Why You Keep Procrastinating (It’s Not What You Think)

You’re not procrastinating… you’re out of alignment.

Procrastination has a way of turning into identity:
“I’m lazy.” “I lack discipline.” “I always do this.”

But what if that’s not true?

In this episode, I break down a completely different way to understand procrastination—not as failure, but as feedback.

Drawing on both lived experience and teachings from Abraham Hicks, I share a simple 3-part framework to help you move forward with clarity, rather than pressure:

• Why real decisions create momentum
• How missing information keeps you stuck
• The difference between healthy deadlines and toxic urgency

I also share a personal story that changed how I think about delay—and how sometimes, what looks like procrastination is actually intelligence guiding you toward a better outcome.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, second-guessing yourself, or forcing action that doesn’t feel right… this episode will give you a new lens—and a practical way forward.

Because you don’t overcome procrastination by pushing harder…

You overcome it by getting into alignment first—and then acting.

🔗 If this resonated, follow the podcast and share it with someone who’s been feeling stuck.

Transcript

A Guilt Free Look At Procrastination

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Before we begin, I just want to give you a heads up on today's topic, which is about procrastination. Something that's been no stranger to me, but we're going to talk about it in a light way and without any guilt. And in this episode, I'm going to share with you some insights and my own tips to help you move through it so you can save time, money, and energy. Hello and welcome to the James Grandstrom Podcast Super Soul Model Series. How often do you keep putting that thing off that you really need to do? Maybe it's trying to finish a project that you've already started, or maybe it's something that you know is important to you. For whatever reason, do you just seem to try and avoid it because it's easier to avoid than dealing with it. Now we all procrastinate at some level. We always put things off, but I want to share with you exactly what procrastination is rather than what it isn't. We often seem to label procrastination as a bad thing, and in this episode I want to share with you what it really is. So procrastination isn't self-sabotage. Procrastination isn't that you are doing something wrong. Procrastination isn't a lack of discipline or that you're lazy. It's none of those things. Even though you might want to label them as that. So if you're delaying something that you think you need to do, the only reason why you're delaying it is because you haven't aligned your energy yet. And that's it. So procrastination isn't a bad thing. It just quite means you haven't got your energy in the right place yet to start taking action. Now I've seen this time and time again in my own experience. The amount of times I put things off, even starting this podcast, I had the idea for it ten years prior to beginning. And it was only when I banged my head on my forehead right in the middle when I was swimming one summer that I thought, you know what, now's the time. I have all the information, I've helped some people. It feels as though what I can share, some of the story, some of the philosophy, some of the wisdoms I've learned. And wouldn't it be cool to speak to some of the greatest minds on the planet to be able to share their wisdom and knowledge in a conversation? That's when I began. So it had to be a culmination of ideas to get to a final decision. And as soon as you decide, that's when everything starts to click into place. So procrastination isn't that you're lazy, just to repeat, it isn't that you're self-sabotaging, and it certainly isn't that you have a lack of discipline, even though you might want to label that. And it isn't any of those things, it just means you haven't got all your energetic ducks in a row, so to speak. So there's a three-part process to being able to eliminate procrastination. And the first part to eliminate procrastination, number one, is to ask yourself the question, have I got a clear decision? Because if you haven't got a clear decision yet, you're not gonna make it. And decision comes from the Latin word decidire, which means to cut off. And when you cut off all other eventualities, that is when you go for it. So sometimes it means, in one case, in my experience, I was moving. So when I wanted to move, I knew I was gonna move. So I told my landlord, and then I did the work to try and find a beautiful new home, which I did. But it had to get to the point to say, do you know what? At the end of this contract, I'm actually gonna leave. I'm not gonna stay. And then you take the action and then things fall into place. Sometimes we need to make decisions, and sometimes we don't make those decisions because we haven't yet got number two, which is have I got all the information? Have I got all the details? Have I got the sufficient amount of data? Have I collected sufficient amounts of data and understanding to make number one, which is the clear decision? And usually that's where we sit on the fence in procrastination. We sit on that energetic limbo fence, so to speak, of procrastination because we haven't got all the information. It's far easier to make a great decision when you've got all the information. But if you don't, you won't. Another thing is a lot of people may be having started a project, but they haven't finished it because they haven't got all the