Conscientious + Procrastination = Guilt

I consider myself a conscientious person, always looking to do what I think is right and also wishing I do it well. It gives me a lot of pride and satisfaction when I work on my tasks but when I don’t, it hurts.

I don’t mean it in a physical sense but rather, an emotional one. The guilt eats me up on the inside because I somehow feel I shouldn’t be resting, I shouldn’t be enjoying myself and instead, I should be back at work, hustling and grinding to pave the way for future success.

The feeling consumes me and it makes leisure time with my friends, family and myself uninspiring and this feeling certainly intensifies when I procrastinate. It’s a part of me that I don’t like because it destroys the significance of any non-work related activities.

Putting off work isn’t necessarily a bad thing but my mind makes it out to be. Over the years I’ve struggled with this problem and I’m sure I’m not the only one out there. Many of you who share the same trait probably understand how it feels and how frustrating it can be.

However, over the last few months I’ve begun to rediscover the joy in the activities I feel guilty doing and I think that’s due to the change in my perspectives. I haven’t change my overarching goals but I have changed my views on how I would go about achieving them.

Learning to incorporate the other aspects of life with the perspective that they actually work to better your goal, rather than to hamper it. Exercise for example, is the only proven means of slowing IQ degeneration. At the age of around 20, our general intelligence starts to deteriorate even though it remains an essential component throughout our lives.

Taking on such a holistic outlook on life has indeed allowed me to transform the way I see non-work related activities. It’s not just the ends to which you seek that you should be concerned with, the means to which you achieve these ends should be of concern as well.

So next time you have an urge or an impulse to do something you might think is unrelated to your goal, you might want to change your thoughts and feelings about it. You’ll never know if they may serve a significant purpose like sleeping and exercising.