Winning and losing in life is an internal game and only you get to decide whether you are a success or a failure. The BIG question is not whether your results are a success but rather if you are actually producing a result? There is a very powerful idea that can transform the way you approach your goals and even your life. The idea is this: Everything worth doing is worth doing poorly.

At first it might not sound like an incredibly positive statement and it probably isn’t, but what it will do is to get you to take action. Without action there are no rewards. Out of the fear of failure most people never even attempt something because they are afraid that the results they will produce will not be ‘perfect’. It is not the fear of the result, but the fear of how it will reflect on them that actually prevents them from taking action.

Unfortunately we live in a culture that looks down on so called failure. The truth however is that without failure you just won’t get anywhere. Those who are extremely successful are the few who’s learned to eliminate the judgment of failure all together. You and only you have the ability to make something good or bad, right or wrong, successful or a failure.

The very nature of how we learn something as human beings relies on failure. It is the only way we can adjust our actions for it provides us with the necessary feedback that allows us to be more efficient, more effective and more fulfilled. Remember that you can never learn less. You can only learn more.

If you are going to wait until everything is ‘just right’ before you take action to produce a ‘flawless result’ then I’ve got some bad news for you. It ain’t gonna happen! So called failure is your friend for it’s your best teacher. In business there is a concept that can be applied everywhere in your life. I call it The Need For Speed and it basically means that if you are going to survive in the business world today you have to be quick. If you are going to fail you want to fail fast. You don’t want to spend 2 years developing a losing product. The only way to know though is to actually do it.

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly – at least. Do it. It is the only way you would know and it’s the only way you would be able to learn. Failure as your guidance system works like sonar. When big fishing vessels track schools of fish they use sonar as their guidance system. The way it works is that it would send out a signal and wait for the signal to bounce back. Depending on the information that comes back; the feedback they are able to direct their course to find exactly what they are looking for.

Face it; the first time you do something you usually do it poorly. But, when you keep going you always improve, and the improvement is not only a result of your feedback (or failure) but it relies on failure. You have to stop judging your results as success or failure. Judge it by the fact that you’ve taken action. Only your actions will produce results. There are no failures in life. There are only outcomes. There are only the results and consequences to action or inaction.

Never judge your results for you never know what effect it really has. I remember reading the story of the guy that ‘invented’ the yellow Post-It notes. He was actually a scientist developing the world’s strongest glue. Out of his failure to develop the strongest glue he ‘accidentally’ stumbled upon a multi million dollar product that has since become a household brand. Sometimes your greatest failures carry the seeds of your greatest successes. Judge not your results but ACT. Every idea is worth a doing, even if it’s only a poor effort. Make the mistakes and use it as guidance. The contemplation of an idea or dream will never make it real. Don’t let the illusion of failure keep you from turning your dreams and desire into reality.

Failure is your friend if you use it appropriately. It is your guidance system. No matter what, just keep taking action and move confidently in the direction of your dreams and your desires. Action is the foundational key to success.

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A lack of confidence in yourself will automatically keep you from going for it because you lack that sense of certainty that comes from being confident. Self confidence is nothing but a gut level belief in yourself and in you capabilities – even if you haven’t done it before. Procrastination is not just a device for avoiding mundane tasks but on a much higher level it is avoiding the ‘big’ decisions and the ‘big’ actions that can make the real difference in your life.

This is a huge issue because the only way you can get your life to consistently move forward is to consistently take action. When you fail to move forward you fail to grow and without growth there is ‘death’. If not physically, then certainly emotionally and spiritually. To get from where you are to where you ultimately want to be you would have to do things that feel uncomfortable; things that are unfamiliar to you. Without a sense of certainty and confidence in yourself you will most probably never do it. Your doubt will keep you from even attempting it.

