Taste Life Blog

20% of us are chronic procrastinators.  And you really only have three choices …to just do it, dump it or delegate it.  Mark Twain says, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started!”  Here are some reasons we procrastinate and how to get started.

Too boring

The task is boring. You dislike doing your bills but like to feel organized.  You hate to call your physician for your annual physical but enjoy being in charge of your health. There are so many tasks and chores we have to do to live a purposeful life. Focus on the bigger picture. As Rita Emmett states in The Procrastinator’s Handbook, “Nobody nowhere has a life filled with pleasantness, totally devoid of unpleasantness…so accept the fact that if you want to be a functioning human being, you will be stuck doing some miserable boring tasks. What to do then? Start with a change in attitude. No more whining. Instead, say to yourself, “Ok I hate doing my expense report but I hate the STRESS of NOT doing it even more.”

Perfectionist paralysis

Do you wait until you have a huge chunk of time and you are in a good mood, and have the ideal environment to do your best? And unless all your “perfectness” comes together, your decisions, actions, new job, relationships, and projects are all placed on hold.  Well guess what, you end up waiting to live. Bottom line, we are imperfect people who live in an imperfect world.  Be done with perfectionist paralysis. As I tell my weight loss clients, perfectionism kills action.  Dump it now. Focus on your effort and let God handle the perfection!

I do it all

Do you really think you can keep up with your sheer volume of mail, email and magazine subscriptions? We have an insatiable curiosity to be informed with more demands on our time. We live in a high expectation 24/7 society with increased exposure to “stuff.”  You will never do it all. You will never read it all.  You will never learn it all. Nicole, a coaching client complained during many initial coaching calls about the paper clutter in her office. She saved years and years of dietetic journals and magazines to read “someday” and during one coaching call realized she would never have time to read all of them. Never!  She was always waiting for the time to read them.  She was feeling stuck. Our environments create who we are. After Nicole stated, “I don’t want to wake up and notice I missed life,” Nicole threw away the journals and now states she feels more freedom from space than stuff. And her business took off after she dumped the papers.

As I tell all of my coaching clients, you can do anything NOT everything. Pick your one thing and do it today. Next time I’ll share two more reasons we procrastinate and how you can stop it!