 So hey guys it's David here again and in this video I'm going to give you an explanation, a very simple one as to why you procrastinate in your life. Okay so as you probably know from the thumbnail of this video my area is psychotherapy and I'm going to give you a psychotherapist's view of procrastination. There are a lot of different ways to that people in psychology have described procrastination and why it takes place you know habit formation all that sort of stuff self-talk etc etc right even as simple as CBT stuff where it goes into like time management skills poor time management skills all that sort of stuff but the thing I like about the psychotherapist's view of procrastination at least me I'll speak for myself here is that it offers a very very simple explanation for procrastination okay and it is really that it comes down to low self-esteem okay that is why we procrastinate in life low self-esteem or you could even say a lack of self-respect that stems from low self-esteem okay now what do I mean by that well with procrastination you know procrastination as it relates to maybe work okay or some project that you think is you consider it to be important but maybe not entirely desirable you know you're not exactly looking forward to it but it's something that you think you've decided should be done should be completed right it's important for you so what happens with the self-image that doesn't like itself the you know the part of the self that is loathing self-loathing it uses this as an opportunity for punishment self-punishment right so it takes what it's actually doing is it's taking that project we'll say and it's making the project far bigger than it really is and it's using it as a way to punish the self okay there are there's a way to figure out if this is true or not or there's an indication that tells me that this is true when you procrastinate okay be honest here for a second when you procrastinate about something in your life what is the recurring emotion that comes up so think about it maybe you're you're at home and you're sitting on the couch and you know you know what now is the time to take action on this project this project how do you feel emotionally what is the emotion that comes up for you most people that I've asked this question of they all tell me the same thing and the emotion is guilt okay guilt now that is very revealing why is that revealing well who in society do we consider to be guilty okay think about that for a sec generally we think they are criminals okay people who are less than okay somehow defective people maybe right they are guilty and what do we as a society tend to think that should happen to the guilty the guilty should be punished right the guilty should be punished so if you think if you're continually procrastinating and you're feeling the emotion of guilt that says that there's a part of you that feels guilty right a guilty a guilty person should be punished now if you really want to punish that person you can use anything in your life to help make that happen and it can be as simple as a project that isn't really a big deal but can be turned into this big deal to punish the person now we tend to think that we know no we feel guilty because we're not doing the project okay the truth is that guilt was there before the project ever entered the situation okay the project came along and that's just an excuse that we use to help punish ourselves because there's a sense of guilt there because of a poor self-image an incorrect self-image I might add okay it's not a real one it's uh it's something that's from the past that we can let go of okay so bear in mind the reason I'm kind of talking about this is as soon as you figure out well why do I keep procrastinating even though I know what's hurting my own life why do I keep doing it over and over again well if you figure that out you won't do it anymore okay because people say I do it and I can't figure why I keep doing this and as Freud said the role of psychotherapy is to make the unconscious conscious or figure it out bring awareness to it and it'll it'll go away so once you figure out well I keep doing this behavior and I keep feeling guilty about it and we think the behavior leads to the guilt what if it's a cycle that you're you're not right about and it's the guilt that is leading to the behavior the procrastination okay so as soon as you realize that you begin to say you know what enough of this enough of this and the beautiful thing is then you stop procrastinating because you stop see you start to see the project which is just a small part of your life not a big deal just something that can be done quite easily okay you start to see it for what it is and it becomes far more doable you just basically say I'm not going to do it to myself anymore okay because I see how I've been using this project in this procrastinating pattern to hurt myself because I feel I need to be punished okay so that is kind of a general outline of the psychotherapeutic view of procrastination okay not everyone agrees with it personally I think I tend to think it's spot on um so watch out for the guilt watch out for the guilt that's coming up for you as you don't meet the standards you set for yourself in terms of a project and completion of it okay and watch how big of a deal you tend to make out of a project why maybe we want it to be a big deal right maybe we want it to be a big deal so we can have something to berate ourselves with when it isn't completed so as with most things just bring self-awareness bring awareness to the emotion the emotional reaction that comes when you procrastinate and be with the guilt okay and just start to say okay I see a pattern here I keep doing this and I feel guilty okay that's step one but that is the biggest step once you do that you'll begin to realize you know you'll start to see through this so um there are a few thoughts on procrastination and the psychotherapeutic approach and uh food for thought I think and uh hope you enjoyed it guys and I will talk to you soon take care