information or the resources, so they can't finish it. And we stay in that space until we have the resources, all the information to make that decision. So if there's anything that you've started and haven't finished, have you got the resources and the information to be able to make that final decision to finish it? And that's really important because we can never get to where we want to go unless we've got all the information. It's a bit like a GPS system. Until you know your outcome, until you've decided that's where I'm going, you're gonna be driving around in your car with that GPS signal with no final destination. Know what you want, know where you're going, and then things become a lot easier. But unless you have all that information, you're just gonna be going round in circles, and that's really what procrastination is. Like I said, an energetic limbo. Now, part three of this process to eliminate procrastination is this. If I'm doing this as a matter of urgency, if I'm doing this under duress, then that's why we often don't want to do it. Because that means you're honouring yourself. Now, if you can really understand this energetically, you're really having a bit of a breakthrough moment. Anytime you do something under a state of urgency or duress or stress, it's never a fulfilling outcome. Because in order to have successful outcomes, we need to have calm and happy energy along the way. Because you can never have a successful outcome with an unhappy, stressful journey. It never happens. So if you're actually putting and procrastinating or putting something off because you feel that there's a matter of urgency, but you're lacking the first two, the data collection and a clear decision, you're actually doing yourself a favor because you're listening to yourself, you're listening to your body, you're listening to your intuition to say, I don't act under stress, I don't act when it feels urgent but doesn't feel right. And I've seen myself do this so many times, I'm like, oh, I know I need to take action, but I just feel like this is stressful, so I'm gonna just wait. And when I've gone back to number two, which is I'm gonna get some more information before I can make a really good decision, that's when things begin to move energetically, because to decide means to cut off. But we can't decide until we've got all the information, and we certainly don't want to act when it feels urgent or stressful. But sometimes we do need to honor deadlines, but when you honor deadlines, it's because you know that you're making a decision that it wants to be complete. It's different from trying to make a decision that where you haven't got all the information. Two very different things. So we only really procrastinate when we don't have all the information and we don't have a clear decision. So ask yourself these questions. Am I putting something off or am I procrastinating because I haven't got all the information? Am I putting something off or a big project that I'm trying to finish, or maybe it's a career move that I'm looking to do? Am I putting it off in fear that I'm gonna feel insecure if I do that? It's only when you get all that relevant information that clarity allows you to make that good decision. I had my brother-in-law and my sister were looking to renovate their property. But what happened along their journey of procrastination? I remember my sisters going, Oh, he's procrastinating so much. But actually, he was listening to his guidance system. He was putting something off because it didn't quite feel right. And when they had the architect's drawing come back, they were offered a quote and they were right, okay, we're going to accept that quote. And then suddenly, a month later, someone came back and saying, Now the quote's gone higher because of certain materials have gone up, and it was significantly higher than the original quote. So my brother-in-law delayed that renovation. Now, fast forward two years later, they never did the renovation, and over Christmas, something happened in the house, and there was a water leak, and now they were forced into a s situation to renovate a part of that house, the plumbing to be sorted, the carpets to be sorted, and the kitchen to be sorted. Significantly cheaper than what they would have done should they have renovated the house, but vital nonetheless. This was actually a better outcome for them than it would be if they renovated the entire property. So this has been a bit of a win-win, and sometimes life works like that. When we put things off, we often think, oh, something bad's going to be happening, but it isn't really because maybe a few of the pieces need to fall into place. So we have to be aware whether we're delaying something on purpose because it's not quite right, which is what my brother-in-law and my family were doing, or you're delaying something because you haven't got all the information yet. You haven't got a clear decision yet. If you're look really looking to make that career move, are you doing it under duress or are you because you don't like your work, or are you doing it because it really lights you up? Because if it really lights you up, you're going to want to step that step to it. But if you're doing it to try and get out of a situation you're unhappy with, that's a different energy. We move to what lights us up with enthusiasm. And we try to prevent like fear and stress and chaos from what we don't like, and sometimes that's a delay. So we need to gather more information before we can make that executive decision, that really good decision for us. So you've