On the other hand, if you are filled with confidence, you are confident and certain in yourself and in your abilities to produce a specific result – regardless of past performance or whether you’ve done it before. Self confidence is what creates a sense of certainty within you. This sense of certainty is nothing but a feeling that is created by you. When you’ve done it before it is relatively easy to re-create the feeling and thus feel certain. It is not something that you have to confront afresh. As human beings we tend to avoid uncertainty and that which is unfamiliar.  It is because of this that procrastination can steal your future for procrastination will keep you from taking the actions that will create the future you desire. Confident people are people who are action minded. They are people who know that action and confidence goes hand in hand as the one creates the other.

With a lack of confidence comes a certain level of fear. Confidence is not an absence of fear, but a presence of courage to face the fear and do it regardless. The doing; the action is what drives the fear away. Failure to take action, not only accommodates fear, but actually creates it and out of a fear of failure you will find a ‘good reason’ to not take action and procrastinate.

Taking action is the ultimate cure for a lack of confidence and a wavering sense of certainty can be anchored by using your personal power to take action. When you use your mind and your emotions to engage your nervous system into action, you quite literally drive uncertainty away for uncertainty and a lack of confidence s nothing but a ‘mental condition.’ Whether you think of yourself as confident or not; either way you will be right. Confidence starts and ends with the image you hold of yourself. It’s as simple as that. The image you have of yourself; your self-esteem, will reinforce or take away from your level of confidence. Right now you can decide to start focusing on a different image of yourself. Start to direct your thoughts towards how you want yourself to be, instead of what you fear you might become. As you do this you will start to feel confident. Remember that confidence is nothing but a feeling and as you dwell on these feelings the results will surely follow.

So many people today wake up in their midlife only to realize that they haven’t done anything they always wanted to do. They realized that they’ve spent 30 years procrastinating – putting off doing what they should have done. This is a major cause for depression and what is generally referred to as a ‘mid-life-crises’. The ‘cure’ however lies in eliminating procrastination and taking action and to act on your dreams and your desires. It is never too late to have a happy childhood. It is never too late to take action on your dreams and desires. It is your actions that will shape your life more than anything else. What you do and what you fail to do will be the creators of your life and you (and only you) have full control over that.

When you take responsibility for your life and realize that it’s all up to you, you empower yourself to make it the way you ‘see’ it. No one else is responsible.  When you assume responsibility, you assume your ability to respond and to take action. The minute you do this you unlock a level of confidence within yourself that can empower you to take action. Confidence comes not from any physical proof, but from an inner knowing that you can. You create a sense of certainty by starting to doubt the doubts you had in yourself previously. Ultimately procrastination can not survive in the mind of a confident and action minded person.

Procrastination is the silent killer of human will and ambition. Procrastination is what separates a role model of success from a life of mediocrity. People who succeed, who are fulfilled and who tap into all of their abilities and internal resources are people of action.

Much has been written on the concept of personal power. Personal power is nothing but the ability to take action. The habit of using your personal power is the habit of taking action. It is the habit of just doing it. Procrastination on the other hand is the opposite of using your personal power. Procrastination means that you are immobilized and stuck.

When you use your personal power and take action you literally move in a desired direction. When you procrastinate you are standing still. You are helpless and hopeless. Using your personal power will start to move you and pretty soon you will start building momentum and become unstoppable in moving towards your goals. Using your personal power allows you to blast through any object of procrastination that might stand in your way. Using your personal power and your ability to take action is the ultimate cure for procrastination.

The main cause for procrastination is that at some level we link more pain to taking action than to not taking action. The need to avoid pain is biological and your mind will do almost anything to avoid pain. This pain is not just physical pain, but also, and more so, sensations that we associate pain to. All through our lives we have learned to associate pain or pleasure to certain experience based on the feedback we receive. These associations are recorded in our minds and are “used” to help us take quicker decisions and actions next time a similar situation presents itself.

Our associations of what we link pain to are a major cause for procrastination. The challenge with our associations is the fact that they are mostly formed unconsciously and we tend to make inaccurate associations that will control our behaviour in the future. In order to overcome procrastination we need to instead learn how to focus on the long term pain of what will happen if we don’t take action.

