You know this situation where you exactly know what you have to do to achieve a certain goal you have in mind. Finish a task that has to be done to be prepared for the next step.
You know all this things that let you procrastinate the things that have to be done to get it all done. You also know these pep talks that are supposed let you take action. Most of the time you forget about it right after that and start procrastinating again.
Less is more. This week I read this one sentence that says more than most pep talks do. That starts your ignition with three simple words:
Yeah I know these situations, too. Every time I have an idea for a new project I think a lot about how cool it would be if it is finished etc. But it is always hard for me to motivate myself and get things done. In such a situation I am thinking of the old Nike slogan – Just Do It. Most of the time it works.
Hi Ulrich, great to hear from you!
Sometimes it takes a long time to get started indeed and once you do it you are in this flow state and it’s hard to stop.
I learned that this procrastination has its roots sometimes in a overwhelming amount of information. Especially if you start a totally new project where learning is involved. You have to find sources on the subject, find a huge amount of guides on-line and don’t really know where to start. Than it’s easier to do it tomorrow and playing games today or use Stumble Upon and so on.
Yes, this is something I have also experienced. But when the problem is too complex to be solved at once I start creating lists of simpler steps I have to do (first). This really helps me to achieve my main goal, because I can do things one after another.
And there is something else that prevents us from starting to work on new things. It’s the problem that we don’t want to leave our “comfort zone”. But the question is why? Do we have fear, that something could fail?
Cutting it in chunks makes it a lot easier. I’m practicing this all the time as well. Failures are important because we learn from mistakes. We need to make mistakes to learn something. If we wouldn’t make mistakes it would mean that we already have the skill. Why should we learn a skill we already have?
The fact that leaving the comfort zone is creepy lies in the manner our minds are programmed. We can see it as a software that brings us through our daily life, where it’s safe and easy to cope with when today is similar to yesterday and tomorrow to today. Even people who are living in bad situations are not easily leaving the comfort zone. Although they hate the way it goes, they have learned to cope with it. Yesterday sucked, but they survived yesterday. So please let today be like yesterday and tomorrow like today. The urge for a better life seems not to be strong enough to leave that comfort zone. The problem is that by leaving this zone tomorrow could be worse. They couldn’t cope with a situation that is worse as their daily life is worse enough, isn’t it? In other words you are right Ulirch, it’s fear most of the time what holds people back from leaving the comfort zone.