The Hard Truth About Starting
I have a proposal to get out that I should have sent a week ago. I have a workshop coming up that I still need to build a workbook for that should already be at print. I have to wrap up my 2018 accounting and it should have been done in real time over the course of the year. I committed to blogging but every time I sit down to start, I stare at a blank page and decide it would be better to do it later. In November I decided to hire someone onto the Kadima team, yet I haven’t written a job description or put the word out to my network.
The hard truth about procrastinating is there is no easy way to not. The only way to actually prevent procrastination is to JUST START.
Below are four limiting beliefs and their respective liberating truths around procrastination:
There is a right time and a wrong time.
What we have fooled ourselves into thinking is that there is actually a rightand a wrongtime to do whatever we are supposed to do. Most of us fall into a trap of waiting for a Monday morning, the first of the next month, the first of the year, our birthday, when our desk is clean, after we finish the laundry, once we make a pot of tea, or any other monumental moment that signifies a clean slate. How many times do we hear someone (or ourselves) say,
“I didn’t get to the gym this morning, so I guess I’ll start my new workout plan next week.”
“It’s the holidays and I had two pieces of pie last night, so I will just start eating healthier in January.”
“4:00 is no time to start this project, I will kick it off first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Since I already checked instagram today, I will just scroll through facebook for a bit. Tomorrow will be my official start of my social media fast.”
The old Chinese proverb holds true, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”Just because you said you were going to get to the gym by 5:00am (and you didn’t wake up until 5:15) doesn’t mean you just sacrifice the workout for today. Workout for 30 minutes. Do 20 pushups before taking a shower. Do calf raises while you brush your teeth, wash the dishes, or make breakfast. Get to the gym after work. The right time to work out is not at 5:00am, the right time to work out is when you work out.
So opposed to telling ourselves there is right time and a wrong time, let’s start reminding ourselves that any moment is the right moment to start.
I have to wait until I am motivated.
Motivation is fleeting. It comes and goes. What we are looking for, what we need to desire more than motivation is discipline. Discipline we can control. Do you think Federer is motivated to workout for hours every day… without even a racket in his hand? Probably not. Do you think Branson is motivated wake up at 5:00am every morning? Probably not. But they do it anyway. Motivation doesn’t dictate their success, discipline does.
So opposed to waiting until you are perfectly motivated to start, recognize that discipline dictates your progressand you control your discipline.
I don’t know what to do.
Insecurity can be the death of movement. When I was at my previous company, my boss gave me a large project that was quite developmental and would help provide clarity on a strategic move for our firm’s future. I was honored and thrilled to take the project on and knew the deadline was 6 months away. In my weekly one-on-one’s with my boss, he would check in on the project and would ask how it was going. Every time he asked I would stutter around a handful of excuses - “I haven’t had the time to fully commit to it yet.” “I am still pulling some preliminary research.” “I am actually working on that this afternoon!”And every time, he would say, “Awesome. I am psyched you are working on this and can’t wait to see what you come up with.”
As the 6 month deadline became 5, then 4, then 3, I realized I had spent plenty of time staring at my computer thinking, “I need to start this project,”and no time actually working on it. And that’s when it dawned on me. I had zero idea where to start. I didn’t even know what the project should look like. I awkwardly connected with my boss and told him I needed some high direction in order to start the project. We had a conversation about my competence (which was low) and my commitment (which was high) and he gave me the first few steps with the assurance that he would be more connected to this project than he had been.
When we don't know what to do, we have to remember we can always seek direction.
I want it to be perfect.
I am often (always) plagued with the desire to reach perfection. What that limiting belief often does is stifle my creativity, limit my innovation, and prevent me from impacting people. This blog, for example, is a project I have desired to maintain. I currently have 36 blogs about 85% completed… and within the last 12 months I have only posted 2. Every time I sit down to review a blog, I convince myself it is not perfect and I need more time, more research, more thought before it is ready. What the result has been is... nothing. Literally nothing. I have clients ask about my blog and instead of getting blogs that are done and good (but not perfect), they get nothing.
If waiting for perfection means nothing happens, we have to remind ourselves that done is better than perfect.
At the beginning of the year we all make these grand promises to ourselves. We set these goals and resolutions in hopes that this year we will become the person we desire to be. And then the first time we run into an obstacle, we give ourselves permission to hold off on accomplishing it. Procrastination plagues even the best of us, but we if can identify the belief we have around our lack of action and recognize the connected liberating truth, we have a greater chance of moving forward successfully.
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Trying to move through procrastination? Click here to download our worksheet to help get real about why you are procrastinating.
