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Taking the first step is the most important thing that you can do to fulfill your destiny. If you avoid this necessary step, you will continue to hold yourself in an idle state. This is known as procrastination.
Procrastination is dangerous. In fact, it is just as dangerous as walking across a highway. The only difference is that the pain is different.
Getting hit by a vehicle is very likely to cause a person some form of physical injury, while indefinite procrastination is very likely to result to some form of emotional suffering in a person.
This pain can start compounding if a person continues to ignore their goals. It is by far the worse when a person waits until their senior years to realize that procrastination has gotten the best of them.
The truth is that your age is never a factor because you can always start over by making that choice. You are welcome to allow something like old age to hinder you. However, keep in mind that Colonel Sanders was 65 years old when KFC became a profitable business.
Have you ever pondered on a business idea to find out later that someone took that very idea and made millions with it? How does that make you feel? How does it make you feel when you hesitated to buy real estate at an all-time low, but now see it selling for 3 to 4 times as much?
Procrastination is the barrier that separates you from great opportunities. The most common procrastination alibi is “I’ll do it later.” People don’t realize that procrastination labels the word “later” as indefinite. It can be a bad habit to develop because it gives room for distractions, which usually makes people forget about their initial goals.
The most successful people rarely procrastinate, which explains why they are so successful. However, some people will argue that procrastination is not always bad.
The Stanford philosopher, John Perry, has been a promoter of the “structured procrastination”, a concept that he coined 17 years ago. He disagrees with the old idea that procrastinators should limit their commitments. Instead, he argues that the key to productivity is to make more commitments, but be methodical about it.
Piers Steel, a University of Calgary psychologist, refers to it as productive procrastination. He argues that “procrastination can be beaten down, but not entirely beaten” and recommends to “play projects off against each other, procrastinating on one by working on another.”
In the course of his career, Dr. Steel has surveyed more than 24,000 people around the world and found that 95% of them confess to some form of procrastination. About 25% of them identify themselves as chronic procrastinators. So, as you see, this is a problem that affects just about everyone. So, there is no reason to be hard on yourself.
There is no perfect method. Different methods work for different people. I prefer to tackle it by getting whatever needs to be done as soon as possible.
Employ self-discipline. Without self-discipline, you will be subjected to procrastination. Remember, time is a friend to no man. You can either move with it or watch it pass by you.
So, will you continue to let time continue without you? Or will you put the excuses aside and take the first step?
This is an excerpt from the bestselling book, Reaching The Finish Line.
The post Discovering the Courage to Take the First Step appeared first on The Good Men Project.