Breaking The Cycle 

By Armari K.Mayo 

The Hopeless Cycle… 

Procrastination is word tossed around a lot these days, and it’s no wonder as to why that is, about a quarter of adults procrastinate and nearly half of students do as well according to a 2014 study. Despite the fact that most of us at some point in our lives, it can be easy for it to feel like something that is unique to us, but it is something that is rather normal. With that said I myself have often been caught in the endless cycle that is procrastinate, it’s a song and dance that I know all to well, you miss one assignment then another and another and before you know it your ten feet deep in work, and it can be hard enough as is to keep up with your current work. Well if you find yourself there i’m here to tell you that first of all you’re not alone, and two to help us all find ways to break this seemingly endless Cycle.

You’re not alone…

First of all let me reiterate that you are not alone according to yada yada official stats, especially if you’re a student. Not only that , I interviewed 6 different students here at Tahoma to ask about their experiences with procrastination. Every single one of them said they have at one point or another struggled with procrastination. As far as their experiences go they all said a lot of similar things. When asked what their experience was like all described their mental health not being well, describing feelings of stress, even anxiety, and it often feeling hopeless, one saying that they “ felt lesser to everyone else”.  One student described her experience like this “it was stressful, it was like I get a little break but when it came down to it it wasn’t worth that little break, because by the end of the semester I had all these assignments piled up”  many others reported similar experiences as this, but if this “little break” can lead to so many big repercussions then the question is  why do we do it?

As to why…

Procrastination has very obvious consequences but we tend to do it anyway, it is a very irrational behavior, yet equally fascinating. It left me wondering why we procrastinate? As to why that is, I decided to ask students what they felt the cause of procrastination with a lot responses vary with some attributing laziness but all of them attributing mental health to it as, with one saying “ I think for some people its laziness but for the majority of people our most likely going through something”. Many said when they procrastinate they often felt their mental health was the cause, some saying they suffered from depression and anxiety which only got worse as things piled up.Some said there are many external factors at the time with things at home not going so well or being simply overwhelmed by school. The most detailed response we got was a student describing an experience saying “I think a lot of people have alot going on in their lives and big assignments may be more in the way of dealing with those things right now. there could be bigger stuff going on and you’re going to pay attention to stuff in your home life rather than your assignments, I think it’s also a way of coping with things if you procrastinate. It’s kinda your way just to settle with the things you’re going through in your life”. It seems that many of these students attributed external factors rather than internal, which is counter intuitive then one may think, however what do the experts say on this? According to the researchers at Mclean Hospital, procrastination is linked to several mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety and ADHD, saying thatProcrastination is connected to negative functioning and risks to mental health. People who procrastinate tend to have high levels of anxiety as well as poor impulse control”. So with that it seems that many of these students’ intuition is correct that there is indeed a correlation between one’s mental health and procrastination. Even so I think procrastination is often linked to external factors, life often gets out of control and it can be too much for anyone to handle even so how it started may not be your fault and even understandable, but out of it is your responsibility. Like many students said earlier their mental health only got worse the more they procrastinated and got more and more overwhelmed over time saying “ it affected my social Life, and my mental health got even worse because when you’re procrastinating you can’t think about anything else with No time to debrief your emotions”. The more you put stuff off, the less you can attend to the important things, like your friends or mental health. Even if external factors may have caused your seemingly endless cycle of procrastination  they aren’t going to get better until you end it. But there is hope , you can break this cycle and here’s how.

Breaking  the cycle…

As for solutions I once again asked the students. Many of the students seemingly found a way to breathe cycles so I wanted to hear how. I got a variety of different answers, one saying that keeping the end goal in mind, knowing that if you get it done now you will be free later is a good initial motivation. A surprising pattern I noticed was the majority of them said they write stuff down and scheduled things in a planner, based on their stories. It acted as almost a way to hold them accountable. Our friends at Mclean Hospital give 5 solutions, one of which coincides with what the students said that tips become more organized, suggesting planning your days more meaning your time and writing stuff down, creating a work space or just a couple of ways to complement this. ANother simple but very important tip is simply getting started both the students and Experts acknowledged the simple fact that the hardest part is often getting started, Mclean says one way of doing this is to decorate a small amount of time to a task even just 15 minutes, and you will find once you start you get momentum and keep going. Other things they suggested were to break things down , tasks can seem very intimidating but chunking them can help. The last two tips Mcelan listed were more mental but still important, first understand your not lazy and that often it’s not your fault, we often can get into a hopeless mindset when we attack our character in such a way, the last thing is motivate yourself, don’t resent these task but they say to try and think positively be “opened minded” as my yoga teacher would say. One last thing I want to leave you with is not only to pick yourself up but those around you. If you notice your friend struggling don’t mock them or shame them but encourage them. One student’s suggestion stayed with me and that was to ” ask For help, go to someone that you trust because if they understand it they may judge youtube overall their help would be good with you. A lot of people frown upon falling behind but getting someone to hold you accountable helps a lot of people”. To further elaborate on this the students also felt that teachers can play a role in helping. Often they said they felt intimidated by their teachers, they were too scared to talk with them or ask for help either because of how the teacher presented themselves or teachers in the past being rather disagreeable. I would say in my personal experience teachers being too agreeable also caused problems. Overall I don’t think the role of teachers or parents even should be ignored, these our the people who guide us after all, and the ones who our our example of what to be, it can help to be approachable and understanding so your students or kids will come to you and communicate when help is needed. 

My Hope…

I hope you found this helpful and that you can take comfort in knowing that there are so many others who have gone through this, it’s nothing to be ashamed of if you’re not lazy, and that many of these people manage to get back on their feet. You can break this cycle, and it is my hope that some of these tips and experiences can help. If this is something that you haven’t struggled with as much or didn’t understand i Hope that maybe I helped achieve some understanding and curbed any judgment you had for people, because this is a very human thing. Anyway thank you for reading, if your struggling know that there is hope.