Procrastination hardly ever enters a person’s life by force. It’s most often invited in by it’s close cousin fear. That being the case perhaps the most effective way to end procrastination in your life is to stop being afraid. 

I’ve had lots of good excuses for procrastinating in my life. Didn’t know where to start. Didn’t have time to get started. Wasn’t going to have time to finish so why start at all. Had more important things to do. “Somebody” would be unhappy if I did it. Didn’t have money to do it. Didn’t know how to do it.

Most procrastinators have great excuses for not taking action. But they will seldom tell you the real reason. They won’t even tell themselves. 

The real reason is fear. The biggest reason I suppose is fear of failure. I can tell you that pretty much every time I’ve failed to take action that would have led to success it was because fear held me back. 

Every time I missed a sales goal it was because fear held me back. Fear of prospecting, fear of asking for the order, even fear of asking a customer basic questions. It probably never looked like fear to someone else, it most likely looked like your run of the mill procrastination. 

But fear was driving the procrastination. 

It was the same for trying new things, attempting something new. “Tomorrow” became a shield against the fear of not knowing how to start, not knowing how to avoid looking like a fool if something went wrong. 

I never really overcame procrastination, I kinda outlasted it. I’ve had enough success now that I don’t have to worry about failing. If I fail I can just shrug and move on. But here’s what I have learned through my success and failures…I could have always shrugged off the failures. I didn’t need a base of success to do that. 

And neither do you. Failure is a part of success and the sooner you get some failures under your belt the sooner you can stop worrying about it. Procrastination quickly loses it’s interest in people who don’t fear failure. 

Now yes, as some of you will point out, sometimes plain laziness leads to procrastination too. That is true but when compared to fear laziness is a distant relative. Fear and procrastination grew up together, they are inseparable, they can finish each other’s sentences. 

Eliminate fear and procrastination has no place to live in your life. You can do it, you only need to begin the focus on the potential for success rather than the unlikely failure. 

The sooner you try the sooner you’ll wonder why you ever procrastinated in the first place.

Try today!