Live your dreams! How to put an end to procrastination?

You want to share some knowledge and would like to create a blog, but you lack it motivation. You’re the type who accumulates bits of words on used paper and would like to write songs, which you constantly put off until the next day. Since I was little I filled the margins of your notebooks with drawings of all kinds and dreams of making comics, but you let this dream fade as time passed. You constantly talk to your friends about your desire to write a book, but you never get beyond talking about it. In short, you suffer from delay !

You started well, you started things, you said thousands of times that you would start seriously, but you fail to develop a habit, a regular attitude to ensure that your dream comes true. You miss the motivation!

Today maybe… or maybe tomorrow!

Very often the excuse used to hide your delay it’s the lack of time. Time that we will waste shamelessly on Facebook, Twitter, on Netflix, doing spring cleaning, ironing, etc. In short, anything that can stop you from putting your butt on the chair and starting to work!

But just a second! We talked about it at the beginning of the article dreamFrom passion… Shouldn’t we therefore find all the necessary motivations if these things really fascinate us? What is procrastination and where does it come from?

Procrastination is a very complicated word to pronounce, it simply expresses the fact of putting things off until tomorrow. Clinical studies have shown that this phenomenon is often linked to anxiety (hence the fact that we do everything to avoid facing our work) and a lack of self-confidence.

How to overcome procrastination?

It’s hard to find motivation from those around you. Whatever encouragement, whatever heart-warming thing those who appreciate you can give you, only you have the power to get to work. I had so many dreams throughout my (not so) young life.

1- Face reality

I would have liked to become a great guitarist. I often take refuge behind the fact that I started around 17, and not when I was little, and that consequently I never reached the level I wanted to reach. However, with work, I had plenty of time to become very good at it.

I would have liked to be a writer. This came to me from one of my excellent French teachers, Mr. Benoît De La Brosse, who one day said these few words to me: “you should try to become a novelist or a journalist”. These few words have resonated with me for a long time and often still tickle me today.

Why have I never achieved the goals or skills I dreamed of? I didn’t work hard enough. Point. My motivation wasn’t strong enough. I made a choice.

Because this is what you need to understand: When you’re not working to become the guitarist, the writer, the designer you want to become, or whatever your dream is, it’s simply a choice you make. Every day, every minute and every moment, you make choices that will impact who you become later. Don’t put it off until tomorrow, because there is a good chance that this «tomorrow» where you will work for your success will never happen because you will always find good reasons.

2- If it’s important to you, do it!

A great philosopher of our time once said, “Just do it.” If this is really your dream, if you think you are good at this, then go for it, don’t waste another minute (if you don’t finish this article, I don’t blame you!)

3- Impose a life discipline on yourself

Sometimes we encounter difficulties in prioritizing. This happens to me all the time! What am I getting myself into: am I trying to finish this book I started writing two years ago, or am I attending a photo/video gathering to try new things and progress?

If you’re like me, set a schedule for yourself! Do this for a few weeks. Set aside a time in your day where you will work to develop the talent that lies dormant within you. Get up an hour earlier every morning to write or compose, take half an hour every day to practice your musical instrument or to draw. On the one hand, your evident progress will encourage you and, on the other, what will be a difficulty at first will become a habit anchored in your daily life after a few weeks.

Take care to turn off the Internet, television or any other source of distraction at this time. Our mind tends to fluctuate and you will see that you will always find 10,000 other legitimate things to do in this period that you are establishing yourself.

4- Order your dreams…

As I said above, I have long dreamed of becoming an excellent guitarist. Yet I was convinced that I was passionate about it, I alternated periods in which I spent hours and hours a week playing with weeks in which I scratched out a few songs. I very rarely went outside what I knew, from my guitar comfort zone, I never tried to play a super complex piece just for challenge. As a result, I’m a good band leader, but I’ll never be the Guitar Hero I dreamed of becoming when, as a child, I pretended to play the guitar in front of the mirror with a tennis racket in my hand. I mourned it and have no more regrets.

What I want to prove with this is that if your mouth says «I want to be rich», «I want to be a writer», «I want to be a composer» but your actions prove otherwise, if you don’t spend time writing, composing, playing, drawing, it’s because deep down you don’t want to achieve your dream that much, or not to the point of sitting down and dealing with your insecurities and your lack of self-confidence forever. But if, you know, the famous: “What if I fail?” »

Finally, know that it is not so much a question of talent. Many very talented people will produce nothing with their lives, because they are too lazy, and others who have fewer possibilities will become prodigies in their field thanks to the amount of work they put in. So don’t wait any longer, put down your keyboard and mouse and welcome to the real world!