Stop Procrastinating Now

According to a recent poll 20% of the population are chronic procrastinators, does the following sound familiar:

…making a decision for no valid reason to delay or not complete a task or goal

you’ve committed too, and instead doing something of lesser importance,

despite there being negative consequences to not following through on the original

task or goal.

 

If so you are probably a procrastinator.. but don't lose heart here are 

5 Powerful Ways to Stop Procrastination in it's tracks:

 

1. Identify when you are substituting a lesser task in order to avoid the more important task you have committed too. This is a classic way that many of us procrastinate. If you struggle with this, I suggest you read Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy, who suggests that you start your day by doing the tasks you like least first, so you can then enjoy the rest of your day more.
2. Become aware of the reason behind your procrastination, is it because of fear? boredom? lack of energy? lack of interest? Sometimes it can be because we are simply in the wrong type of job. You need to enjoy your work and if you don't you need to start thinking about how you can or find a job that suits your skills better.
3. If you find yourself reading e-mails several times without starting work on them or deciding what you’re going to do with them, make a commitment to read them once and either respond to them or delete them. I have a client I coach that deletes his entire inbox monthly. He says that if it is that important they will email again or call and it frees him up for more pressing tasks. You may not want to do something that drastic, but do become aware of your inbox and allocate a set amount of time daily.
4. Spending too much time on social network sites at work or at home? Allow yourself a set amount of time daily or twice a day for fifteen minutes and then log off! Easier said than done, but I promise you that you will save so much time.
5. Set some goals. We can easily let time runaway from us and as the hours turn into days, weeks into months and then years we need to question what we want out of life and if indeed we are getting what we want. If you are not satisfied with your life, you are the only one that can change it. Make some clear goals that excite you. Then set a time when you want to achieve them by and work consistently towards those goals. All successful people work towards goals, so have you written yours yet?

Addicted Too...

Regardless of whether you are addicted to shopping, drugs, food, drink, porn, technology, exercise, gambling or caffeine the symptoms tend to be pretty much the same.

A good way to measure the severity of your addiction or habit is to think about how you would feel if you could not have or do the particular activity. Does the thought of this freak you out? If so, this is a sign that you are dependent on your vice more than maybe you should be. The above examples are all things which are freely available in our world and we have access to. You may partake in some or all of these activities regularly, but feel that you could do without them. However, over time we may need to do more of a certain thing to get the same high.

Next time you reach for your fix, pause and assess what is happening at that exact moment. Has a disgruntled customer infuriated you? Your spouse irritated you? The traffic ground to a halt? Someone insulted you? You're bored, lonely, afraid, stressed? Whatever it is, let the feelings associated with that situation come up. Now think about alternatives to reaching for your fix. Be honest you know that your fix will not fix the situation, just numb it for a while.

Have the courage and conviction to admit your addiction and then begin to make small changes to overcome it. Seek help from a trained professional.

People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.  R. Anderson

The Reality of Reality TV

I was prompted to write this after being awoken having dreamt of a guy having pec implants! I traced the origins of this back to a programme that I had been mindlessly watching the day before. It was a reality show where a bride and groom agree to have cosmetic surgery and not see each other for the month prior to their big day. Now call me old fashioned, but I find this pretty extreme and somehow sad that these people are willing to put themselves under the knife all for vanity. However I did give it an hour of my time in order to see the end result!

This got me thinking about how I use tv and how the flurry of reality tv programmes enables us to focus on the flaw's of others, rather than think about our own. We happily judge and idly gossip about another's behaviour without having to dwell on ours. Funny that many people say that they do not have time to focus on the things that are important to them, but yet they find the time to focus on things that will be meaningless in a few short days or months. We are often quick to judge the lives of others we see on tv, but are unwilling to clean up our own.

Through reality tv we get caught up in the lives of others and in turn we allow others to determine what we focus on. Have you ever found yourself watching tv when you know you should be doing something important like attending to your family? Or looking at people on tv enviably because they are doing what you long to do? Yet you prefer to attend to the remote control.

If so, then it is not to late to reclaim those lost hours. I am not saying that you have to stop watching tv completely, just choose more carefully what you watch and when. Decide how much and when you want to use your tv, rather than just having it on for the sake of it. Watch what you really enjoy and gain value from and ditch the rest. Remember the people on the screen are strangers and forever will be. Don't let your own greatness pass you by whilst lounging on the sofa watching life, but not living life.

"Thank God It's Monday"

How often have you heard 'Thank God it's Monday' uttered from yours or someone else's lips? I am guessing not to often. However, for those few individuals who are living and following their true purpose they regularly feel that way. The old confucius saying goes something like:

'Do what you love and you will never have to work another day in your life'.

Wise words and the following quote by Bob Dylan sums it up nicely:

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do."

If you are living your true purpose then congratulations, but if you are not and find yourself groaning with that Sunday night feeling loaded with dread of the working week to come then it is time to make some changes. Ask yourself the following questions:

1) If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you do?
2) What could prevent you from achieving this?
3) What resources do you already have that could help you?
4) Who could assist you?
5) What’s your main concern?
6) How could you overcome this?
7) What would your ideal life include?
8) Who do you know that has already done what you would like to do?
9) What did they do?
10) What could you do in the next week that would take you closer to achieving what you want?

I wish you every success in cultivating that 'Thank God it's Monday' feeling.