Another very common cause for procrastination is that we postpone tasks. The “do it later syndrome.” The only problem is that “later” never comes and we often put off the very things we need to do to make the real difference in our lives. This pattern of putting off taking action is most often supported by our good friend Reason who helps us find good “reasons” for putting things off. He helps us justify why it would be “better” to not use our personal power.

Procrastination is a “knowing” what to do and not doing it. It is learned helplessness. Most of us know exactly what we need to do to make the necessary changes in our lives, but we don’t. If you are overweight you know exactly what you need to do to loose weight but you don’t. Why? It is because at some level you link more pain to dieting and exercise than to eating unhealthy foods. .

Breaking through the walls of procrastination requires us to break through the wall of short term pain in order to experience long term pleasure. It is that delayed gratification that has become almost absolute in our culture of quick fixes. Yet the people who understand this, the people who are able to overcome procrastination by keeping their focus on what they eventually want from their lives, are the few who get to experience the true fulfilment of achievement and success.

Remember that we all have the ability to take action and change any and everything in our lives in a moment. The cause for procrastination is not a chain around your ankle. Use your personal power and exercise your will by purposely pushing against the short term pain. The more you use your will the stronger it gets and it will give you an incredible sense of accomplishment and consequently build your self esteem. Take Nike’s advice and Just Do It.

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- WILLIAM JAMES 

Procrastination has the tendency to drain you emotionally. When you continuously fail to take action you start to build emotional baggage. As you progress in the days weeks and months to come your baggage becomes heavier until you eventually can’t carry it anymore. 

This emotional fatigue is one of the most devastating effects of procrastination as it effects all parts of your emotional life. Your happiness is nothing but an emotional response and constantly living with an uncompleted task will surely distract you from focusing on what’s most important. The human mind has the tendency to automatically gravitate towards worries and anxiety unless we consciously direct and focus it on what we actually want. 

Think of your focus or your attention as one of your most valuable assets. In a way your attention is your time. Where you spend your time emotionally will determine how you think and how you feel and what you eventually do or fail to do. Uncompleted tasks will occupy your mind to such an extent that it can cause more procrastination and even task avoidance altogether.  

Most people never switch off after a long day at work, mostly because of uncompleted tasks. This constant worry and concern about what they haven’t done is a time bomb that actually creates stress. Most uncompleted tasks are not just the result of procrastination but in many ways they are the cause for procrastination as the one reinforces the other. Planning, completing and rewarding the completion of your most important tasks is a habit and an incredibly satisfying one. Not only will you be vastly more productive, but you will free yourself from emotional strain. It’s all in your mind and it’s all in your interpretations and your perceptions. 

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I will act now. I will act now. I will act now.  

Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids.  

With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now.  

I will repeat these words again and again and again.I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have.  

Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labour of the lazy.  

I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait.  

If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever.  

This is the time. This is the place. I am the person. 

-OG MANDINO

How often do you put off important tasks because everything’s not quite right “yet”. The truth is that it’s never the actual circumstances, but rather the circumstances that you make up. The stories you tell yourself become your very excuse and most often to the point that you start to believe your own stories. These beliefs then start to control and dictate your behaviour.

There lies a lot more truth in Nike’s statement of “just do it!” – when you just do it you take action despite all these silly excuses that you make up. Things will never be perfect and when you take action regardless you get going and that is all you need. Once you’ve got it started you can correct your way as you go along and deal with the roadblocks when you get there. Avoiding the journey because there might be some roadblocks ahead is not very rewarding or very intelligent. Unfortunately this is how most people approach their lives. Out of their fear they never even attempt to do it and they make up stories to justify their own inaction.

Here is a very powerful philosophy to live by. It ties in very closely with Nike’s philosophy:

Whenever you approach anything in your life try not to get it right but just try to get it started. When you try to get it right from day one you will never succeed, if you only have to get it going you can succeed at anything.

What can you get started today?

