Procrastination: Why We Do It - Issues with Authority

You may procrastinate as a way of rebelling against authority. If you do not respect the person making the request, do not recognize their authority, or resent their authority you may procrastinate in completing requests as a way of rebelling.

It’s also very common for procrastinators to have been raised in very authoritarian homes where every action was regulated by a parent or guardian. If your behavior is totally controlled by external forces, you never learn to regulate yourself. So people who grew up in authoritarian homes often have problems with self-regulation in many areas of their lives including; drug and alcohol use, promiscuity, overeating, and following the rules in general. People from these types of homes may procrastinate as a form of rebellion against perceived authority or against submitting to authoritarian type rules.

To overcome this form of procrastination it is important that you examine your issues with authority. This examination should include your own internal dialogues with yourself and how you react to external demands from other people.

It is important that you are not authoritarian with yourself. We often internalize the messages which are used in our homes when we are growing up. If you were raised with a lot of “have tos” and “musts” pay very close attention to your own internal dialogue. If you are using the same terms with yourself you may want to change your Self Talk. Change “I have to mow the lawn today” to “I want to mow the lawn today because…” and fill in the blank with your own reason for wanting the lawn mowed. This will eliminate the feeling that you are being forced or commanded to mow the lawn and make it your own choice. Doing so will reduce resistance to completing the task. Unfortunately, this only works with your own internal dialogue. If the “have tos” or “musts” are coming from a spouse or an employer it gets a bit trickier. If you find that changing your own internal dialogue is effective, sit down and talk to your spouse about how it effects you when they tell you something “has to” be done and request that they reword it. Suggest that they will get better results if they frame it as a request rather than a demand or an order. You may try to same tactic with your employer, depending upon your employer.

The issue then remains that there are going to be people in your life who issue orders which cannot be changed into requests. It may be necessary to work with a therapist to address the ways in which you interpret and react to orders and demands and utilize cognitive behavioral therapy to improve them.