We all know the misery of procrastination.

In fact most of us can admit to applying it like an over-sized plaster to any goal we’re struggling with.

It’s like the common cold. An annoying inconvenience that holds us back.

But what if procrastination was your friend, not a virus-like foe?

Oh I know, this can’t possibly mean you, right?

Because YOUR procrastination is a habit you just can’t break, right?

Well read on, because I’m about to explain why yes, even you, can tackle what feels impossible to shift, by taking the time to journal with your procrastination as a friend here to help you, not hold you back.

1 Friend or Foe?

Or why Blue Monday can be one of the best days of the year.

Many grand plans are hatched in the dying throes of an old year, when the first fresh days of another wild trip around the sun feel full of potential. We can promise ourselves into an entire new skin with that energy.

But what happens as the bleak reality of winter bites away at our resolve and old habits feel harder to shuck off than the end of a year?

Trying to achieve new goals without first doing the patient work to understand our established habits will make for a swift and brutal defeat sometime around the watershed Blue Monday of January.

And while this poor, unsuspecting Monday may have assumed one of the hardest labels of the year ~ the most depressing day of the year ~ it might be more useful to consider it as the chance to have an honest conversation with ourselves. In fact, how about, multiple versions of ourselves?

It’s taken me a decent portion of my adult life to work out that new year resolutions are about as useful as a chocolate teapot against my capacity to negotiate the nuances of any agreement I make with myself. Or, in other words, lessons in how I self-sabotage. It’s no use me telling myself that I will start this, that or the other routine when I have a high level of demand avoidance. Setting strict goals like this will instantly bring out my inner Villain.

For a long while I used to apply the label of procrastination to that process. Believing that I really wanted the result, I just hadn’t got the willpower to get there.

It was only after I’d achieved some pretty impressive things, such as running my own successful business for 24 years, getting a First Class Honours degree through part-time study while doing so, or having four books published in less than two years, that I realised I was perfectly capable of getting stuff done.

Now I understand that procrastination is the inner battleground of habit and desire. Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish between friend and foe. Especially when they’re all wearing the same face. Ours.

In order for me to get stuff done, or change habits, I need to set myself up with absolute integrity between desire, habit and the version of myself that is going to get the job done.

And if you’re starting to worry that you too might have a whole book’s worth of different characters running around inside yourself, I mean, yes, but right now, we only need to worry about three. In this article I’m going to introduce you to the main characters ~ your Villain, Victim and Hero. (We’ll leave the secondary characters for another day.)

2 But first, what procrastination is…

…And what it’s totally not.

Let’s be super clear here. Procrastination is NOT laziness. (Though it will morph into self-judgment and call itself that if you give it enough leg room.)

Procrastination is a process rooted in unmet needs and unheard fears.

The needs in charge which your existing habits have fulfilled and a veritable platoon of fears ready to obey their orders: fear of failure, fear of success, fear of imperfection, or even fear of discovering that the dream you’ve held onto for years might in fact have died a quiet death while you were ignoring it.

Procrastination isn’t just about putting things off. It’s a stealth incursion into your mind that often feels like the most practical option.

It’s the voice that whispers, “You’ll feel more prepared tomorrow,” or “There’s no point starting until you have all the answers,” or “You know it won’t work and then you’ll feel stupid.” Or any variation on those themes. Such as the ones that complain, “But I don’t have time,” or “It’s easier for other people,” or “If it wasn’t for [insert object of incalculable blame] of course I’d be able to.’

Procrastination often speaks strongest around dreams and goals that are weighed down by past decisions, or feel crushed by family obligations, or address desires that feel simply too big to grasp. Faced with a scale of change that’s daunting, procrastination offers a safe alternative.

When we feel disappointed in our lack of progress we slap the procrastination label on many behaviours, almost like an illness we have no control over. After all, its relatable, we all do it.

Labelling it this way takes our agency away. It sets a pathway in our mind that plays out former failure as future evidence.

But what happens if you stop seeing procrastination as the external, common foe, and consider if there is an aspect of the friend in this behaviour?

While procrastination really can hold you back and become debilitating when it’s working at full stealth capacity, there are some valuable lessons it has to teach.

Here are some ideas:

Perhaps there is an aspect of what you’re holding back from that isn’t intuitive or authentic to you.
Perhaps your goals and your core values aren’t aligned.
Perhaps there is another way that some part of you knows it would be better to act.
Perhaps you just don’t have the reserves right now and need to rethink the scale.
Perhaps what you’re trying to do feels like the echo of desire from a former version of you.
Perhaps your delay masks deeper emotions tied to this goal which have not yet been processed.
Perhaps you are resisting punishing yourself and you need to invite joy and delight into the process.

These questions may seem radical, but journaling offers a safe space to open up the hidden dangers behind our hesitation. If you haven’t made as great a start on your goals as you hoped this new year, or in fact at ANY time of year, rather than berating yourself for your lack of desired progress, recognise that you need to retreat, regroup and rethink the game plan.

Let’s begin with understanding exactly who you are when you procrastinate, from a storytelling perspective.

3 The Besties Holding You Back

Let me introduce you to the inner triangle.

Inside all of us, to differing degrees, are the core identities that help us forward or hold us back, Villain, Victim and Hero.

And by some perverse law of the universe, it often happens that the Villain and the Victim end up in a kind of platonic Gregorian love knot.

Villain and Victim love working together, a conversation between these two will go on forever because neither of them can stand NOT having the last word. Any time you fall into one camp you may find yourself rebounding into the next one. Your Hero stance feels a long climb uphill at the top of the triangle.

