Final Procrastination? I wish. I mostly said it because it’s a cheesy play off the movie Final Destination (which I do NOT recommend).  But let’s look at the concept. What if, from this moment on, you never procrastinated again? What if you did everything as it occurred to you? How would your life be different?

Yesterday I wrote about some of the smaller things I put off, mostly related to chores. The energy I’ll save by doing things as I think of them will be amazing, but even by writing that post I was putting off the more serious discussion. Procrastinating is not just ignoring the dishes, it’s ignoring the opportunities to go after my dreams.

A lot of the bits I’ve read this week link procrastination with perfectionism. SARK writes, “Procrastinators are also tremendous perfectionists and relentless rehearsers. They rehearse over and over in their mind how they’re going to do it perfectly–then when they do nothing–it doesn’t disturb their perfect vision!” This really resonated with me. I’m sure we’ve all had a lot of great ideas, and somehow, they rarely seem to come to fruition. What stops us from taking the steps to make them happen?

For me, I hate making mistakes. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, worrying about little things I may have done wrong at work. Here’s an example- a couple months ago I almost got into a major car accident. A young guy in a fast car did a U-turn in front of me, and I swear I missed hitting him by 2 inches. Adrenaline was pouring through my veins, and it felt almost like a near-death experience. Fortunately I was almost home, and everything was fine.

The next day I made a mistake at work. Not a big one. No one was hurt by it, but it was definitely my fault. When I realized my mistake the adrenaline started pumping- it was the same feeling as the almost accident.

Maybe you’ve felt something similar. It’s that feeling I’m avoiding. The only trouble is, everyone makes mistakes. There’s no way to avoid making mistakes. Not only that, making mistakes isn’t bad.  In fact, they should really be called “learning experiences.” Isn’t that what our parents and teachers told us when we were younger?

When you see a baby learning to walk, its one of the most precious things in this world. The baby takes a step, maybe two, and then falls on their diapered bum. Nobody thinks the baby is making a mistake when she falls. She’s just learning how to walk. That’s what we’re all doing- we’re just learning how to live.

I want to be more like that baby. She isn’t thinking about how she might look if she falls down on video. She doesn’t worry about making mistakes. She’s just wants to get where she’s going, and nothing is going to stop her.

SARK calls herself a “recovering procrastinator.” I think that’s a good title. It’s time to unlearn those habits that are keeping us from realizing our dreams (Yep, I’m talking about you, Mr. Procrastination). Maybe  start with some smaller things, like chores, and work up to the big stuff.*

If you’re like me, and want to do some more  work on this topic, stop by the bookstore this weekend and pick up the book Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now, or just order it here. Why procrastinate? *grin* I’ll be reading my copy at the same time.

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Songs to get you started – If Not Now by Tracy Chapman & What You Waiting For by Gwen Stefani

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Next week’s Living Juicy topic: Napping…Zzzzzz…

*Note: It’s important to acknowledge the things that you ARE doing. For me, it’s this blog. One of the things about blogging- it’s a very forgiving medium. It’s hard to say what a “perfect” blog is, because the range of style and content is huge.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 120101UTC and is filed under Living Juicy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.