Can We Ever Truly Eliminate Procrastination?

Long ago I was a procrastinator. I would say I was going to do something and it would never happen. People began to point out to me that when I said “I’ll try” that meant I would not do it. Remember when Yoda said “Do. Or do not. There is no try” in The Empire Strikes Back? That was the message I finally got loud and clear. I started doing what I said I would do. I challenged myself to complete tasks ahead of schedule. I bit off more than I could chew on a regular basis and accomplished more than ever. My life changed in ways I could not have imagined and life became sweeter than it had ever been previously. I could not believe the difference and neither could the people closest to me.

Procrastination is resistance to change and to life’s possibilities that we may not be ready to face and work towards.

Recently I was reading Tanya Brockett’s post, reviewing a book both of us are featured in. The post is titled No More Procrastination and in it she says:

“Procrastination can impact us all in various ways. Usually, if you look at it square on, it exists because you have delayed a decision to do something about it. So there procrastination remains, breathing heavy in your face. Sometimes its impact is suffocating. Sometimes procrastination wears on your nerves or causes stress and anxiety. Sometimes it causes fear, which left unreleased can manifest in your body as illness. And why? Because we have delayed a decision to act on whatever opportunity or challenge has presented itself.”

So how do you go about eliminating procrastination from your life? One day and one action at a time. Understand that “not feeling like it” into a reason to not do something. Push through to start the tasks and activities you are resisting, and notice how they seem more doable once you get started. And once you have completed something or accomplished a goal, hold on to that feeling and know that it can be one that you experience on a very regular basis once you commit to doing what you say you will do each and every day.

This book, No More Procrastination, was compiled by Leslie Cardinal and contains chapters by seventeen entrepreneurs and small business owners. I was honored to be included here and hope that you will get as much from reading about this important topic as I did from writing it. I recommend that you read the book one chapter at a time, making notes and thinking about what each author is sharing before moving on to the next one. In this way you will be able to incorporate the ideas, strategies, and techniques each of us is describing into your knowledge base and be better able to combat and eliminate procrastination before it gets a stranglehold on your daily life.