Hey everyone Crystal here with DNews!

We’ve all been there. You procrastinated on writing a paper or studying for an exam

and now your grades are going to suffer and there is nothing you can do about it. Now

it’s true that there may not be any way to significantly improve your performance

on a project you procrastinated on, but science says there is a way to improve your performance

and reduce your tendency to procrastinate on studying for your next project.

The solution? Just forgive yourself. Researchers at Carleton University revealed that students

who reported high levels of self-forgiveness for procrastinating when studying for their

first exam, were less likely to put off preparing for their next exam.

Procrastination is characterized by short-term avoidance past the time most likely to produce

optimum performance or completion of a task and this study suggests that students who

self-forgive will be able to “get over” the fact that they hate studying, and be less

likely to attempt to improve their mood by avoiding the task entirely.

Learning to forgive yourself for procrastinating could also could promote general improvements

in feelings of your self-worth and positive mental health. Which could help switch your

behavior from “avoidance” which is a passive way to deal with you problems, to “approach”

an active way to attack problems. Extrapolating further, people who engage in positive behaviors

like forgiveness and positive self-talk are more likely to experience reduced stress and

experience good outcomes like goal achievement. So telling yourself “This sucks, I hate

this” instead of “I can do it” is actually hurting your chances of doing well on that

test.

A study of self-talk published in the European Journal of Social Psychology discovered that

even speaking to yourself in the first person (using “I” statements) is not as effective

as speaking to yourself in the second-person (using “you” statements). For instance

“I can do it” is less effective at improving task performance than “you can do it”.

This measured improvement could explain the observation that we tend to switch into second-person

language when we are encountering significant challenges or in more demanding situations.

So how we treat ourselves really matters! and I guess what I am trying to say is … “You

can do it”! Forgive yourself for watching this video and get back to work!

Do you have a problem with procrastination? Tell us about it down below in the comments

and be sure to subscribe to DNews. You can also come find me on twitter at PolycrystalhD