Procrastination
won’t make a man of you!
(This post was originally published in my June 2022 newsletter. You can sign up HERE)
No surprises here: we’re halfway through 2024.
I was born in the year of the Tiger. If you know your Chinese Zodiac, you will know that natives of a particular sign often end up being challenged the most in the years of their Chinese sign. And 2022 was the year of the Tiger.
I was born in the year of the Tiger. If you know your Chinese Zodiac, you will know that natives of a particular sign often end up being challenged the most in the years of their Chinese sign. And 2022 was the year of the Tiger.
This is not to say I was having a bad year. In fact, I had some major gains in many of my endeavours. At the same time, I was being challenged to rethink, re-evaluate, re-make my approach. My philosophies were being challenged, and sometimes I even questioned my beliefs.
When I observed the world around me, I got the sense that something was finishing up. That particular year was the last year things were going to be that way. I had so many plans in the back of my head; the scary part was that things were working out and I would eventually end up where I was headed.
Have you ANY idea how fucking scary that shit was?
I believe that is why people procrastinate, mostly: we are afraid of who we will be when we accomplish a certain task or achieve a goal. Want to write a book? What will I be when I finish writing that book? I’ll be an AUTHOR. I won’t be me; I will be me + author!
So, I procrastinate writing another chapter (or six).
Want to become the next Mr Universe like Arnie? That means I’ll be a huge meaty muscled Adonis. Can I carry the weight of my own image?
So, I procrastinate on my gym schedule.
Or perhaps I want to change careers and move up in life. What is my next job title? Am I shitting myself just thinking of being called a this-or-that-thingie in the job market?
So, I procrastinate on updating (and sending out) my CV.
This is what is holding us all back: it is the thing we will become when we achieve that goal. We are afraid that the old life will completely go away, and we will move into chaos. And we’re not even all that scared of chaos! What we’re REALLY, truly and absolutely afraid of, is losing ourselves!
When I was working on my online course about fairies and elementals, it took all my best efforts to keep moving forward because I had a HUGE mofo of a goal. The trick was not to focus on the result, but rather on the process. When they tell you to “be in the moment”, what they don’t tell you is what that means.
Well, Snookie Pie, let me give it to you: being in the moment is focussing on the fingers hitting the keyboard. Literally. It means focussing on cutting this part of the video and inserting it there, and not thinking about anything other than that. It is grabbing the mouse and opening the software to do another MP3 edit without giving your mind a moment to think about it.
Just NIKE it!
Let the process drive you, not the result.
In fact, it all starts with… The Beginning! To start something, you have to START. To do that, you have to occupy your mind with something completely unrelated and mundane, like counting backwards or reciting the alphabet backwards or something memory-intensive.
When you do that, your brain doesn’t have an opportunity to overthink and under-do. So you can dupe yourself into action by bypassing your biggest obstacle.
And before you know it, you’re on a roll.
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