How many times in your life have you put something off, saying I'll start tomorrow, I'll start Monday, I'll start after the holiday, etc; then that "date/time" where you told yourself you'd start comes and you don't? Maybe you convince yourself you just don't have time, or maybe you're afraid that you won't be perfect or even know how to "start"? I've been there, everyone has. Humans are masters of procrastination and excuses. That approaching deadline triggers our fight or flight response. While we may choose one response more, no one is 100% all fight or all flight. Sometimes, before reacting (especially to that inner voice), we need to take a second and breath and look at the facts. How important is this? Is it more important than other commitments I can temporarily postpone? Can I learn and adapt as I go, ie. do I really need to be perfect? If it seems overwhelming and unattainable, how can I break it up to help ensure success?
Yes, life throws us detours, many of which we can't plan for, however, that doesn't mean we shouldn't plan ahead. And planning is only worthwhile it is a plan that is able to be followed. For instance, say you want to run for 30 minutes a day and have never tried any type of exercise routine, let alone running, before. Instead of just deciding that every day you're now going to wake up early and go for a 30-minute run, maybe you start with a 10-minute walk after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Is it your end goal, no, but it is a start. Once you know you can accomplish this routine successfully, try adding in some jogging with the walking (1-minute jog followed by a 2-minute walk). Keep progressing till you're able to jog straight for 10 minutes. Once your able to do this consistently, try waking up earlier and see if you can do a 15-minute jog in the morning, and then a 15-minute walk after dinner. Progress to a 20-minute jog and 10-minute walk, and so forth until you reach a 30 min jog in the morning. You now have reached your goal and can change it, maybe trying to increase your speed (add your total time for the week and on the following week, try to beat it).
If you go into new adventures with a plan (a flexible plan helps), breaking it into obtainable chunks with progression, understanding that imperfect action is better than having a perfect action that was never executed, and visualizing reaching your goal; that procrastination voice is at a whisper, and the fight response is ready.