got to be mindful of where you stand. So, really, what I'm saying, and what I've understood from Abraham Hicks's teaching, is procrastination, in short, is just a misalignment of energy. It means your energy isn't quite lined up yet. And in order to get your energy lined up, you need to feel better first before taking action. So alignment first, action second. But if you can find any way to feel better about that situation before anything on the external has changed, meaning sometimes data collection, meaning looking at it from a different angle, meaning, can I do something about this or look at it from a different perspective that will serve me in the long run? Like with me in my podcast, I looked at it and thought, I've got far more to give than if I just than if I were just to hold it back and did nothing. And now is the time to be able to share because it's easier online, it's there's more information, there's more people I can connect with, social media is now taking off more than it did in the year 2010. You know, all of these things started to make sense to me, so I could make a decision that that's what I was going to begin doing in the summer of 2019. And here we are, 200 plus episodes with some of the most incredible guests. And that is thanks to you. So we procrastinate only because sometimes we don't have all the information. So we give procrastination a bad rap when in actual fact all it is is just your energy hasn't lined up yet. So the solutions to be able to end procrastination is just really this. Try and find something to feel good about first. Think about the situation that you want completed. Maybe it's a project, maybe it's starting a new career, maybe it's moving house. All of these things are things that I've done and noticed I've only put them off because I didn't have all the vital information to make an informed best decision. And when something makes financial sense, you're gonna take action. When completing a project feels satisfying because you know it's gonna be embraced by other people in a positive way and you're gonna feel proud of it, it's worth completing. And we don't complete projects only because we don't feel enthused about them anymore. They were exciting to start with, but now it's lost its juice. It's a bit like you've chewed all the flavor out of chewing gum. And until you start finishing that project with a sense of satisfaction, with a sense of eagerness in imagining it getting out to the right people, or feeling truly satisfied with your art or your music or your building or whatever it is that you're doing, you've got to see the end in mind, thinking, Do you know what? This is gonna be so satisfying to finish. Because you will never be truly satisfied until you see something go from start to finish. This is part of the human psyche. It's so easy to start things, but so difficult to finish them. And we only procrastinate or put things off or delay things just because we've lost that initial momentum. And it's because somewhere down the line we lost that eagerness of the whole project, really recognizing that it's a process, and often you hear the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Just remember, halfway down the journey, you're thinking, is this ever gonna finish? I remember running the marathon several times and thinking halfway through, it's like, how much longer have I got to keep running? And you just keep going. The body is quick to give up, but the mind has to be the one that keeps you going. And eventually when you pass the finish line, if any of you have ever run a marathon or run a 10K or you've done something to challenge yourself. It's such a relief once you've finished. It's such a relief. It's such satisfaction to know that you've followed it the whole way through. And the only reason why we followed it the whole way through is because the meaning that you had about the decision was greater than the delay. So sometimes we delay things just because we haven't got all the things in place. And so you can end procrastination by having more detail, by having more information and data collection, and you're gonna f finish it in a time that suits you because there's a sense of eagerness and enthusiasm about your journey instead of a sense of urgency. Deadlines are one thing, urgency and stress is another, two very different energies. Sometimes we need to complete the deadline for sure, but that doesn't mean you're procrastinating. It's only when you get clear decisions that you end procrastination, because then when you have made a decision, you're gonna act. And in order to have the outcomes you really want, you have to act, but in order to get those, you have to know clearly where it is that you're going. I hope you've enjoyed this episode, and I hope that somehow this idea of understanding what procrastination is, which is it's feedback, rather than thinking that it's self-sabotage or a lack of discipline or perhaps even laziness, isn't it? It's just feedback. It's just feedback to say you need to get your energy in alignment again. And then when you know that, you won't beat yourself up and you won't be hard on yourself, recognizing there's a reason why I'm delaying this, and it's a good thing. So now I can follow the formula to find myself back into positive momentum and find my way back into flow again. Until the next time, I wish you a wonderful week ahead and green lights all the way. Thanks for listening, and if this episode helped you, share it with someone you care about. It might just give them a little clarity or a fresh perspective today.