Procrastination: The Greatest Thief There Is

As of late I've spent some serious time and effort into figuring out why it is that some areas of my life thrive while others are held hostage by procrastination.  After all, it is my life to do what I want.  I've already learned that life is precious and fleeting.  We're all promised at least one thing and that is our own death one day.  Given we're all promised the same thing, why is then that so many of us become stuck in self defeating behaviors then?  Why do we excel in one area and stall in others?  Why do we procrastinate?  Why do we self defeat?

About the time I intended to get real on this issue with myself, Dr. Wayne Dyer's Your Erroneous Zones crossed my path at one of my regular consignment shop visits.  I didn't begin to read it until the next day but affirmation of its purchase came the day I purchased it.  I would later realize that the topics of a very deep conversation with my dear friend in California that very afternoon/evening were addressed for both of us in this very book.  You have to love when the universe does its thing and gives us that which we are intending.  I know I do.

Your Erroneous Zones was first published in 1976, the year after I was born.  As I've been reading this book, I'm discovering affirmations of universal knowledge from thirty-five years ago.  Knowledge that Dr. Dyer learned and passed onto us.  Timeless knowledge.  In it Dr. Dyer talks about intent, choice, and the present moment.  I haven't finished reading it yet but I wanted to share with others my ah ha moments thus far in hopes that it might help you to do the same.

Many of the action steps in it have caused me to go back in time and examine my journals, my previous intents, thoughts, feelings and actions.  A lot of transition has happened in my own life these past few years but there were still resistance themes repeating among the change.  Dr. Dyer says that, “The essence of greatness is the ability to choose personal fulfillment in circumstances where others choose madness.”  Do you see it?  There it is again, choice.  To choose personal fulfillment in circumstances where others choose madness.  I guess I could say that I've been learning to use intention in my life so that I can live a life for personal fulfillment verses madness.  Madness (read: insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result) bears no fruit in life.  It's nothing more than a thief of time and possibilities.   

I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am that I've been keeping journals the last decade, even if they're not on a regular basis.  Keeping journals of my thoughts, emotions, moments of fear/weakness and goals has allowed me the opportunity to take a real inventory of where I am now.  You know, now, the only and most important part of existence.  By looking at things again from the distance of time and experience, I'm able to see what is verses what I thought at the time it was all happening.  I'm able to objectively see where the choices I made in those moments took me on the journey.  If you get nothing else from reading this today other than the importance of starting and keeping a journal, by all means, that will be enough for it really does make that much a difference in the journey.

Taking inventory of the journey and my procrastinating behaviors has allowed me to see truths again that I'd forgotten and has allowed me to reaffirm the other ones that I'd kept in mind.  As such, I wanted to share those truths with you in hopes that they too will help you to deal with overcoming procrastination.

Leave behind all that is the past.

New beginnings are always present.  It's never too late.

Existence is whatever we put into it.  All of it is choice rooted.  How I make my day go by is up to me.

Denial and non-acceptance of what is, that's resistance.  All that is matters is now, seeing the present moment for what it is and it isn't.

Acceptance is the first step.  You either get it or you don't.  Denial is akin to holding back, holding in, including how we feel and our thoughts.  We have to speak our truth.  We have brains and mouths to share with after all.

Even when you're broken down, you have to move.  Forward.  Away from it, over, or around it.  Action equals courage and courage builds up your sense of self.  Sense of self is one of the greatest tools I have to overcome procrastination. 

Time is the only thing we run out of, our only real commodity.  

Life is about problem solving, figuring things out.  

Doubt is wasteful.  Erasing doubt and creating certainty equals a better now, living at authentic life, a life out loud.  There is no someday.  Someday is now.  Somehow is the authentic living part of it.

Procrastination must cease, all systems must be a go to allow change.  You can't limit yourself with 'when x happens y will occur' thinking.

You have to learn to let go.  The past does not define you.  Your mind is what it is because of the thoughts you allow to be there.  Move quickly from that which does not serve you to that which does.  Your acceptance of the situation and saving yourself is the catalyst to share your light.

As always, thank you for reading and listening.  Remember that the whole premise of Knowing (The Blog) is for all of us to share with each other beneficial knowledge.  So many of you that I've met through the Facebook Fan Page have wonderful things to share.  You too are already sharing your lights.  I often find myself these days reposting things you've shared with others on your personal pages.  Please remember that you too can post on the Knowing (The Blog) Facebook fan page.  I welcome it.  The idea is that it serve as open forum for all of us to help and inspire each other on the journey.  Beneficial knowledge must be shared.

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