How To Stop Putting Dreams Off And Do It NOW

It’s 2014 and I want to ask you something; have you put something off?

Do you have an unfulfilled purpose or dream somewhere stored in a closet? Is there something you really want to do but can never seem to muster the drive to achieve?

I’m willing to bet £3.50 (sorry all my money is tied up in stocks and shares at the moment! :lol:) that there is something that you’ve hidden away, for whatever reason, but you would give your right arm to be able to achieve it.

The two big ones that I hear of are:

i) Write a book
ii) Start a business

There are other big ones like travel or find a partner, but the other two are the most common.

Why do we put things off? It’s usually because we exaggerate the task in our mind make it insurmountable. We maximise the effort by imagining the process to be so huge that we tire ourselves just by thinking about it.

For people, like myself, who are like that, the cure is so simple which is to look at the whole in much smaller chunks and then deal with each, one at a time. It’s what I call ‘Micro-Steps’ and using that to make slow but steady progress. Often, because the progress is steady, before you even realise it you’re usually half way there.

But, what if you’re someone who is the double whammy of procrastinators? What if, even after you break the whole into smaller chunks, you still somehow manage to keep putting it off?

I don’t call this era the information and technology era, I call it the era of ultimate distraction. We have absolute entertainment at our fingertips and which is great if you want to live a life of being entertained. I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m guessing you are here because you want more than just entertainment. Perhaps you’re a little like me and want to be the entertainer.

So what can you do with so much at your fingertips, surrounded by distraction, literally at ever corner within an arms reach?

Here’s what I think you should do…I think you should keep getting distracted.  Yes…you heard me!  Keep doing it.  Who needs dreams anyway?  If you’re not doing it, have you perhaps thought that you’re trying to live someone else’s dreams and not your own?

Did you ever think that maybe this isn’t truly what you want and that’s why you’re not getting things done.

The first and most important piece of service you can do for yourself is truly ask yourself, is this what you really want?

If those dreams are not really yours to begin with, let them go, and get on with your life, living it the way you choose.

However, if after that brief moment of reflection, and my interruption, you thought, ‘No! I will not give up on my dreams’ you had a little satori on what it would be like to give up on your purpose, and you felt a sense of renewed invigoration, then pick yourself up and get on with it!

Start in whichever way possible!  All you need to do is make a start.  It doesn’t matter how you begin, it doesn’t matter if it’s with a scrap of paper and pen, or just the £5 in your pocket to get your business off the ground, just begin.

Like many other conditions, putting things off is simply a habit, and habits are easily broken.

Distractions are always there and so if you use multiple distractions my main suggestion would be schedule in dedicated time to any project which you wish to follow.

Even if it is just two hours, use that time to turn your dreams.  Turn of your phones so you can’t play Angry-Birds or Candy Crush, or get a thousand what’s app messages. Then, who knows, maybe you’ve totally lose track of time and end up working for 10 hours straight.

All you have to do is promise yourself for that small chunk of time, you’ll do nothing else but work on your book or creating your business plan. If two hours is too much to begin with start with 30 minutes.

Once you get there you’ll then realise that your dream was not about achievement, but about realisation of your ability to make real your dreams. Then you can have more and continue to make those a reality too.

3 Responses

  1. Anders Hasselstrøm says:

    Hi Amit,

    Once again a well written article with excellent points. The minute we start working (… even only for a few hours) with our dreams it doesn’t seem to be such a big task after all. All it takes is to get started.

    I wrote in my own article about this: “Sadly, the wealthiest place on the planet is the graveyard because in the graveyard we will find invention that we never ever were exposed to. Ideas and dreams that never became reality. Hopes and aspiration that was never acted upon”

    I was looking through your comments on another post. I’m sorry to hear about your loss. I hope you and your family are feeling OK. If I can do anything to assist you please let me know.

    Best,
    Anders

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