One of the most powerful ways to overcome procrastination is to just do it regardless of the discomfort that you associate to taking action. Use you will to do something, even if it is very small, but commit to doing it. As you do this the road ahead will unfold. Remember that there is a big difference between living a perfect life and living a great life. A perfect life does not exist for problems, challenges and failures are as much a part of life as anything else. A great life is filled with fullness of experience. The only guarantee that comes with procrastination is the failure to live a full life. Ultimately the choice is with you. Choose wisely.

.:. (in)action – How to Overcome Procrastination and Indecision. more…

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What’s the true price for procrastination? Can you actually calculate it? Most people go around and live their lives in what feels good in the moment. They do only that which feels comfortable right now and in doing this they keep putting off that which is really important. They keep putting off the very tasks that will eventually give them what they really want which is so much more than just feeling good in the moment. 

You can never really calculate the value of procrastination as a single action can spark a whole series of events and effects, most of which you could never have foreseen when you took action. There truly is magic in action for every action is a cause set in motion that effects and builds on past effects to move you in a definite desired direction. 

In life there are only reasons and results and reasons won’t get you what you want. Only action will. Drop your story and start to focus on the price you will eventually pay for procrastinating. Get some leverage on yourself by focussing on the consequences of procrastinating instead of focussing on what feels comfortable in the moment. Remember that for every action or inaction there is a consequence. When you take action you get to influence the consequences of your life, but with inaction, indecision and procrastination you have no say and no influence. This is when your life feels out of control. Procrastination takes away and steals from you your ultimate power which is to shape and direct your own life. 

Be careful not to fall in the trap of distraction for it has the tendency to become the norm and the norm leads to “normal” meaning that you will be like the majority of people who have no real drive and no ambition to create their lives the way they want them. It’s all a choice, even if it is unconscious, but it does not have to be. You can take charge of your life. After all, it is your life. You get to decide exactly how you want to live it.

(in)action: How To Overcome Procrastination and Indecision

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Why is it that we as human beings often behave in ways that we don’t really want to? How often have you said or done something only to cringe at the thought of it afterwards? The truth is that human behaviour is mostly driven by your unconscious mind, especially behaviours that is hard to explain from an intelligent point of view. Procrastination is probably one of the best examples of an apparent illogical behaviour, but the cause for procrastination is rooted in your unconscious or sub-conscious mind. 

Your emotions, beliefs, values and rules all reside in your sub-conscious mind and is an incredibly complex “network” of neurological links and associations that is designed to help you respond to life. Your conscious mind is very limited in its ability to deal with life. That over which you have conscious control is mostly limited to one thing at a time. This is why using your willpower to create any real change rarely works long term. What you need to do is to change your unconscious or automatic behaviour which resides in your unconscious mind, that part of you that controls all the vital function in your body and mind. You can try and overcome procrastination by using willpower but it will usually be a short term change. The cause for procrastination is not because of your conscious actions although your conscious actions create your unconscious reactions. 

Although there are many symptomatic causes for procrastination like having a perfection frame of mind or not being “good” at a specific task, the main cause for procrastination boils down to fear. Your nervous system is designed to primarily preserve you and when fear presents itself your nervous system through the working of your sub-conscious will “kick in” to “preserve you. The ironic thing is that we teach ourselves to fear certain things by making associations to life experience. You literally create neurological links to experiences that gets “stored” in your nervous system so that you can act quickly and accordingly next time. Whenever something happens to you, you assign a meaning to it by the way you communicate the experience to yourself. Unconsciously you are always trying to establish meaning and at a very primary level you are trying to establish whether something means pain or pleasure. This meaning then gets stored in your unconscious mind as a belief which will help you act (or re-act) appropriately in the future. An awareness alone will already will help to free you from disempowering associations and beliefs. Although procrastination makes no sense intellectually it actually reveals a lot about your unconscious and your self imposed limitations and (in)abilities. The cause for procrastination is fear, and more specifically your fear that taking action will lead to pain or a painful experience of some kind. At some level your unconscious mind combines and searches it’s “files” to come up with a “link” that associates the action to a painful experience. This can range from something which is mildly uncomfortable to something physically painful. Although you consciously want to do something your unconscious will prevent you as it associates pain to the action. As human beings we automatically reach for comfort and will almost automatically reach for whatever feels comfortable in the moment. We have a need for certainty and at a very basic level we need that certainty that we can at least be comfortable. 

