please others, or some other reason.

But then life happens, and you realize that you overcomitted yourself. 

Or you changed your mind and feel torn about that.

Or you just forgot.

Or something else happened that was out of your control, and you just didn’t get around to it.

You realize that you couldn’t keep your agreements, and even though we don’t like it, there are actually measurable consequences for this.

Think about it:

If an agreement with yourself was written, signed and enforced, including the punishment for not keeping it, you would probably be in trouble by now, right?

Not necessarily because you didn’t have good reasons for not keeping some of your agreements, but simply because you broke them, period.

You said you would, and you didn’t.

So what does this have to do with procrastination?

Actually a lot.

Because the reality is that there are consequences for braking agreements, even if they are not legally enforcable.

The immediate consequence of breaking an agreement with yourself is getting a hit on self esteem.

You loose trust and faith in yourself, every time you break an agreement.

This is the truth.

Think about it.

You feel like you let yourself down.

 

The next thing you loose is the confidence that you will finish next time what you started.

You are just not a good partner to yourself.

You let random things come in your way.

So how can you trust that you will finish your project if you don’t trust in your own integrity?

 

The next thing you suffer is your confidence when you talk about what you do or want to do to others.

On some level, you already know that you didn’t keep your agreement to yourself, so how would you be able to keep it to them?

Then, procrastination sets in.

Thoughts like “I know I should do this, but I just don’t have the time.”

Or waiting it out, letting deadlines pass, not focussing on what you need to do right now.

This is painful stuff.

Very painful and very upsetting.

Because time after time, you seem to prove your point that you just can’t trust yourself more.

That you just can’t focus, can’t do it, wil e er get it done.

It just seeps in, and the next thing you know is that you feel like you can’t get things done.

Procrastination is the result of broken agreements with yourself and others.

And there is only one way to fix this and become successful:

Look at your life and discover every agreement you have ever made that is still open and unfulfilled.

Prioritize them

Make sure that you decide about each and every one what you will do with them:

Will you keep them?

Then decide when and just do it.

Were they made in error?

There is no shame in that. Just let everybody know that you made the agreement in error apologize and fix any consequences that you breaking the agreement may have for you and others. Sometimes we have to cut our losses and  let stuff go.

That’s OK.

You need to move forward, and this is a part of it.

Then prioritize.

Make sure that the agreements that you keep first are the ones that are connected with the most important area of your life that you feel stuck in.

If you want to make more money, keep every agreement with yourself that is related to that.

And yes, that includes paying your bills, honoring a colleague, sending that thank you note.

You will feel an immediate shift in how you look at yourself and your ability to be more successful.

Then move on:

Take the next area of your life and keep those agreements.

Don’t make new plans, just do what you say you would do.

You will see an immediate shift in how this area of your life impacts you.

Immediate.

Can you imagine?

So instead of creating bigger, bolder, more fascinating goals, I encourage you to keep the agreements that you already made, and recreate the self esteem you need to move forward.

Once this is done, your life will never be the same.

Please post your experiences with this below.

Here’s to keeping your agreements!

Love

Ingrid