Procrastination.

Procrastination.

Long word…………………taking a long time to actually do something.

Do you have something that you want to do, but you keep putting off? Do you have something that you are going to do “one day”? Maybe you have several things you have put off, that other people, maybe family, have heard you say you are going to do. When?? If you put them off so long that you can’t do them, will you feel relieved or resentful? What is really in the way? What is the cost to you personally of not doing them?

You may not even know that you are putting off doing something. It might seem so natural to think that it will happen sometime. It might seem like the absolute truth that there are reasons why you haven’t done that thing. The reasons may seem very real. You may believe your thoughts about why you can’t do something just now.

With me, it feels like I wait for the right time. Sometimes it seems like the more I think about it, the more I don’t do it, and then suddenly, its right and I do it with no thinking. I have had a lot of practise waiting for the right time. Waiting. Waiting. Preparing the words. Preparing my mind. Not being confident enough, thinking that I was not good enough, worrying about other people’s feelings, feeling responsible for others feelings, not wanting to be exposed as me.

So what gets in the way for you? Apart from the reasons (really!). Our minds seem to be programmed to come up with reasons to not do stuff. Our minds are so good at producing the doubts. Underneath these reasons, we might worry about what people will think of us. It might be plain scary to be seen doing what we want to do? What if we fail? What if we succeed? We might worry about being judged. Or criticised.

You might have a dream that you want to follow but then the mind asks how are you going to do that bit, or where is the money for that, or maybe it’s not the right time. Our minds can go into overload about the detail. What if you were to just take the first step and don’t even think about the next step. Concentrate on just this step. I remember learning this lesson when walking/climbing up a mountain in India – the only thing to do was to focus on just this step. It wasn’t even one step at a time, which implies that another will follow….it was just concentrate on this step. Nothing about the next. Try it….take the step, feel how it feels and the next step will be revealed as you complete the one you are doing.

Recently I got called on my own procrastination, and realised that I was putting something off for no good reason really. So I will do it this week. Will you?