I’m going to tell you something that might sound controversial.
The root cause of your procrastination is not laziness. It is not a lack of willpower. It is not because you are “undisciplined.”
It is FEAR.
It might be a fear of making mistakes. Fear of failure. Fear of loss. Fear of rejection. Or simply the terrifying fear of the unknown.
Most self-help gurus will tell you that these fears are irrational. They tell you it’s just “emotional drama” and that you should force yourself to take action using willpower. They love the acronym: False Evidence Appearing Real.
They tell you to ignore the feeling and just “push through.”
But you know what happens to those people? They never find long-term success. Their fear never goes away; it just hides in the background, making them anxious and eventually leading right back to procrastination.
Why? Because the gurus are wrong.
The Uncomfortable Truth: Your Fear is Real
Here is the reality check nobody wants to give you: Fears are real.
If your body feels anxious before doing an action, it isn’t lying to you. That anxiety is a signal. It means there is something truly at stake.
- Maybe your goal is risky.
- Maybe you do lack some skills required to achieve it.
- Maybe there are wrong assumptions in your strategy.
- Maybe you really are going to make a mistake and face failure.
When you feel fear, your body is correctly identifying that the path ahead is difficult.
But does this mean you are doomed to procrastinate forever? No.
The Drama of the Mind
Here is the paradox. While the fear is real, the catastrophe is not.
Your mind takes a real risk—like a small failure or a rejection—and dramatizes it into a life-ending event.
Yes, you might make mistakes. Yes, you might face rejection. But are these things dangerous? Are they going to physically harm you? No. They are just uncomfortable.
Your mind forgets that obstacles are not roadblocks; they are the map. The mistake shows you what to fix. The failure shows you the right path. The rejection teaches you resilience.
Life is Not Like Making Coffee
We get frustrated because we expect life to be linear and simple.
Life is not like making a coffee. It is not as easy as mixing warm water, milk, and coffee powder to get a guaranteed result in two minutes.
Life is complex. In every path worth taking, there are potholes. There are losses. There are failures. These aren’t signs to stop; they are inevitable parts of the process.
We want the “coffee” version of success—instant, smooth, and predictable. When we don’t get it, we freeze. We procrastinate because we are waiting for a guarantee that doesn’t exist.
The Solution: Do Not Try to Control Reality
So, how the hell are you going to take action, face those fears, and keep going?
See, the solution is: Do not keep any expectations from your life while doing actions.
Do not try to control or change your reality. Accept it as it is and allow it to happen, whatever happens.
You keep doing actions and keep removing any “expectation thoughts” that come to your mind, by simply saying you are not expecting anything or by simply ignoring it.
Try to enjoy your actions and take pride in doing them; use that for motivation. Do not try to use your results as motivation for actions, as they are going to cause the same fear again and make you procrastinate.
Just keep going. Eventually, you will face those fears, and be able to find solutions too, able to fix them, able to move on, and ultimately able to achieve your success results.