Habits of procrastinators #1 Part 2

First and foremost I would like to dispel a myth or two. You will always find time to do what you need to do, and more importantly want to do.

You will always find time to do what you need to do, and more importantly want to do.

Interesting isn't it.
We all find time to watch the movie, or go to the ball game, but we can't find the time to read the books that will educate ourselves, or take the classes that will give us the skills that we need to take our businesses to the next level. That to some people is “study” and who wants to study, we did that when we were at school didn't we.

Let me dispel another myth for you right here.
The formal classes give you the basic grounding and the information that you need. But unless you put that information to use, it will only remain as information, it will never become “knowledge”.

Since leaving school and later university, I have read hundreds of books, papers, articles, research reports. Why? Because I want to brag about it? Well no, that's not the reason. Because I want to show off my information gathering skills? No, that's not it either.

So why do I read so much?
Well the first is for pleasure. Remember what I said about finding time to do what you want to do? Well reading for me is something that I want to do.

The second reason is that the information someone has taken the time to gather up and place in one book can take me to places I've never been to before, I can meet people who I could never get to meet otherwise, I can hear their wise council and I can try and add their wise council to the way that my life and the life of my family turns out. Now don't get me wrong, some books bore me rigid, I still can't read books on economics, or a profit and loss statement without getting hopelessly confused, which probably explains why I am still struggling with money and need outside advice. But I know that if I didn't read as much as I did, then my life would be far less richer than it is now.

So what excuses are you currently using to explain why you aren't doing as much or as well as you should.

By the way, everyone can see through the blame game and the excuses list. More often than not, they can see through it because they are using the same kinds of excuses for not doing whatever it is they should be doing. And by doing so they validate your reasons for wasting time, just as you validate theirs. I suppose you could call it a support network in reverse. Instead of telling you to get on with it, or encouraging you to try something a little differently, they say things like "Oh I know, it happened to me, I mean it's just not fair is it?"

So if you want to get more out of every day you need to find the blame list, and you need to throw it away. You also need to:

1. Take responsibility for every action that you have made so far, and those you are about to take, no matter how small.

We can choose to blame other people for where we are and what we do; or we can take responsibility for our own actions.

We can choose to do what we have always done, or we can choose to do something different,

We can choose to work hard on what we say we want to achieve, or we can sit in front of the television and drink beer all night.

The choice as they say is ours. And it is entirely up to us how we allocate our time and who we allocate our time to. No-one can make us do anything we don't want. After all we don't live in a dictatorship (thankfully). Only you can decide to change, no one can do it for you.

You may decide to buy a gym membership so that you can achieve your goal of getting fit and lose some body fat. Whilst this is a good start, you still need to “go to the gym” on a regular basis for this to happen.

2. Acknowledge that every decision has an effect on what you do and the next set of choices that you are faced with. And then accept the consequences of those decisions.

The choices that you make on a daily basis can have a major effect on where you end up at the end of this year, in 5 years, in 10 years.

Don't believe me? Well imagine that you pick up a cup of take away coffee from the drive through coffee shop. Yes it's a habit, and one that you are not ready to give up just yet. You may also have noticed that over the months and the years that you've been picking up the coffee (and the occasional muffin or bagel) that the waistline on your trousers has gotten tighter, and your bank balance always seems to be low for some unknown reason.

Well the reason is because you spend your money a few dollars at a time, we don't think it's so bad, whilst you may baulk at spending $800 in one go, a few dollars a day doesn't seem to matter. By the way $3 x 5 days x 48 weeks in a typical working year = $720. Just as gaining the odd pound or two over a year doesn't seem that bad. But a few years of that and you will need to buy a bigger size of clothing.

3. Limit your association with those people who try and validate your excuse list.

Assuming you do want to get more out of every day it is important to find the blame list and to throw it in the bin. You are totally responsible for every thought that you have, every word that you speak and every action that you take. You see, they want as many excuses to not do something as you do. And they want us to justify their actions as being OK. Well if they want to continue to live their lives running from one crisis to the next or from one drama to the next, let them. If you are willing to accept responsibility for every action that you take, no matter how small, you can hardly blame them for wasting your time, only you can decide how you are going to spend those precious minutes or hours that you have been allocated today.

Remember you can always get more money – you cannot get more time. This is the only chance you have of living today, so what are you going to do with it? Are you still happy to continue wasting it with people who need to make excuses as to why they aren't getting on?

No, me neither.

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