I have suffered from procrastination for as long as I can remember.
Literally leaving everything to the last minute.
At some points, I even experimented with complete refusal to do things.
The downside of these choices has been high stress and poorer results in life than I could have enjoyed.
Yet I KNOW I am not alone in these battles.
It seems two characters are active in this war may be familiar to you…
- The Visionary.
The Visionary is very good at creating amazing possibilities, completely unfazed by any constraints or reality…
And…
- The Warrior
The one in the trenches doing the work required to bring the Visionary’s vision to reality.
Typically for me, the Warrior is frustrated and angry at the Visionary’s complete lack of respect for just how much work it is to create the desired vision!!
With that frame, I found myself at 8 pm last Saturday night with FIVE remaining tasks for the day…
- Dinner for my kids (my wife is away so I’m single parenting)
- 45-minute walk (to complete second training for 75 Hard)
- Daily Facebook live
- Documentation and sharing of the morning's insights and actions with “The Trifecta” (my weekly mastermind call)
- This is very email.
By 10.29 pm FOUR were done.
Everything EXCEPT this very email.
Traditionally - I would have just let this go…
Told myself “I would Do it Tomorrow”.
(Are there any more dangerous words than these to a chronic procrastinator?)
Yet…
Here I am writing this email to you BEFORE I go to bed.
Getting the email DONE before it is due.
So you might wonder… What has changed? Why the sudden commitment to completion of the work?
That my friends are a very good question!
The answer?
LEVERAGE.
Yes. Leverage on myself through an agreement with my buddy that if I do not do what I said I would do each day for all of 2022… That I would pay him $1000.
So you see, if I chose to go to bed and NOT write this email… then TOMORROW I would be sending him $1000.
You may think this is very little or a very large amount… And sure the amount is significant to a degree.
But the real problem of not getting the day's work done?
Bragging rights.
Yep. For the foreseeable future, I would have to put up with my buddy constantly reminding me that I failed first.
So that is NOT going to happen.
And this email is getting written before the end of today.
What’s the takeaway from all of this?
If you have something that must be done that is difficult, unpleasant or you have just been plain avoiding - now you know what to do…
Leverage yourself with consequences that are significantly WORSE for choosing not to do whatever that task is.
So go get it done TODAY :)
To your success,
Tom
