What caught my eye about this article isn't so much the theory as applied to procrastination but the Self-Discrepancy Theory as a whole. "Our ideal self is the person we want to be. Our ought self is our understanding of what others want us to be - what we ought to be and do. Then there is our actual self."
Put another way: We are motivated to maintain a sense of consistency among our various beliefs and self-perceptions. This causes problems as there are invariably differences between our aspirations for ourselves and our actual behaviors.
The question is--What happens when our actual self doesn't match the ideal or ought selves?
This reminds me a bit of cognitive dissonance--the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time. Which is something that I am well aware of. During my years of therapy it was a subject that was hit upon in many a session.
What's Your "Ought Self" Like?
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