Ben Posner’s Reviews > Do It Now!: Break the Procrastination Habit > Status Update

Well practiced habits of mind stick like glue. This partially explains why people dont simply intellectually command their negative patterns of thought to change. Instead, time and well directed experiences contribute to the formation of new perspectives. Knowing this is a part of the process can help to defuse premature conclusions of failure.

Awareness about how to drive an automobile is different from driving. Reading books on how to drive will not make you an expert driver if you have not driven before. You can, however, get from a book ideas about how to steer your car or other aspects of driving. You can prepare to drive successfully, but you can develop on-the-road driving skills only by setting driving as your goal and then practicing driving.

Change and development are processes, not events.

We are myth-making creatures with great capabilities of inventing fictions to explain reality. We do this every day, and often we are unaware of what we are doing. Fictions weaken our action decisions and strengthen avoidance decisions.

While dwelling on our past, we neglect our present and sabotage our future!

Procrastination can be a defense against fear of failure, inadequacy, a sense of loss of control, or other unpleasant psychological malady. It can occur because of negative beliefs about the onerous consequences of succeeding at a task. This is sometimes known as fear of success.

People with low frustration tolerance... tend to be 'sensation sensitive,' living in fear of discomfort and intolerant of their own bad feelings. They often over focus in their tensions and magnify them... People with low frustration tolerance act like comfort junkies, who demand that they get what they want without a hassle.

At other times, we may absorb ourselves in the mundane to avoid higher-level challenges. When we lose ourselves in mundane details, we simultaneously sidetrack ourselves from finding ways to do such developmental activities as expressing our feelings, advancing our interests, and overcoming onerous problem patterns such as procrastination.