Empowerment and Procrastination
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
1.2 Background of the Study …………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
1.3 Theoretical Foundations and Review of the Literature/Themes………………………………….. 4
1.3.1 Theoretical foundation/Conceptual framework………………………………..4
1.3.2 Review of the literature…………………………………………………………4
1.3.2.1 Fear …………………………………………………………………..5
1.3.2.2 Laziness ………………………………………………………………5
1.4 Problem Statement ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
1.5 Significance of the study……………………………………………………………………………………………. 6
1.6 Rationale for Methodology……………………………………………………………………………………….. 6
1.7 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 7
1.8 References ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8
Empowerment and Procrastination
Introduction
It is well known that procrastination is a psychological aspect that affects mankind daily. It is known that the aspect of procrastinating leads to a habitual development which is learned by our doing certain activities, and it often discourages us when it does not result in a fulfilling or satisfactory manner. After continued episodes of procrastination, we no longer desire to continue in that manner. We lose our inspiration to take a task head-on when an opportunity does arise due to our association with past feeling in a specific area. The only way we can overcome procrastination is only if we felt empowered to do the task at hand soonest possible. Empowerment can be defined as measures implemented to increase and support the degree of autonomy of self-determination within people and their communities (Tartakovsky, 2015). This is in order to enable them to take charge and represent their own interest in a self-determined way. This can only be achieved if the parties involved were doing this out of their own accord and authority. On the other hand, procrastination simply means “putting off tasks or actions to a later time.” (Siroi & Pychyl, 2013) Procrastination can be viewed as the exact opposite of decision making; hence everyone should conquer it so as to achieve life goals. From this definition, one can argue that procrastination includes laziness to a significant extent. If we were completely honest to ourselves, we can find laziness areas in our lives especially when it comes to completing tasks, pursuing our goals, taking too long before contacting a distant relative, or even showing care to our loved ones at home among many other aspects.
Background of the study
Procrastination is a problem that plagues everyone doing almost anything in life. According to Mullen (2014), prolonged procrastination bouts can cause serious harm in anyone’s life as it harms productivity, hindering the progress of an individual. People procrastinate studying for exams, writing articles, sending important emails, paying bills, making phone calls, etc. People procrastinate doing important tasks in their lives because of many reasons. The main ones include; fear of success, fear of changes, fear of failure, peer influence, habit, low frustration tolerance levels and difficulty in making decisions. All these aspects are attributed to the fear factor and laziness; hence they should be more studied if one needs to overcome them and feel empowered to take-on important tasks in life. Looking at these aspects independently, it is evident that they tend to have significant impacts in one’s achievements in life. A study carried out by Frost et al (2012) concluded that fear of failure occurs when one fails to understand that he/she is not in control of responses from other people in the community. Therefore, when one over-values people’s responses, it can cause uneasiness and anxiety. This is something all human beings experience in their daily lives. For instance, when one wants to achieve perfection in a given task whose standards seem out of reach, one feels discouraged from doing it. One can only achieve this task if he/she feels empowered and has the right attitude to take the task head on. In light of these facts, I feel that more research should be done into this matter because many people are failing to achieve their goals in the society today not because of incapability, but because of procrastination, an aspect attributable to fear and laziness.
Theoretical Foundations and Review of the Literature/Themes
Theoretical foundation/conceptual framework
In overcoming procrastination, one must come up with a new model of achieving personal empowerment. Personal empowerment cannot come from just feeling empowered, but it must involve real-world evidence of an individual’s ability to have an impact on his/her relationships and social surroundings (Coon & Mitterer, 2012). Popular cultures most of the times tend to misrepresent the concept of personal empowerment by relying a little too much on attaining a subjective emotion meant to make an individual feel empowered. However, empowerment requires individuals to increase their influence within their social sphere, be it in within their intimate relationships or in the larger social context as either citizens or consumers. Cattaneo & Chapman of George Mason University proposed a model of personal empowerment describing an interactive process that described the real world action a person takes, and the impact of such actions to one’s social relations. They argued that feeling empowered is really good, but it only contributes to real personal improvement if these feelings are applicable in the real world to achieve results. This is because failures can also hamper one’s feelings of empowerment setting him/her back to the beginning.