Learning to push against this need for comfort is what creates all the growth that is necessary for you to really produce results. When you start to see procrastination as a blessing in disguise you can start to use it and embrace the behavioural insights it holds. Procrastination reveals your fears and, quite by design, gives you the necessary resistance needed to expand and grow in your capacity to deal with something that you really want to create. The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of “discomfort” you can comfortably deal with.  

Real cause for procrastination might not even be a single cause but a string of associations that causes you to avoid taking some kind of action. Trying to kill the monster might not be that obvious, but you can certainly exert your will to push past your fear. After all, fear is imaginary for it is only an association in your nervous system created by your unconscious working. We all have habitual responses and behaviours like grooves on a record that will “play” the same sound every time because of the pattern. Your associations are like these patterns and the cause for procrastination is like a pattern that gets played unconsciously. When you exert your will to take action, even when you don’t feel like it, you start to “scratch the record” and consequently you start to produce a different pattern that is not automatic but conscious and eventually your conscious actions will create your unconscious behaviour.

(in)action: The Procrastination Sollution. More…

One of the most obvious effects of procrastination is the failure to reap the rewards that would come from taking action. When you procrastinate you simple fail to take action on the very things you know will bring you the rewards that you desire. Although you know what you want and even what you need to do to get it, you still have to take action and it’s usually at this point where procrastination sets in.  

Because the results that you desire are often something bigger and better than what you currently have, you must step outside your comfort zone to get it. You might have to take actions that you are not comfortable with to which your unconscious mind reacts by “protecting” you against that which is uncomfortable. Although the short term effects of procrastination might seem as “positive” the long term effects are almost always negative.  

Failing to reap the rewards of taking action can have many knock on effects. Taking action on your ideas and desires is one of your most empowering gifts. It is the process by which you can make the intangible tangible. Through your actions and your behaviour you create or un-create your life. It’s not only the direct results of your actions that creates you outcomes, but often the very fact that you are actually consciously affecting the conditions of your life. It not just your actions, but rather your failure to take action that will have a greater effect on the rewards you reap from life. From this point of view the effects of procrastination is not just a direct but also an indirect loss of rewards. Every action is a cause set in motion that affects and build on past and future events to the point where we can never really determine the actual effect of one specific action. More than anything else, action opens you up to opportunity. 

Opportunity is rarely the result of you waiting for it. When you put yourself in line with what you want most through your conscious action you expose yourself to opportunity. It’s never a case of whether you have opportunities but rather are you noticing the opportunities? But even more importantly, are you using the opportunities or are you procrastinating? One thing is for certain and that is when procrastination becomes a habit you won’t even notice all the  opportunities on your doorstep. You will live your life in distraction, constantly looking for short term “pleasures” to avoid the real challenges that will cause you to reap the real results. You will always “turn a blind eye” to the real opportunities. Thos who succeed are rarely the people with the most or the most splendid opportunities. They are the people who saw an opportunity where no one else saw it and then they took action to realize it. 

Out of all the negative effects of procrastination and indecision the failure to spot and act on opportunity is probably the saddest. So many people with so much talent fail to live up to their true potential because of procrastination. The rewards you reap from life will be either a direct or an indirect result of your actions or your inactions. Not only will procrastination prevent you from reaping the rewards but your inaction will prevent you from even being exposed to opportunity.
Opportunity is knocking but you have to take action and at least open the door. Don’t let the effects of procrastination stand between what you are and what you can become. As the famous entrepreneur and businessman Victor Kiam once said: “Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin.”    

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