The Delayed Life Effect – Psychologist’s Analysis

The great and inimitable heroine of the novel “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell, Scarlett O’Hara loved to repeat the phrase: “I will think about it tomorrow”… At these moments, she did not want to strain her mind, which has always generated a lot of ideas. How correct is this approach from the point of view of psychology? Let’s figure it out.

The desire to postpone everything for later will not save you from problems. Most likely they will turn into a snowball that is constantly increasing in size. The more and longer you put off your own problems, the more they will press on you, and the more you will become afraid of them.

Read also: How to stop procrastinating and learn to negotiate with yourself – instructions from psychologists

Close all sore questions as quickly as possible, so as not to torment yourself with thoughts of the worst-case scenario and make yourself even more depressed, unhappy, cornered and depressed person.

In addition, the sooner you deal with the problem, the sooner you can stop, relax, and breathe out in relief. You don’t want to have this terrible feeling of panic all the time, or have anxious thoughts in your head for weeks, months, or even years? In fact, you are putting off your normal, fulfilling and high-quality life for later.

Your constant phrase “I’ll think about it tomorrow” only increases stress, fear, discomfort

Oh, how tempting it is to put off until tomorrow what you don’t want to do today. However, you need to ask yourself if you have any good reason for this. Are you better prepared to deal with the situation tomorrow? Is it tomorrow that you are going to be in the best mood? Will it be easier to overcome all the troubles tomorrow?

Truly, “tomorrow” is the most magical day of the year, when a person displays almost supernatural abilities! Or are you just making excuses to postpone an unpleasant task indefinitely? Why, then, are you lying to yourself so openly?

You need to force yourself to do something that scares (or annoys you). You have to go through the hardest moments to get to the best moments. This is not easy in the short term, but in the long term it is definitely worth it.

There is no insurance against stress and fear, and they are not an indicator that you are a hopeless loser.

You have every right to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. You can slow down and even stop to catch your breath. You can distract yourself from problems if they seem too unbearable to you. However, you cannot be distracted forever. Problems will catch up with you anyway.

If you have been putting off a task for a long time, and it brings you intense stress, then you should do it right now. Deal with the problem immediately before it starts to deal with you, becoming much larger, more voluminous and more complex than it was at the beginning.

Stop waiting until tomorrow to do what you might well have done today. Stop putting off all the most unpleasant and frightening things for later, because the expectation of the inevitable only makes you more and more nervous and harass yourself. You probably want happiness and success. However, in order to get to your destination, you may first have to overcome a number of obstacles and overcome some of your fears. But what an incredible feeling of relief and pride in yourself you will experience later!

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