(This is a part of the ‘I Waste So Much Time’ series of posts designed to add to your personal power and productivity.)
Procrastinators can benefit from eating chocolate. At least, that’s what the scientific research indicates!
Hard to believe? Read on and you’ll learn an interesting (and fun) way to beat procrastination and get things done.
Rewards help you build habits. Habits let you do things automatically, without thinking too much before you get started. Once you begin a task, it’s easier to finish it. In this way, you’ll stop procrastinating and achieve more.
What makes for a good reward?
Chocolate!
Yes, really. Many procrastinators love to eat chocolate. Turning that craving for chocolate into the basis for forming good habits and establishing powerful rituals is a great approach to beat procrastination.
Bad habits are easy to acquire. That’s because they offer you some immediate reward. So if you reward yourself for acquiring a good habit, it will become a powerful reinforcement for the same behavior in the future.
Every new habit has 3 components.
- The cue, which sets off an automatic behavior.
- The routine, which is the behavior itself.
- The reward, which follows the action.
A reward indicates to your brain that this particular sequence of activity is desirable. Whenever a cue sets off a behavior and is rewarded, the loop gets reinforced – and easier to repeat.
No, procrastinators don’t always have to eat chocolate to beat procrastination. Any other enjoyable reward works just as nicely.
Muscling through a pattern of behavior through sheer willpower works in an opposite way. You are essentially teaching yourself NOT to accomplish things – because you’re not likely to be rewarded for it.
If you force yourself into an action, and as a consequence you are forced to experience unpleasantness (of any kind), the signal you send your brain is that the action is not a good one to repeat. Procrastination is the natural result.
Rewards are powerful to overcome procrastination.
Having a supportive network of friends who will encourage and help you past any obstacles and starting problems can also help you stop procrastinating.
Still, as a procrastinator myself, I like the idea of eating more chocolate to beat procrastination!
I’m also publishing an ebook that will present a number of other hardcore strategies to beat procrastination. It’ll be available at the introductory discount price for only a while longer. Click to get it here.
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