I procrastinate because I care.

It sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true. It’s also true that I am a lazy person from time to time — lots of times, actually — but when it comes to my horrible procrastinating habit, laziness is not what’s behind it.

And this is true for a lot of people. Yet, for some reason, there’s this belief out there that people procrastinate because they’re lazy or they just don’t care about whatever it is they need to do. But more often than not, people care a great deal about the things they’re avoiding.

There are a lot of underlying emotions that feed the nasty beast that is procrastination. Anxiety, fear, depression, and yes, sometimes a lack of enthusiasm. But those first three are often the biggest culprits behind your 1 a.m. attempts to throw that project together that you swore you’d do two weeks ago. Almost everyone has been there. Desperately cramming to finish the job. Asking themselves over and over, why didn’t I at least try to start this yesterday? That horrible combination of frustration and panic.

Frustration and panic are emotions that are often linked to something that we care about, otherwise, we wouldn’t feel them. So, I think that it is fair to say that if you’re feeling this during your last-minute attempt to do something, it’s because you care.

OK, so people care about the things they don’t do. But if they care about it, why don’t they just do it? There are lots of reasons people put off doing something that they actually want to do. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to that nasty f-word. Failure.

Who wouldn’t want to take on a project that they feel passionate about and confident that they can do well? If you looked at it that way, you’d want to get started right away. I know I would. But, if you knew there was at least a guaranteed 50% chance of failure, would you be so willing? That’s what often gets us. That very real fear of failure lurking in the background behind everything we want to do. No one wants to fail. Especially when it comes to something that they want to do, and that they want to do well.

That’s why so many of us avoid an opportunity or project that we would normally pounce on. Stranger still is the fact that most people actually are pretty good at the thing they want to do. So really the chances of failing are slim. But in our heads, we turn the project into this mountain that looks impossible to climb. So, we put off our attempts to tackle it. Ironically, then, the chances of failure skyrocket.

You know the feeling. You’ve got the project coming up and you know you can ace it. As people talk about it, you just get more and more excited because you love the topic, you know exactly what direction you want to go with your work and you can’t wait to see how great it’ll be. As the day gets closer, though, you start to get nervous. Maybe my idea isn’t that great. What if I choke when I present it? I don’t know if I really understood what I’m supposed to do. Soon, you’re questioning your ability until you freeze your progress on this amazing thing you were about to do. And then… BOOM! A mediocre performance on something you could have been awesome at.

Let’s stop the madness and just acknowledge the fears so that we can turn on the light and realize that we’ve built them up in our heads to be scarier than they really are. And let’s stop thinking procrastination always means that a person is lazy, because the last thing people need when they’re freaking out is the added anxiety of worrying what people think of them. Let’s all say it loud and proud, “I procrastinate because I care!”

And then we should probably get to work.