Advancement through timely effort
Victoria Seiketso Sethibe | Thursday August 11, 2016 16:33
For young people, preparing to achieve end of year goals can be a nightmare, especially if the preparations were left for the eleventh hour. Making the greatest possible success of anything requires concentration of entire thoughts on the set goals and it is never too late to do that.
At any point in time people are either geared towards advancement or regression. The former is a result of positively concentrated or focused thoughts while the latter is a result of procrastinating thoughts. Unfortunately, we are living in an era where procrastination is a serious problem.
What is procrastination?
Van Eerde in Neal (2009) defines procrastination as delaying of a task that was originally planned, despite expecting the negative consequences associated with the delay. Procrastination describes a situation whereby there is nothing preventing us from acting in a timely manner, except our own thoughts and actions that we know will not maximise our holistic wellbeing. For youth, procrastination can be a habitual late response to job application, school work and examination preparation.
Below are some of the common reasons why youth gets trapped in procrastination:
Delayed family involvement
Family undoubtedly plays a primary role in socialising children for making them productive members of society. The more parents are involved in the process of imparting both formal and informal education to their children, the more children might excel in their careers and join the productive and responsible members of the society. As a matter of fact, modern day survival is quite tough and parents spend long hours working hard in order to put bread on the table. Consequently, a number of parents find it challenging to find the energy and time to support their children to realise their dreams. It is for that reason that young people tend to start many of their days unprepared to do what is necessary to get closer to achieving their dreams. It is usually when deadlines are very close when parents, guardians or other family members of procrastinators work around the clock to support youth to complete tasks required to reach their goals.
Last minute preparations can leave both youth and parents feeling overwhelmed with anxiety. It is important to note that achieving a goal is not an event, but a process that comes in stages and it does take time to go through and master the necessary growth stages
2. Lack of immediate negative consequences
A modern day young person lives in a culture of instant results, either positive or negative. Even though procrastinators are aware that their habits are self-defeating in the long run, lack of immediate negative consequences can also be a contributing factor in their choice to postpone carrying out tasks. Sometimes parents unintentionally promote procrastination by doing work for their children to rescue them from last minute patchy work.
Although this type of intervention can bring instant advancement for young people, it is short-lived because the beneficiaries would not be able to survive in whatever stage they have advanced to.
3. Perfectionism
Some young people have a habit of postponing tasks such as homework and classroom-based revision exercises because they think that by exposing their educational deficits, people would think they are dumb. Sometimes young people find it easier not to attempt a task than risk doing it the “wrong way.” The truth is; a flawed attempt is better than no attempt because it is a learning experience. Lack of attempt has never made anybody to excel. Perfectionism is usually caused by fear of failing to meet external standards.
4. Choice of instant gratification
Modern technology, such as social media play a big role in making youth to procrastinate. Such distractions can unnecessarily delay carrying out a task at hand. If not used strategically, social media can create conflict between career goals and social activities that bring instant pleasure.