Why 'Just Do It' Is Useless Advice

Telling someone who is procrastinating to just do it, it’s like telling an alcoholic to just stop drinking. It’s equally stupid and useless.

It’s the same with telling them about all the bad side effects of procrastination if they don’t overcome it- all the regret, the missed opportunities, the unfulfilled dreams.

What good does listing all the negative side effects of drinking does to an alcoholic? Do you think it motivates them to stop drinking? Telling them how they are ruining their health, wasting so much money, losing friends and family- do you think they DON’T KNOW that?

Of course they do!

They are aware of ALL of these things but that doesn’t help them to actually stop drinking.

It just makes them feel even more stupid and guilty for not being able to stop DESPITE all the consequences. It makes them feel as if there is something very wrong with them.

Having the doctor tells you, “Why don’t you just be a sensible gal and stop drinking, don’t you see you are harming yourself and the people around you?”

Yeah right. I see. Thanks for the useless advice.

That being said, although realizing all the consequences of procrastination can give you a perspective as to why you’d want to overcome it, it is not a good approach to help someone do it since in the long run, it creates something similar to the yo-yo effect of dieting. You lose some weight in the first few weeks only to gain it all back after a while and in most cases make it even worse.

So when you tell someone to just do it, what you’re suggesting they do is to use their willpower to push through and fight their own survival instincts to get things done. But here’s the tiny little problem here.

Willpower depletes. It’s not a resource you can rely on to keep going. Therefore you will inevitably find yourself back in the same spot you were in the beginning- full of shame, guilt, and regret for your seeming inability to get things done, and believe there is something profoundly wrong with you.

To beat procrastination, you don’t need willpower. You don’t need to remind yourself of all the consequences if you don’t start getting shit done- you already fucking know that.

What you need to do is to decrease the desire for procrastination and understand how you’ve hooked yourself on it in the first place.

Maybe you procrastinate because you're afraid of failure, or maybe you find it hard to get started because you don't know where to begin. Whatever the reason, it's important to identify it and work on it, rather than just relying on willpower to force yourself to get things done.

In conclusion, if you want to beat procrastination, you need to understand that it's not just a matter of willpower. You need to be kind to yourself, acknowledge that procrastination is a complex issue, and work on decreasing the desire for it. And just remember: procrastination is like a credit card - it's a lot of fun until you get the bill.