There are many factors that come into play when determining a person’s potential for success. Those factors vary depending upon the type of endeavor the person is trying to succeed at. There are some commonalities across all fields of endeavor but each one has their own set of unique requirements.

There is however one sure way to greatly limit your chance at success. It makes no difference what your trying to succeed at, this one thing will almost certainly limit your chances at success if not outright kill them.

This one thing is called procrastination. 

Procrastination prevents even the most accomplished people from reaching their potential. It is simply amazing how quickly, and consistently procrastinating will kill your chances for success.

Research shows that a leading cause of procrastination is a lack of passion. It’s pretty simple really, we do the things we like to do and look for reasons to put off those things we don’t like doing.

The research shows that people who make decisions and take action quickly are more successful and wealthier than people who procrastinate. There are very very few exceptions where a chronic procrastinator has been able to overcome that handicap and still have huge success. Those exceptions in fact are so rare that it’s safe to say that procrastination not just might, but absolutely WILL damage your chances for success.

Procrastination limits every area of a person’s life, from business relationships to personal relationships. It limits the trust that other people will put in you and even limits the trust you’ll have for yourself. 

Every person hears the beckoning call of procrastination but highly successful people have learned to drown out the noise through planning and hard work.

One tool many people use to try and overcome their propensity to procrastinate is a to-do list. I’ve tried that but a simply to-do list is no match for my procrastination abilities. So I use a Prioritized Daily Task List. This is a to-do list on steroids. I rank everything I want to get done on a particular day by order of it’s importance. I do not allow myself to move from my highest ranked task to a lower ranked task until the higher ranked one is completed. That requires discipline.

Discipline, for those of you who believe you don’t have any, comes from wanting something in the future more than the something you want today. To develop discipline you simply have to identify what those things are that you want in the future. When you keep those things in the top of your mind it becomes much easier to have discipline.

I have one other “rule” I use to overcome procrastination. It’s my 30 second rule. It too is pretty simple, if something takes less than 30 seconds to do then do it NOW. You’ll be surprised how many of the things you put off actually take less than 30 seconds, it just seems like they take forever because you endlessly put them off.

Those 30 seconds can be the difference between your success and settling for less than you want and deserve. You probably won’t like this but here is a fact: if you can’t find 30 seconds in your day to accomplish something important then you can’t succeed. You probably don’t deserve to either.

The truest of all the secrets to success is to stop procrastinating. Don’t stop tomorrow, stop today and understand that anything else you can do today should be done today. 

“Do it today” is the mantra of all truly successful people! So, what are you doing today?