Can hypnotherapy help with procrastination?

As a break from the normal blog format, I have decided to create a series of posts which address some of the FAQ’s that people have about hypnotherapy. In these posts, I will be looking at

• what you can expect from a hypnotherapy session
• how it can address specific issues.
• things you can do at home to get the changes started

Hypnotherapy for Procrastination

What is procrastination? 

We procrastinate when we have an important or pressing action to take and yet we find ourselves holding back from taking the necessary actions to make it happen.  Often we will distract ourselves when faced with what we perceive to be a difficult task.  It is very easy for the mind to look at the task and find all sorts of reasons why now is not the right time to take action.  Our logical and reasoning left brain will find all sorts of reasons why we should not take action and instead will present us with alternative ‘priorities’.

But why does this occur?

Often procrastination is fear-based.  We imagine that a task will be difficult and challenging.  Our subconscious registers a fear response to the perceived future event.  When it perceives fear, it consults with the conscious mind which then seeks to analyse and reason out that fear rather than to diminish it.  It does this because the primary job of your conscious mind is to protect you.  It senses your vulnerability and finds evidence to confirm the belief that something will be challenging and lead to vulnerability.

The subconscious mind will also seek out it’s own methods to provide us with comfort by triggering our desire receptors buried deep within our brain.  In this way, the subconscious seeks out distraction in the form of activities which will give us short term pleasure.  Eating, watching TV, internet browsing, ironing, cleaning, planning, for example.  It literally takes our attention away from the thing that we are fearing.

Which sounds like a rather pleasant thing except that the subconscious mind will then come back to the dream or vision which prompted the original motivation to take the desired action.  This can then trigger a conscious response of self criticism and anger that we are no further on than before and so the cycle begins again.

How can hypnotherapy help?

Hypnosis uses a deeply relaxed physical state coupled with the skilful use of suggestions and metaphors to create lasting change in the beliefs and patterns that our subconscious mind uses to motivate our actions and thoughts.  By using hypnosis, we can begin to access the truth of what it is that we actually fear.  We confront the fear and gently dismantle it by deconstructing the reality behind the fear.  As a largely passive process, the client is given a chance to restore their own energetic field and may find themselves connecting more with their own wisdom.

By using hypnosis to disengage the fear around the event then action becomes more natural and effortless.  Resistance is markedly reduced as the client stops believing in the size of the challenge ahead.  Often a person will have told themselves over and over again that their problem is procrastination and this repeated self-labelling has the effect of paralysing our actions as we seek to prove ourselves right.

So what can I do?

• The first thing you can do is to relax and breathe.  Sounds simple but in reality, deep breathing can trigger an instant relaxation response as our minds release all those feel-good hormones naturally.  This stops us from seeking out activities that we perceive will give us this effect.
• Learn to deeply relax from a hypnotherapist or anxiety specialist.  Understanding this process can be highly beneficial from removing the perceived stress that results from us not taking action.
• Ask a hypnotherapist to help you with removing the blocks that are holding you back.  Interrogating your fear is an important part of dismantling it. We can be surprised by the truth of what is holding us back.  Perhaps you are afraid of vulnerability?  Perhaps you are afraid of success?
• Once you have identified your fear, hypnotherapy can be used to systematically desensitize us to that fear and give us the courage and strength to imagine change occurring.  Imagining ourselves acting differently is the first step to seeing ourselves behave differently in the external world.
• Compile a list of all the things that you have done in the past that you felt afraid of before you did them.  Building up evidence of past success provides our conscious mind with material from which to extract data about past success. Revisiting those memories also triggers old neural pathways which may have lain dormant, retriggering them restores our subconscious ability to imagine future change.
• Begin to deconstruct the thing that you are avoiding into micro steps.  By breaking it down into it’s smallest component, we will often find ourselves faced with one five minute activity that we can do today.  Take one of those micro steps every day, or even one and hour and you will be amazed at how quickly the task is completed.
• Hypnotherapy can also help to motivate us by giving us a clearer vision or imagined experience of what it will be like to have done the task.  When skilfully managed by a professional, this future projection can often be so powerful that it burns through resistance in our conscious mind.  Begin this process by imagining what it will be like to have got this task done.  How wonderful will it feel to be able to look back at the steps that you took and the fears that you overcame?

Next week: Can hypnotherapy help with weight loss?

I am a hypnotherapist and life coach working from Dunedin in New Zealand.  I also connect with clients by Skype.  Try kickstarting your process of change by downloading my FREE Glorious Workbook of Change. Contact me today to see how I can help you make the changes you have been dreaming of.  And keep an eye out for my new book “Change Your Life From the Inside Out – A 28 Day self hypnosis mind makeover” available on Amazon or all ebook retailers May 2013.