As Victim you feel overwhelmed, defeated, persecuted.

As Villain you feel vindictive, petty or destructive.

Your Hero is silenced into defeat.

But you can help to shift this by engaging in the conversation in a conscious way. Your procrastination can be understood as a triangle of gravity, where the very laws of nature pull you to the bottom positions of Villain or Victim in your own story. It looks a little like this:

Whatever you are procrastinating about, use this as a focus in the middle of the triangle to work on identifying your inner voices.

This might be a health goal, a professional target or a personal project. When I want to dig into procrastination, I put the exact issue in the triangle and then step into each circle to listen to my own inner voices.

What does the Victimised part of you say?

What recurring phrases or reasons do you use about why you can’t succeed?
Who or what do you blame when progress feels impossible?
How does this part of you view others? Are they sources of support, judgment, or competition?
When you write these things down, which part of your past self feels most present?

What does the Villainising part of you say?

What critical phrases arise when you reflect on why you haven’t achieved your goal yet?
Do you find yourself tearing down your own effort, belittling small wins or catastrophising future potential?
Is your Villain an impossible perfectionist that nothing can please?
If this part of you could speak out loud, what would it say about your worthiness or ability to succeed?
What behaviours or habits does this side of you encourage to sabotage progress?
When you write these things down, which person from your past does it remind you of? Whose voice sounds in your head?

You may find that identifying the Villain is harder than the Victim, because none of us want to admit that we are our own worst enemy. But these three states exist within all of us. Making these voices more conscious will enable you to hear them when they speak.

Listening allows you to be present to the emotions that these states embody. It allows you to tune into your fears, and your needs. Coming at this with an air of attendance, patience and understanding will make it easier for you to hear these aspects of yourself.

The uplift is that as you begin to hear your Villain and Victim states more, you neutralise their power. And you get to create space for your Hero to shine.

4 The Best Is Yet To Come

If you have read any story, ever, you’ll know that the Hero rarely emerges until quite far on in the story. But they’ve been there all along.

If you think about gravity pulling us down into the less helpful lower part of the triangle, where our Villain and Victim selves get locked in a tit-for-tat power exchange, choosing to take the Hero position requires you to actively ‘step up’ into action, commitment, consistency and greater self-belief in your potential than in your reasons to not progress.

For many heroes in many stories, their character arc is one of self-doubt, failure, delay and dismay, before finding their power and arriving right where they need to be. This is the hero who has not conquered demons and dragons, but learned to live with their inner doubts and doubters.

But how do you throw on your Hero cloak?

When it comes to identifying your Hero, look first to other areas of your life that are thriving. You will have areas of your life that you are knocking out of the park. Areas where your hero found their stride a long while back. Pull up a seat, watch and learn. Hero skills are transferable.

Consider these ideas to help you:

When you feel capable and empowered, what phrases and encouragements do you use?
What skills have helped you achieve success elsewhere?
Who have you helped to achieve success? What did you tell them? Start telling the same things to yourself. Repeatedly. REPEATEDLY.
What strategies do you use as a Hero elsewhere?
Ask some really good friends or family what your superpowers are. (I promise this will surprise you!)
Who do you love to be around? What qualities do they have that you admire? Your admiration is aspiration, lean into it.
How can you apply these inner messages, skills and strategies to areas that are struggling?

As you begin to get to know these different aspects of yourself that may be holding you back, journaling can provide you with conversation starters. Imagine attending a dinner party with people you’ve never met before but who you suspect are plotting for your downfall. Conversation is going to be a bit awkward. You’re going to be on the defensive. Or the offensive. Depending on who has the upper hand.

Journaling invites you into a different mental space to thinking, it invites you to all sit down as equals for a round table discussion. So do make sure to sit down and write out your responses to the questions I’ve included below.

You don’t have to answer all of them, pick and choose those that feel most connected to you.

5 Journal prompts for procrastination

I crafted a selection of journal prompts designed to give you different access points to your inner world.

In journaling we are always considering three angles; reflection, vision and action. Depending on your personality, any one of these may feel easier to begin with. So pick a question that feels intuitively as though it’s speaking to you. You can explore the other Qs as you grow more confident.

Reflection:

What do your current habits give you that you would miss if you let them go?
When you let your identified healthy habits slide, what are you protecting yourself from?
How much do you really want this change?
How do you know this change is still important to you and not redundant?
Who would you be without the change?

Vision:

Whose voice is the goal in? Is this your voice? If not, whose? How can you change it to be in your voice?
How can you reframe the goal to remove a time-based goal and add a different end point, such as progress or end result, or do the reverse?
When you think about your goal, which of your core values do you connect this to?
Which core value might be in conflict with your goal? How might reframing the goal reduce this conflict?

Not sure about your core values? Naming your core values can be a potent tool to growth in so many areas of your life. I’ve included a free resource at the end with a core value exercise to help you.

Action:

Find Your Keystone Habit; identify one habit that ripples into other positive changes.
What habits that contributed to your former success helped you? How can you increase these?
What habits felt really difficult or led to loss of motivation or joy? How can you reduce these?
How is your goal aligned with your environment, and how are you engaging your environment toward success?
What resources do you need to succeed that you aren’t including in the plan?

If you found this useful and want to dive even deeper into journaling with your procrastination, click here to download my full free resource of journal prompts for procrastination, including four powerful questions to help you make friends with the parts of yourself trying to protect you and shift into your self-compassionate Hero mode.

Journal Prompts for Procrastination