Here's your detailed report.
Your Main Procrastination Type is Distraction
What is it?
The way you tend to procrastinate is by distracting yourself from doing the thing that you most want to do. According to behavioral engineering expert Nir Eyal, a distraction is an action that takes us away from what we really want to do. If we know what we want to do, then why do we distract ourselves? Let’s find out below.
Why does it happen?
The answer lies somewhere in how we're wired to be as human beings. The root cause of human behaviour is pain-avoidance, meaning we act to escape discomfort. Even when we are looking for pleasurable activities, what we're really doing is relieving ourselves of the pain of wanting.
When we have goals that we don't know how to achieve, we feel psychological discomfort in the form of negative emotions. This discomfort can materialize as overwhelm, the feeling of 'not being good enough', the fear of failure, and having thoughts like "I can't do this", etc.
When we experience these negative emotions, our biological 'pain-avoidance' mechanism takes over and makes us seek short-term relief instead. This short-term relief often manifests itself in the form of excessive use of video games, social media, cell phones, binge-watching content, etc.
What does it feel like?
The paradox here is that the short-term relief will never make up for the lack of achievement of our goals. Because the longer we avoid or put off working on the things we really want to do, the heavier and stronger the psychological discomfort. Which further drives us deeper into distractions and seeking more and more short-term pleasure and instant gratification. It becomes a vicious cycle.
This brings us to a paralyzed physical state where we feel trapped, unable to move, knowing that we don't want to waste our lives playing video games or endlessly going down YouTube rabbit holes but we can't get ourselves to stop. We become stuck in an endless loop of:
Your Possible Root Cause is Fixed Mindset
What is it?
If you are someone with a fixed mindset, you tend to hold the belief: "I either have what it takes or I don't." You are likely to believe that you are either ‘born with it’ or you’re not and there’s no way to change that.
According to Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, a person with a fixed mindset believes that their competence, intelligence, talents and capabilities are innate, fixed qualities.
Why does it happen?
Having a fixed mindset is more a set of limiting beliefs than it is an actual physical barrier to success. Dweck believes that fixed mindsets are cultivated early on in life often through the way children were raised or through their experiences in school.
A Fixed Mindset is something that is picked up by children along the way because that’s what they were taught growing up. It is the commonly held beliefs that the children were taught along the way.
For example: Children who are taught (either directly or indirectly) that they should look smart instead of loving the learning process tend to develop a fixed mindset. These children become more concerned with how they appear to others, how they're being judged, and that they might not live up to expectations.
What does it feel like?
Children with Fixed Mindsets grow up believing that they have something to prove. That they must appear intelligent, smart, educated, competent at all times and are secretly fearful not living up to these expectations they have internalized.
It's sad because these expectations were never theirs to begin with. They were imposed on them and later internalized by them. Once grown up, these children no longer have that external critic telling them how they "should be" because now a part of them has become that critic to themselves.
Their sense of self-worth and well-being depends on how they are being judged by others. They live with a constant need for validation through every situation or circumstance.
"I've seen so many people with this one consuming goal of proving themselves in the classroom, in their careers, and in their relationships. Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?" — CAROL DWECK
Living in this fear of not being perceived "the right way" or having this constant need for self validation can be a very lonely, tiresome and exhausting experience. It becomes difficult to open up to people and make genuine connections because of the looming fear in the back of your mind of not wanting to lose face or be seen as "less than what you're supposed to be."
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