Breaking the cycle of procrastination will reduce your stress

Have you ever thought as you looked at the little piece of paper lying on the floor “I will do it later”, have you ever thought I will just watch this movie and then I will get started on my assignment” have you ever decided that you must have that nap when there is a pile of dishes to be put away or washed?

Putting things off until later as a strategy for accomplishment rarely succeeds.Procrastination can contribute to our low mood and an overwhelming sense of failure. If we have lived our life with this strategy we can start to feel that we are being left behind.

For some setting the goal is not the problem they can do that all the time every day and have numerous ideas. Often great ideas. But their ideas get lost in ether because they never get written down and the first step to getting started on them is often way too big.

How to get  started? We need to take a step, do one thing however small to action. A plan for accomplishment is a series of small, doable steps. 

What would you like to accomplish if you could just take that little step?

If the first step is too big you are less likely to take it.
 
Taking little steps in the direction of our desired goal is the key to success. Let’s go back to picking that paper off the floor.

The smallest step to take to accomplish this is to walk toward the paper, the second step is to bend your body the third step is to lift the paper up and the fourth step is to take it to the bin. If we are not taking the first step it is too big and so we need to come up with an even smaller step.

Take care 
​elizabeth

 

How do we maintain mindfulness in the face of frustration, noise, disagreement. It is very easy to practice mindfulness in a quiet environment with all the support of having meals prepared etc. It is much harder when we are facing pain, noise, frustration, misunderstandings. 

Yet the very practice of mindfulness is to help us with this. The whole point of the practice it to help us in the face of difficulties and to live peacefully and well. The intention of mindfulness is to train our mind in one pointed focused awareness in order to tame our mind. 

When our mind is tame we have the ability to maintain our equilibrium in the face of stress and distress. 

A very simple practice of mindfulness is the practice of patience. At the heart of patience is an understanding that nothing is permanent everything changes even this difficult experience.  The one thing we can guarantee is that change will happen. When we fully understand and appreciate this we are able to practice patience and kindness and understanding. 

To begin with it is important to practice at a very small level. While we are waiting for the water to boil for our pasta, or we are sitting in traffic waiting for the lights to change. We can focus our attention on what is right now. Where is our body, how is our breathing, what we are we seeing or hearing.

Take care 
Elizabeth