Beating Procrastination

Like many, I have struggled with procrastination over the years. I have good intentions, set goals, but then get distracted and delayed... sound familiar?

Recently I had something of an epiphany while listening to "ET" (Eric Thomas) the motivational speaker. What he said is a simple truth but one which has helped me reframe the concept of procrastination.

ET mentions a woman who attended one of his seminars in Australia; she claimed to have a major problem with punctuality and procrastination so he gave her this scenario... "If I offered you a million dollars to meet me at a certain location at 5am, what would you do?" she answered, "I'd be there at 04:59 no matter what!"

ET went on to confirm what we all intuitively know which is that if something is important enough, we will prioritise it and we will be on time. What each of us considers important may differ from one person to the next, but the principle remains the same.

Beating procrastination is about personal priority, reality and honesty:

1. What is non-negotiable for you?
2. What is genuinely important to you?
3. What do you genuinely value?

ET is known for popularising the quote: "When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful."

It gets the point across; you have to want something really badly in order to beat procrastination. This is why it is often people like ET who come from nothing and go on to achieve success - there was no fall-back option, getting things done is non-negotiable.

If something is not important enough, it will be sacrificed or put off until another time. To avoid procrastination, we should set goals which align to what we genuinely believe we have to achieve in order to survive and thrive. Then we need to be proactive and we need to anticipate in order to stay ahead of deadlines and deliverables.

Now lets take a deep breath, and give ourselves a fighting chance...