Avoiding Double Trouble.
“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.”
Spanish Proverb
There are some things that just seem to naturally go together. They work hand in hand and are almost inseparable. How could you have baseball without hot dogs? When you think of Ginger Rogers, you just naturally also think of Fred Astaire. And of course there is always mom and apple pie.
It just seems as though the minute you think of one, you think of the other. The list of these dynamic duos goes on and on. But there is yet another duo that is not so dynamic. In fact, they are a destructive duo. When you find one, you can bet that the other is sure to be lurking in the shadows.
This double trouble duo work in tandem to wreck havoc and leave devastation in their wake. They pilfer the dreams of would-be winners. They choke off creativity before it has time to blossom. They fill people with feelings of confusion, disillusionment and doubt. The sole purpose of these despicable bullies is to knock you down and then kick you again and again to make certain you stay down for keeps. Who are these dastardly, sinister, rotten to the core villains? Fear and procrastination, that’s who! They are double trouble and if you are not careful, they’ll be looking for you.
Fear and procrastination. Procrastination and fear. You rarely find one without the other. Regardless of which one you write down first, they spell big time T-R-O-U-B-L-E. One of the biggest problems they create is they seem to literally paralyze their victims from head to toe. Once fear and procrastination set their hooks in you, it becomes doubly difficult to get anything done.
“If it weren’t for the last minute, I wouldn’t get anything done.”
Author Unknown
As soon as you become afraid to do something, you immediately put it off. Once you put it off, then they have you right where they want you. You wait and wait and wait. As you wait, fear weaves its insidiously evil web inside you. It becomes harder and harder for you to summon up enough courage to complete even the simplest of tasks. You are frozen by the fear of failure.
The longer you wait, the greater the fear factor inside you becomes. As the fear grows, the longer you wait. This is not a pretty picture, but it is a harsh reality that cripples the creativity of millions upon millions of people every day. Is there a way to defeat this unsavory couple? You bet there is.
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
Les Brown
Turning fear into fuel. If you don’t stand up and conquer your own fear, it will show no mercy. It will not stop until it put its death grip around your throat and chokes the life out of you. Its sole purpose is to take absolute control over you and it will if you let it. But do not fear. You can turn your fears into high octane fuel once you realize that fear is only an emotion and you can control your emotions.
You simply need to get your emotions working for you, not against you. You’ll discover that fear is in reality only false evidence appearing real.
“Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop.”
Usman B. Asif
The biggest fear most people have is the fear of failing. Rather than try something that may result in failure, many people opt instead to not try it at all. There is a huge difference between not trying because you think you might fail and giving it your best shot and failing.
While failing is never fatal or final, refusing to give it your best shot can be. Hey, let’s face it, we all fail. Nobody likes to falter or fall short and that includes winners. But winners are never afraid of failing and that is the key. They keep plugging away, getting better and better with each successive failure.
Winners look at failing as a necessary “growing pain.” None of us likes pain and sure, it hurts when you get knocked down. But let me ask you a couple of questions. How much pain have you and your family already endured because you lacked the courage to take a chance and give it your best shot? How much more pain are you willing to suffer by continuing to allow fear and procrastination to rule your life?
You probably answered that first question with “Too much.” I hope you answered the second question with “No more.” Without question, not giving yourself a shot at doing your best and being your best is the biggest failure of all. How can we ever expect to get better if we don’t give it all we have to give? Winners get really good at channeling their emotions by turning their fears into FUEL.
“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.”
Mary Manin Morrissey
A friend of mine used to say he ate fear for breakfast. Boy, did he have the right attitude or what? Instead of caving in to the temptation to quit, he challenged himself to turn those feelings of fear around and use them as a source of ongoing strength and motivation. You and I can learn a lot from the example he set. Fear is an emotion that we can control or we can allow to control us. We can effectively overcome our fear emotions when we replace them with a fear not attitude.
“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”
Don Marquis
Put in on – don’t put it off. Now that we have discussed how to overcome the “fear” component of the double trouble equation, let’s see what we can do to get procrastination out of our lives too. Procrastination is one of those rotten habits that tends to sneak up on you. You know how the story goes. About the time you realize that you have that nasty old habit, it is already too late and the habit has you.
Procrastination, when working in concert with fear, is like a thief in the night. This tenacious twosome has silently stolen the dreams and aspirations of far too many people around the world. Instead of just going out and doing what they need to do, procrastinators dawdle and dilly dally away one day after another. “Why do it now when we can put it off until tomorrow?” seems to be the motto of procrastinators nationwide. Unfortunately, their laissez faire approach of putting things off indefinitely inadvertently hurts both themselves and their families.
Why do people procrastinate? There are several reasons. Some people tend to put off things that are not really all that important to them. Others choose to procrastinate because they feel it is the easy way out. Another possible explanation for why people drag their feet when they know they need to do something is because procrastinating requires no commitment or effort.
The would-be winners put their feared items on the bottom of their “to do” list or worse yet, refuse to do them at all. Winners condition themselves out of the habit of putting things off. One sure fire way to eliminate procrastination is to always put the things you fear the most at the top of your to do list and then do them first and get them out of the way!
“We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.”
John Dryden
Like any good habit, it will take a little while for you to get totally comfortable with doing your feared things first. When you get in the habit of doing the things you fear first, you simultaneously vanquish fear and procrastination from your life. The minute you get rid of these two trouble makers once and for all, then anything and everything you have ever wanted is once again possible. Before you know it, you’ll be eating fear for breakfast just like my friend does.
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