Procrastination is one of the main barriers blocking you from getting up, making the right decisions and living the dream life you’ve thought of.
Recent studies have shown that people regret more the things they haven’t done than the things they have done. In addition, feelings of regret and guilt resulting from missed opportunities tend to stay with people much longer.
Do you have a habit of procrastinating? See if you identify with any of the below.
Procrastination Lie #1: “I’ll do this tomorrow/later.” ( or “I’m too busy”)
How many of us say this to ourselves? “I’ll do this tomorrow/later” is the most comment we make toward our weightiest goals/dreams. And then tomorrow comes, and we forget about said goals altogether. Before we know it, one year has gone by without any progress made.
Fact: “Tomorrow/later” is a proverbial time that’ll never come. As opposed to pushing your goals to tomorrow/later, think about how you can start on them NOW. That’s how they happen — not waiting for tomorrow/later to start on them.
Procrastination Lie #2: “I can only do this when I have Y hour(s) free time.”
Many of us often delay a task, especially if it involves a lot of work, because we feel like we need to have y hour(s) free before we can do it. While that sounds good in theory, in practice, it’s hard for that to happen.
Fact: By waiting till you have y amount of free time before you work on your goals, things will never get done. It’s about making time out for the goals that matter and using existing time pockets wisely so that you can make speedy progress in life.
Procrastination Lie #3: “Delaying this by a day/week won’t change anything.”
While delaying a task by a day doesn’t make much of a difference in the long run, the problem isn’t the one day you’re delaying the task by — it’s the number of “one day’s” you have been delaying and are going to continue delaying your task by (which is undoubtedly a high figure). You see, when we say “I’ll delay this task by a day,” it may seem insignificant to us because… it’s just a day, isn’t it? However, over time, repeated attempts to delay our task by just one day snowballs into a huge impact.