How Laziness Helped Me Overcome Procrastination

Have you ever really thought about taking action but immediately put it off. I’m not trying to be a wiseguy with the question. If the old saying, “tomorrow’s another day” is one of your rules to live by, you just might belong in the procrastinator’s club.

All of us have a finite number of days on the earth. Perhaps if we knew how many days we actually had we’d get busy and start realizing some of our goals. But we don’t know. And “tomorrow’s another day” becomes part of our ideology because we feel there’s plenty of time. But can we really count on having tomorrow? I certainly don’t want to turn this into a fear-based piece but no one knows the future. So why not make something of life while the sun’s still shining?

Finding Your Calling

One of the reasons people lack the motivation to take action is they don’t know what they should be doing. It’s pretty hard to be motivated when you have no good reason to be. But there’s a secret to becoming motivated. I personally discovered it when I was in my 20s. The secret is to find your purpose in life, the thing you were born to do. Once you discover your true purpose overcoming procrastination will be simple.

I found that I was supposed to be teaching. I’m not an accredited teacher but still, I love sharing useful information with others. I love to see the light go on when they begin to understand something that was once unclear. I’ve written several books that received some nice reviews. And the opinion common to many of the reviews was, “he makes hard stuff easy to understand.” It pleases me to be thought of that way.

And once I figured out what my purpose was it became easy to overcome procrastination and enjoy increased motivation. In fact, much of the time I feel that there isn’t enough time in the day to do all that I’d like to do.

Now you might be saying, that’s great for you. You’ve found your purpose but I have no idea what mine is. I discovered my purpose almost by accident. But when I did learn what it was I really wasn’t very surprised.

My Purpose Came From My Own Laziness

When I was a kid in the third grade the teacher asked each of us to stand and tell the class what we wanted to be when we grew up. When my turn came I stood and told the class I wanted to be a writer. The teacher seemed a bit surprised and asked why.

With a big smile I told her I wanted to write because writing wasn’t really work. Real work to me was physical labor and in my eyes sitting down every day to write was easy compared to what I considered actual work. My teacher just groaned.

Later in life when I was struggling, I found out I had some aptitude for writing and went with it. See, my purpose was sitting there in my subconscious just waiting for me to release it. And so is yours.

How To Find Your Purpose

Here’s a secret. Your purpose lies in your true desire, the thing that you most imagine yourself doing. That might be an acting, singing, a professional athlete, a politician, a doctor, or anything else. The list is almost endless. Here’s a simple exercise to find that purpose. Think for a moment what you’d do if money were no object. If all the bills were paid how would you spend the majority of your time? And be realistic. Watching soaps or sports all day is probably not your true calling.

When you’re able to answer the question, the first thing that pops into your head is likely to be accurate. Go with it. Get busy doing something every day to get closer to it. It’s possible that there might be a challenge to move in the direction of your true calling but it’s worth whatever you have to do to get there. And once you do, you’re going to discover that procrastination is no longer an issue. And who knows, you may get to find out what having all the bills paid feels like. Be well.