The Procrastinator's Digest

The issue of short-term mood repair in favor of long-term goal pursuit is a crucial one when it comes to addressing our procrastination. It is important to recognize that “giving in to feel good” is at the heart of self-regulation failure, and it is important to develop strategies for change

Essentially, it comes down to choosing the emotions on which we will focus. For example, although the dominant emotion at the moment may be fear—we may have fear—the key thing is that we do not have to be our fear. We can acknowledge this fear, but choose to continue to pursue our goals working from some other part of our self. Parker Palmer, one of my favorite educational writers, speaks of this as working from some other part of our “inner landscape.” Our inner landscape, the psychology of self, is more than the fear we may be experiencing. It also includes our curiosity, our desire to succeed, and another very strong emotion, our interest