Page 24 - End Procrastination Now Get it Done with a Proven Psychological Approach

xxii Introduction

Among other causes, anxiety can ignite procrastination. When you
are anxious, you look to the future with apprehension. A threat is
coming. You believe that you can’t control the situation. You have
an urge to diverge to a safer activity. “Fear of failure” is commonly
used to describe this procrastination process. However, “failure
anxiety” is a better phrase.
Perfectionism can provoke anxious thinking and spur procras-
tination. You may act as if you believe that you are either a success
or a failure based on your ability to meet high performance expec-
tations. If you don’t think that you have the resources to meet your
lofty standards, this belief can kick procrastination into gear. How-
ever, you can help yourself dump this self-sabotage by eliminating
the idea of failure.
Beyond taxes and death, there are few guarantees in life. Fail-
ure, or falling short of your standards for success, is another guar-
anteed area. This will, from time to time, happen. It’s how you deal
with the inevitable setbacks and failures in life that makes the dif-
ference.
A no-failure philosophy can make a difference if it helps free
you from inhibitions and fears about undertaking something new,
difficult, or complicated that you might normally put off. Before
looking at the idea behind a nonfailure philosophy, let’s look at
some ideas about failure:

• Failure is like a passing breeze among everything else that is
part of nature. It is a normal part of living and learning.
You don’t make a sale every time you try. You may take a bar
examination more than once. You have no luck as a profes-
sional Bigfoot investigator. During a recessionary period,
your stock portfolio gets hit.
• Some failures have consequences. The person who wishes to
get drunk without ill effects is living in a dream world. In the
world of commerce, failing to produce is likely to result in
someone else getting your job.