Startups Cured My Procrastination (Kind Of)

I’m the kind of person who gets really excited to learn something new, starts off strong, then forgets it all by the next week. I’ve signed up for more courses than I can count and barely finished any. I’ve told myself “this is the one” more times than I’m proud of. Follow-through has always been my problem.

But that started to change when I joined a startup.

The Pressure That Finally Made Me Show Up

My first role was during my final year of uni. It was an internship, and while they didn’t expect us to know everything, we were still responsible for getting real work done. I was juggling classes, final-year projects, and learning how to build in a real-world product team all at the same time.

There wasn’t any hand-holding. I thought I’d mostly be shadowing someone or doing support tasks. Instead, I had to contribute like everyone else, figure things out on my own, and speak up when I got stuck. At the time, that was pretty often.

But weirdly, it worked. That kind of pressure, where people actually rely on you, pulled something out of me that all the self-paced courses and tutorials never did. I had to finish things, not just start them. I couldn’t procrastinate because there were actual users, actual deadlines, and other people waiting on me to deliver something.

Learning Because I Had No Choice

After a while I started taking on more responsibility. At first I was focused on the React web app which I was already comfortable with. I kept telling myself I would learn React Native someday. I bookmarked tutorials and added it to my goals more than once. But it just never happened.

That changed when the mobile app needed attention. It was built with React Native and neither I nor the other intern, a fellow female web developer, had worked with it before. But we were the only ones available. I remember the first update we shipped. We were on a working call together trying to fix a form. When it finally worked we were so happy. It felt like magic.

From there we kept going. With every task it got less intimidating. I started picking things up without even realizing. Eventually React Native became the thing I worked with the most. It is still the core of my job today.

Why External Pressure Beats Self-Discipline Every Time

What I’ve learned about my own procrastination is that it’s rarely about laziness or not caring enough. For me, it came down to structure, or really, the lack of it. When I set personal goals, the only person I let down by not following through was me. And honestly, I’d gotten way too good at convincing myself that “later” was a solid plan.

But the moment someone else is counting on you to figure something out by Thursday, everything changes. Your brain doesn’t try to negotiate. The deadline is real. The stakes are clear. And suddenly, that thing you’ve been avoiding just becomes the next thing you have to deal with.

This isn’t just a tech thing either. I’ve seen it in friends who finally learned to cook because they started hosting, or got really good at public speaking because they had to present at work. It’s not about motivation. It’s about having real-world stakes that make it impossible to keep putting it off.

The Shift That Happened

That startup experience wasn’t just a chapter in my career. It became the foundation for how I work today. I stopped needing everything to be perfect before starting. I became more confident asking questions, making decisions, and showing up in spaces where I wasn’t the smartest or most experienced person in the room.

It wasn’t glamorous. Sometimes it was just me and another intern on a call for hours, trying to fix a form and feeling like geniuses when we got it working. But those little wins stacked up. And when I look at what I’ve been able to do since, I know those moments were the start.

Turns out, procrastination doesn’t stand a chance when the deep end becomes your new normal.