Procrastination Is More Painful Than Doing The Work

I know that to many people, I look like I never have a hard day, and that everything comes easily to me.

Well, I also have a hole in butt, sh*t that stinks and a lose my marbles as much as my mobile phone – just like everyone else.

2 weeks ago, I had a huuuuuuge course creation project on my plate.

It involved writing a 12month leadership and peak performance education program for one of my corporate clients – including:

• planning out the curriculum form scratch,
• unpacking their 20+ years worth of existing content,
• mapping it to the new curriculum,
• writing up the descriptions, summaries and learning outcomes for each monthly workshop,
• and then writing the slides for every single workshop.

This was by no means a small job.

And even though this is literally the work I ADORE, the sheer size of this project made even me feel a little overwhelmed and I resisted getting started.

I spent 3 entire nights laying awake getting more and more anxious about where to start on the project.

With thousands and thousands of words of content to read, sort, categorise and map – I almost considered tapping out before I’d even started.

Oh procrastination you dirty little beast.

Procrastination has this ability to take whatever it is you need to do – the laundry, your emails, your social media content, your course you’ve always wanted to create – and CONVINCE you that its going to be bigger, harder, scarier, pricklier and nastier than it will actually anywhere come close to!!

It’s a bit like when you were a kid and were convinced there was a monster under your bed (ok, i still imagine that something will grab my legs and pull me under if I put my feet on the carpet in the dark haha)….

BUT – when we turn on the light and LOOK UNDER THE BED – we see that there was infact nothing to be afraid of.

Procrastination is pretty much the same.

If we are putting off a task, the only way it will go from that annoying stench-cloud of doom, to getting done, is to go and start it.

The hardest part is getting started – and the starting bit only takes SECONDS once we’ve decided to do it.

** Cue Nike **: 3, 2, 1 JUST DO IT.

The SECOND we have stepped over that microscopic line between THINKING about doing it, and ACTUALLY doing it, all of the agony, anxiety, anguish, turmoil and torture that the thought of that task caused us, suddenly goes away.

Being in a state of procrastination, is by FAR more painful than than DOING the task that we were procrastinating about.

The amount of energy spent on worrying and flailing about what needs to be done, is always less than the energy required to start the work, and realise its nowhere NEAR as bad as we were imaging.

I got my clients project started after 3 DAYS of thinking about it; and after a few minutes found myself in joyful flow… and ended the week with a solidly happy client.

Remind yourself when you are procrastinating that STARTING is all you need to do to switch from a static state, to momentum… and from there, more energy and completion can come.

If you want some accountability, support, encouragement and clear systems and strategies to follow to GET STUFF DONE in your business, then come and join my Legends Lab, where I help experts become stand-out educators in their industry.

What are YOUR tips for overcoming procrastination?

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