I have found that procrastination — something I’ve been inclined to do my entire life — is the DEVIL when it comes to striving for any kind of goal. It has been a downfall of mine, all the way back to my teen years when I wouldn’t really get serious about studying until the night before. But now, it’s even worse!
Say you plan on spending 30 minutes a day on reaching your goal. Whether that’s exercising to reach a weightloss goal, making calls to make a business goal, spending time with your kids to make a parenting goal, whatever. You get busy, something happens and all of a sudden you give up on trying to fit it in today. “I’ll just do it tomorrow, I’ll have plenty of time then,” you say to yourself. But will you really?
Tomorrow comes, same thing happens. “I’ll just do it tomorrow, and I really will this time!” But wait! Now you’ve got 2 days of work to do — a full hour instead of just 30 minutes. Let this go on even longer, and that time really adds up. Miss a whole week? That’s 3.5 hours to make up. And who has the time, patience or discipline to do that? Not many.
Instead, you say, “OK, fresh start! TODAY is the day!” But you know how that goes.
So my advice, and this comes from a considerable amount of personal experience — don’t wait. Do it now. Make the calls. Take that walk. Read with your kid. Tomorrow never truly comes, it’s always in the future. Sometimes even the smallest changes can make a big difference over time. Just read “The Slight Edge” — great book!