Assessments📚 & procrastination 🐵.

As an international student in Australia, you can face challenges that stir up many emotions that lead to procrastination when they are not understood. So the homework piles up, the deadlines approach, and you fall into extra cost🤑 for not completing your homework on time. What to do? 😧

According to psychologist Marina Mammoliti from the Psicología al Desnudo podcast, procrastination happens when your brain 🧠 is protecting you from "threatening and overwhelming tasks". Now you might say... "well, doing homework is not a threat🤔". However, you might be surprised to realise that your brain doesn't understand this and that anything that causes you pressure, worry or distress, such as a deadline, generates in your brain 🤯 an alarm, an alert⚡. Then your brain suggests you do something less stressful and leave them for later 🏖️ (like spending time on social networks🤳), which causes discomfort. And so the more days go by, the more complex it seems to your brain to be able to start or even complete the task😨.

Procrastinating is related to EMOTIONS, not time. When thinking about doing the task, your brain is confronted with challenging emotions such as boredom, insecurity, anxiety, frustration, and resentment. It is important to stress this is not LAZINESS. You are not a lazy person.

So step one is to understand💫 that you are not avoiding "the task". Instead, you are avoiding for a short term the unpleasant emotion it causes you (frustration, tiredness, insecurity, lack of confidence, anxiety). But in the end, it only leaves you with an unpleasant feeling because instant gratification 🐒 leads you to not being able to finish things on time, taking you away from what you want to achieve 🏁.

So what to do? How can you change it? First, identify:

🛌 Are your exhausted because you work too much and don't get a good rest?

😟 Do you feel your stress level is high?

🦥 Don't you exercise?

🍔 Do you eat food without nutrients?

🥺 Do you feel like you are failing, or do you feel guilty? Do you have bouts of anxiety😰 or depression😞?

If you identify with some of the above, it's time to fight procrastination:

💗 Treat the emotion. Treat yourself with understanding and compassion, don't be severe with yourself. People who speak to themselves with love and care for themselves are less likely to procrastinate.

🌟 Allow yourself to feel the happiness of small accomplishments and the self-satisfaction of doing a little bit each day.

🔚 If you manage to do something small, you can see that it is possible to accomplish your task.

🫂Ask your friends and family for help. Tell them what you want to achieve. Such companionship is healthy. If you have constant feelings of sadness, please seek professional help.

📝 Leave yourself notes to remind you why you have to accomplish the task. Remind yourself of the objective

⚡Identify your moment of top energy.

📵 Acknowledge what distracts you and separate yourself from it while you do your homework. Even if it's just 15 minutes of work.

Our expertise makes your dream of coming and studying in Australia a reality. However, we want the process to be as satisfying as possible, so we aim to provide you with the tools to make your experience as enjoyable as possible.

Remember BWonder is here to accompany you throughout your process. Contact us!

If you want to know more, we wrote this article based on this podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/0fVpgf337RUpiznN9OWC41?si=a8b90ee490bd4855