{"id":5128,"date":"2016-12-19T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T17:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/?p=5128"},"modified":"2016-12-18T23:42:28","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T04:42:28","slug":"pain-putting-things-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2016\/12\/pain-putting-things-off.html","title":{"rendered":"The Pain of Putting Things Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question:<\/strong> I need some kind of new motivation for doing things that I just don’t feel like doing, even though I know I need to do them. Where do I look?<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong> All procrastination is rooted in resistance. The mind imagines how unpleasant a task will be by comparing it to past tasks, and then resists its own comparative findings. If we are asleep to this inner dynamic, we unconsciously accept its findings and are defeated by it! Try doing what you don’t want to do by going into it with a wish to learn something new about it. Newness is life’s principle. On the other side of resistance is the flow of real life.<\/p>\n

Question:<\/strong> I find myself constantly justifying putting off what really needs to be done. Parts of me convince me that I’m entitled to procrastinate; yet the end result is always that I suffer over the inevitable consequences!<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong> All acts of justification are your way of saying, “I’m in charge and can handle this,” which holds the promise of, “Tomorrow I won’t be the way I am today.” As long as you can justify yourself, you will have mastered your pain. But the only thing that is the master is the pain.<\/p>\n

Until you uncover the deception in self-justification, you can’t grow. When you continue to justify yourself, you allow the lower aspects of yourself to act out for the higher ones. Procrastination is just one of many forms of justification, which include complaining, “if only,” and all negative states that seem to validate the thoughts and feelings that are stealing your life.<\/p>\n

Refuse to take part in considering yourself from these negative states. Begin to die psychologically to these aspects of yourself that have a death grip on you. Giving good reasons for your procrastination has nothing to do with freedom from it. Real change begins with running out of ways to justify yourself.<\/p>\n

You can begin to have another kind of relationship in the moment. When you no longer find comfort in putting things off, you can begin to understand the mechanism of justification and how it makes your experiences line up to your views of how you see what’s going on. Realize the need for a higher life and stop procrastinating. Dare to bare the feeling of what will happen when you don’t cover up the lie of your presently painful life.<\/p>\n

Question:<\/strong> Oftentimes I know the right thing to do, and yet I don’t do it — for example — rather than continuing to work, I give in to being lazy. How can I develop more inner discipline?<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong> We are empowered to walk away from self-defeating behaviors in direct portion to our ability to see these same behaviors as being such. Start by recognizing that the person who procrastinates within you is the same person who then punishes you for your irresponsibility. These seem like two separate selves to our sleep nature, but they are secretly one self whose sole purpose is to keep us in its ever-darkening circle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: I need some kind of new motivation for doing things that I just don’t feel like doing, even though I know I need to do them. Where do I look? Answer: All procrastination is rooted in resistance. The mind imagines how unpleasant a task will be by comparing it to past tasks, and then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[591,7],"tags":[2641,2640,184,2642,153,2639],"class_list":["post-5128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health-2","category-self-remembering-awareness","tag-half-effort","tag-half-measures","tag-justification","tag-laziness","tag-procrastination","tag-putting-things-off"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Pain of Putting Things Off - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2016\/12\/pain-putting-things-off.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Pain of Putting Things Off - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Question: I need some kind of new motivation for doing things that I just don’t feel like doing, even though I know I need to do them. Where do I look? Answer: All procrastination is rooted in resistance. 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His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. 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