Review of the literature
As earlier mentioned, procrastination is as a result of fear and laziness. These are the most significant themes that prevent personal empowerment and development; hence I will be discussing them widely in my dissertation. According to Cattaneo & Chapman, personal empowerment is “a process in which a person who lacks power sets a personal meaningful goal oriented toward increasing power, takes action towards that goal, and observes and reflects on the impact of this action, drawing in his or her evolving self-efficacy, knowledge, and competence related to the goal.” (Cattaneo & Chapman, 2010). All this cannot be attained without our own efforts of conquering fear and laziness
Fear
Fear makes someone feel inadequately capable of handling a task at hand (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013). This makes a person procrastinate starting the task in question without even trying it out to see what would have happened had he/she started the task.
Laziness
Sometimes people procrastinate doing important things in their lives due to laziness. For instance, one may take long to make a phone call to a family member to do things that seem more important at the time.
Problem statement
It is not known to what extent procrastinating derails people from achieving their overall life time goals, but it is a problem that plagues everyone every day (Tartakovsky, 2015). Personally, I would argue that there is no harm in postponing doing non-critical tasks. However, it becomes a humongous problem when there are pressing obligations and hard deadlines involved. Work projects, health issues, paying bills and so on are challenging tasks, but unfortunately they may be dealt with. There is no person in this world who would want to live with procrastination. This is because nothing gets done when procrastination occurs. When this happens, we feel worthless, and the only way we can get back o our feet is through personal empowerment. While many people procrastinate because of fear of success or failure, there are others who do it just because it works for them. What we need to understand is that procrastinating is like a personally induced drug or a disease, and the sooner a task is dealt with, the easier it is to meet life time goals (Coon & Mitterer, 2012). As a result, the study of self empowerment is significantly important in addressing procrastination in order to help individuals achieve their goals in life.
Significance of the study
This study will be of significant value in helping people understand how procrastinating hinders people from achieving their dreams. It will also emphasize on the benefits of personal empowerment. This study will also be of importance in understanding Cattaneo & Chapman’s model of increasing our actual influence within our social sphere.
Rationale for methodology
The extent in which procrastinating affects the life of an individual is not known; more so in hindering an individual from achieving his/her lifelong dreams. As a result, this research will be using a qualitative approach in addressing just how much this habit affects one’s life and that of the individuals within his/her community. Since stopping procrastinating and avoiding being lazy are the best methods of stopping this habit, a qualitative approach works better in this case because it also focuses on improving people’s lives as well as the lives of those around them. I will also be using questionnaires and data collected from personal interviews to determine just how much people feel procrastinating holds them back from achieving their dreams. I will also be visiting psychologists in efforts of determining how much their clients feeling the habit affects their lives, and how personal empowerment techniques such as therapy are working for them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this research proposal has established that procrastinating is a habit that emanates from both fear and laziness. Procrastinating can be brought about by numerous fears such as fear for success and fear for failure. It has also established that this habit can also be brought about laziness, or simply because some individual feel that it works best for them. This research proposal has also established that procrastinating can be addressed by personal empowerment techniques. As a result, I would like to find out more on how personal empowerment can help individuals achieve their personal goals as well as help in achieving those of their communities.
References
Cattaneo, L. B. & Chapman, A. R (2010). The Process of Empowerment: A Model for Use in Research and Practice. American Psychologist. 65, 646-659
Coon, D., & Mitterer, J. (2012). Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior with Concept Maps and Reviews. Cengage Learning.
Frost, N. A., Eatough, V., Shaw, R., Weille, K. L., Tzemou, E., & Baraitser, L. (2012). Pleasure, pain, and procrastination: Reflections on the experience of doing memory-work research. Qualitative research in psychology, 9(3), 231-248.
Mullen, A. (2014). The Role of Psychological Flexibility in Procrastination. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Sirois, F., & Pychyl, T. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short‐term mood regulation: Consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115-127.
Tartakovsky, M. (2015). Feedback-Informed Treatment: Empowering Clients to Use Their Voices.
