By Abisola Buari, Certified Execution Coach and Therapist
You can spend two hours helping someone else prepare for an interview, then leave your own application untouched for two weeks.
You can answer a client’s messages before breakfast, yet spend three months promising yourself you’ll send the proposal that could bring in more money.
Then another deadline passes, and you say, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I do this every time.”
Before you call yourself a chronic procrastinator, look at that last sentence. Do you do it every time, or do you do it at the same point?
Maybe you’re good at starting and get stuck when it’s time to let someone see your work. Maybe you can make decisions for other people but spend weeks going back and forth when the decision is yours. Where you get stuck can tell you more about your procrastination than how often it happens.
Why do I procrastinate even when I care about the goal?
Because putting it off can give you something you want right now: relief.
Take the proposal you’ve been editing for weeks. As long as it’s in drafts, you don’t have to find out what the client thinks of your price. You can still tell yourself you’ll send it when it’s better. Closing the document takes the pressure off for the evening. By morning, the pressure is back, and now you’re also angry with yourself for waiting.
That brief relief is one reason the pattern can repeat, even when you know delaying will make things harder later. Research on procrastination and stress describes how putting off a task can help us avoid unpleasant feelings in the moment while adding to our stress over time.
This is what makes the pattern so frustrating. You can see the cost of waiting and still feel better the moment you decide to deal with it tomorrow.
What might be keeping you stuck?
Two people can put off the same task for very different reasons. Take that proposal again:
- Fear of rejection: “If I send it and they say no, I’ll take it personally.”
- Fear of what a yes would demand: “If they accept, I’ll have to deliver. What if I can’t?”
- Perfectionism: “If I keep editing, I can avoid letting anyone see work I’m still unsure about.”
- Overload or uncertainty: “I don’t know what I can realistically promise them, and I’m too tired to think it through.”
All four can look like procrastination. And all four people might tell themselves, “I just need to be more disciplined.” But another deadline won’t tell them what makes pressing Send so difficult.
This is also why the advice that helped your friend may do very little for you. A reminder can bring the proposal back to your attention. It can’t tell you why you close it every time you get to the price.
When procrastination starts to feel like self-sabotage
You wanted the opportunity. You did the work. Then you pulled back just when it was time to act. From the outside, it can look like you’re getting in your own way. From the inside, there may be something about the next step that feels harder to face than the cost of waiting.
Past experiences can matter here. If a mistake once meant being humiliated in front of others, sharing work that could be criticised may feel harder than the task itself suggests. Even a small decision can feel loaded when it reminds you of a time you got something wrong and paid dearly for it.
That doesn’t mean every delay comes from trauma. Sometimes you’re exhausted. Sometimes the task is unclear. And sometimes you’re postponing a goal you no longer want because admitting that would disappoint someone. The reason matters because it tells you what kind of support would actually be useful.
One question to ask before you blame yourself again
Think of one thing you’ve been putting off. Then ask yourself:
“At what exact point did I stop, and what would I have had to face if I’d kept going?”
“I stopped after typing the price. If I’d kept going, I would have had to send it and let the client decide whether my work was worth that amount.”
That tells you more than “I procrastinate on my business.” You may be perfectly capable of writing the proposal. The difficult part may be naming your price and letting someone respond.
You don’t need a perfect answer. Even “I don’t know, but I always stop just before I send it” gives you something specific to pay attention to.
Now that you’ve looked at why you keep putting things off, read How Do I Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done? for one practical step you can try today.
If you can see the pattern but still can’t shift it
That’s where we can work together.
I’m Abisola Buari, a certified execution coach and therapist. Bring me one real situation: the decision you keep postponing, the work you never send, or the goal you keep moving to next month. In a private session, we’ll look at where you pull back, what makes that step difficult, and what keeps the pattern going.
If the sticking point is a decision you can’t seem to make or a commitment you struggle to keep, execution coaching may be the right starting point. If fear, shame, or a painful past experience keeps coming up at that same point, therapy may give us room to work through it. You don’t have to figure out which kind of support you need before you reach out.
Message me on WhatsApp to book a private session
You can simply say: “Hi Abisola, there’s something I keep putting off, and I’d like to book a session.” You can save the details for our conversation.
Abisola Buari is the founder of Fully Her Global, based in Abuja, Nigeria.