One of my biggest downfalls and faults in life is procrastination. Many students are very familiar with this and fight every day to overcome it. However, it is silent and deadly, and sometimes you don’t even notice it as it creeps in and attempts to watch our dreams fail. Most of the time, we succumb to it, believing that despite this overwhelming need to postpone important tasks, that we will have the strength to get it done before it is too late.

Contrary to popular reliefs, procrastination is not a result of laziness or lack of intelligence Usually, it is linked to anxiety and lack of motivation. Even knowing that if I sat down and started working that it would be fine and I would feel relief once it was finished, I can’t bring myself to do it. The mere thought of having to do something would fill me with dread and usually I let that feeling win until I have no other option but to start. The panic of the deadline looming, just a few hours away, has always brought about enough motivation, even if it was just a small inkling, to allow me to work. The root cause of procrastination, along with anxiety and lack of motivation, is the fear of failure and self-doubt. Procrastinating behaviour is usually prompted by those of us doubting our competency and abilities, because the constant thought that “it’s not good enough” is constantly running through our heads. The self-awareness that procrastinating would not make doing it any easier and that it is not a good idea to do also makes us even worse because we know it won’t matter, we will still procrastinate. Often, I even find myself procrastinating letting myself feel bad for procrastinating finishing the task, in attempts to stop myself from feeling guilty.

I have found that success can still be achieved even after procrastinating and finishing an important task the night before or the day it is due. This always reinforced the belief that my work was better when done in a panic, even if it was done in a rush and with little concern with quality. In a way, the relief of finishing an assignment, after scrambling for an hour, rushing against time, always felt more rewarding than finishing it days before. At the end of the day, it did not matter if I started an hour before the deadline or a week before, I would still be unhappy and disappointed with the outcome, because of my self-doubt.

Even though it was something that plagued my studies since the early high school years, procrastination turned into a whole other beast when school became online. It became all too easy to put off all my important tasks until tomorrow or the day before it was due, because now I had all these distractions around me. Now having all those responsibilities and assignments after months in quarantine savouring the freedom of not having to do anything, it became even harder to find the motivation again.

After years of schooling and procrastinating my way through those years, it feels too late to start the process of overcoming it. Self-worth is not an easy thing to come by, and often takes a lot of time to nurture. Fear is what keeps from doing what we need to do, therefore achieving the results that would help with our self-worth and our drive. Being scared to do something because you don’t know how it will turn out or being scared that it’s not going to be good enough are usually two things most of us can relate to feeling. However, most of the time the only way to combat that is by doing it anyways. I have learned that putting my all into something, whether it will end up being good enough or not, feels better in the end than not doing it at all. Getting a B grade, or even a C, is better than a zero. Any effort is better than no effort, and that reflects on the quality of your work and how much time you’re willing to put into it. In my experience, rushing to finish it last minute is not a result of my carelessness but rather because I care too much, about failing or achieving success but maybe never be able to replicate it.

Accountability allows you to fight against the temptation to push it aside. Having someone, a friend or a classmate, to check in or sit with me while i work can make a huge difference in my worth ethic and quality of my work. It has been my only saving grace during times when I lacked the motivation to even open a work document. At the end of the day, all you can do is forgive yourself for doing it, and finding something or someone that pushes you and reassures you that sometimes doing anything is better than doing nothing.