How To Stop Procrastinating and Be A Dynamic Action Taker

This post will show you how to go from the screeching full stop of procrastination to being an all action Super Hero Action Taker..

Before we get into the meat and potatoes, I feel it’s important to know exactly what Procrastination is.

Procrastination is the act of delaying or postponing a task or set of tasks. It is the force that prevents you from following through on what you set out to do.

This is something that affects so many people, it has been described to me as living a life with your foot on the brake. I have to say, without sounding too dramatic, it ruins a lot of people as it later ends up as regret, and as you already know, living with regret is not a good place to be.

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How do we let go of the scourge of procrastination and take more action to do the things that we know we should be doing?.

How To Stop Procrastinating – The Cost of Avoidance

Procrastination is nearly always, always an excuse to avoid stress. The trouble is, the very act of procrastination ends up causing stress in the long term as avoidance of doing something often ends in regret but in those few moments, or minutes, procrastination lets us off the hook.

The problem is, we don’t often weigh up in the moments of procrastination the true costs of avoiding doing what we should. I don’t pretend to know everything about human nature and i’m not a psychiatrist but I do know enough about procrastination as I’ve spent years doing it myself.

It’s always easier to avoid doing stuff than it is to do it. Stuff is hard most of the time when doing it for the first time. We live in a push button world where everything is there for very little effort. 

You only have to look at the wonders of the Internet and Smart Phones to see that we don’t even have to leave home anymore.

Sure we have jobs to go to but without those jobs a person’s World will often fall apart – so we (often begrudgingly) muster up the effort to go to work out of fear of losing our house, etc.

What is not so easy though is to do something new. Stepping into the unknown is hard for many people, it’s sticky, very sticky. However, when you weight up the cost of procrastination, you could be selling yourself short.

For instance. Have you ever had an idea, thought about it but didn’t put it into action and then a few months or years later you see that someone had the same idea after you and is making a fortune from it?. It happens.

Putting things off that you should be doing could be fatal. “Oh it’s only a little lump”. I wonder how many people have said this before realising a few months later down the line the cancer has taken over the body. Procrastination – what is it costing you?.

What about “I should give up smoking” and years later the cost is finally rammed home..

What is it costing you?

Think about that for a moment.

Overcoming Procrastination – My Promise To You

Understanding why we procrastinate plays a big part in overcoming it. My promise to you is that after reading this you will no longer be in the dark as to why you procrastinate. It’s not that you (or me) don’t have the resources to do what we want. This is the best ever time to be alive if you want to better yourself, and those around you.

The internet is a library of libraries, it has so much information (mostly free) that it’s virtually impossible to not achieve a goal.  The problem is definitely not the lack of resources available.

We need to look deeper within ourselves. Most people living in the western world enjoy fairly good levels of comfort, in fact most people embrace being in that comfortable World, often called the comfort zone. Once we get that comfortable, it’s harder to leave that zone.

Whenever anyone starts something new, it often means (temporarily) giving up something from their comfort account. It could be time with the family, it could be money, sleep, you name it, there is a cost of some sort..

This is the price we pay in advance for success. Will you pay it?. 

When starting something new interferes with our normal level of comfort, our brain often puts the brakes on and comes up with excuses to not do it. Only when the feelings of what we want to achieve is more important than the feelings of what we could lose, do we decide to take action and get the thing done.

Let me give you an example. If you are sitting in your house watching TV and all of a sudden water comes rushing in through the ceiling, i’m guessing you wouldn’t hesitate to call the emergency plumber. What happened to your normal procrastinating self?. Your brain decided stopping your house from being flooded was more important than leaving it as it is. 

It’s the same with Burglary. People tend not to buy a burglar alarm until after the event. Until they’ve had a burglary.

How To Stop Procrastinating – Like A BOSS

First off, don’t beat yourself up for procrastinating. It’s very common, NO,  it’s not some kind of mental disease but in truth it stinks. It stinks because it costs so many people so much.

To change, you are going to have to accept short term discomfort to gain long term success. Instead of switching to comfort mode every time, accept that all progress started with action. Imagine if everyone procrastinated, no one would ever do anything. 

Have you ever started something like a martial art or maybe a home business and then you gave up?.. of course, many people have. But ask yourself, where would you be now if you had just continued?, how would your life nave been different now if you just hadn’t given up?

Procrastination can be expensive..

Now think the same about the procrastination you’re doing now. What would your life now be like if you had only done those things you procrastinated about. What is it costing you NOT doing it.?

When you procrastinate you are fearful, you dread or can’t be bothered about doing it, yet it’s really only the first step that’s scary. The first step soon motivates you to take the second step and so on. Being afraid to fail stops many people from starting and denies the World of your talent.

Procrastination. A roadmap to prevent putting things off 

1. On a piece of paper, write down the true cost of not doing what you know you should.
2. Be prepared for the trade off of short term discomfort in exchange for long term gain
3. Life itself is a risk. The comfort zone is not the safest place to hide, things will happen anyway to screw with you. You may as well engineer your risks in your favour by planning and taking the actions required to make your life better.
4. Remember that the fear of loss is a greater motivator than the pleasure of gain. However, this stops people from achieving their true worth in this world.
5. Time will run out. Do it NOW!

That’s it folks. I hope this post will help you to take action and stop procrastinating. If it helped you, please leave a comment below and share this post (come on, don’t procrastinate 🙂

All the best

Keith

P.S People who liked this post, also liked this one – Breaking News – Your Self Worth Is Not Your Net Worth