That’s never been more clear to me than after this weekend, when I spent some quality time listening to the unabridged audio book Become Who You Were Born to Be: We All Have a Gift…Have You Discovered Yours? by Brian Souza. Now, I’ll admit, the book feels slow sometimes, meandering through biographical tales of inspiration more often than offering practical advice. However, even books that don’t always seem to be filled with interesting and fascinating material sometimes contain real gems of wisdom. This is one of those books.

The author relies on us to learn by example instead of offering a simple list of things we should do to find out what our passions are. These examples give us the opportunity to see how others discovered what they’re good at and what they’re passionate about. This is actually a nice way to handle the subject since not everyone follows the same path to discovery.

I am not finished with this audio book yet though, so I can’t say how it all turns out. I can say that I’ve gleaned at least one important, possibly life-changing, bit of wisdom from the book so far and I’m anxious to try it out as an antidote for procrastination. This might not be how Souza meant for me to use his material, but that’s the beauty of books. We all take something different from each one.

About Goal Setting

Souza advises us to “avoid the goal setting traps” because goals are often “boring” and “useless” unless “there’s a big juicy dream attached to them.”

This is very true in my experience and I’m wondering now how I can make this work for me and my never-caught-up laundry and my perpetually unswept floors. These are two tasks I hate beyond any other (except maybe dusting, mopping, and killing spiders).

I wonder if setting up a big, juicy dream might propel me toward these goals a heck of a lot faster than a dread of embarrassment at having an untidy and uncleaned house.

My Experiment

Souza says that “most goals appear to be unrealistic until we begin making strides toward their achievement.” So, my goal will be large, inspiring, and possibly unrealistic, but it will motivate me the way a tepid, small, realistic goal or dream never could.

Souza also says:

• Goals should be measurable and specific
• I should have definite but realistic schedule, timeline
• I should put together a written plan
• I should take immediate action
• Goals need emotional intensity because the emotion and intent behind a goal gives it meaning and zest

My Dream: I want to have the prettiest, tidiest, cleanest house (and laundry room) in my neighborhood. I want an awesome house (but don’t want to move). I want beautiful flowers around my yard, and a vegetable garden in back. I want warmth and beauty inside, some organization underneath it all, and clean floors and tidy furniture.

My Goals: (1) Sweep, dust, mop, and tidy each room in my house, one room per day starting today and allotting a reasonable amount of time per room, while striving for excellence in each room, and keeping a checklist of room names. (2) Arrange furniture and belongings in an organized and eye-pleasing way. (3) Start with a container garden this year, and plan for next year’s vegetable garden. Make, buy, or otherwise get pots to plant vegetables in this year, and visit the farmer’s cooperative this week to pick up flowers (and vegetables) for around the front porch, and plant them next weekend.

Wow. Talk about big dreams. :)

Next on my agenda? Explore my dream of an internet empire.

I’m going to post a follow up on this experiment on Friday. I’ll let you know if this particular dream fires up my soul enough to overcome any of my procrastination habits.

By the way, don’t forget to check out Souza’s book yourself. You can either buy it (audio book or print book), or check it out with your library card from the R.E.A.D.S. website.

Post from: Perpetual Procrastination

Planning isn’t the problem; the lack of a dream is

Lately, I’ve been suffering from the fallout of following my own advice a little too closely. I still believe 100% that you have to find your passion if you want to find a true path out of perpetual procrastination. However, anything can be taken too far, and over the past six months, I’ve probably taken my passion too far.

I’ve put off the rest of my life in favor of pursuing that passion and the rest of my life has suffered. I haven’t been spending enough time with my family. I haven’t been spending enough time doing simple household tasks that ensure my household runs—smoothly or otherwise.

My passion for websites can be thought of like a piece of cake. I love cake. I could eat cake every day. I could eat cake after every meal. But I shouldn’t and I don’t. My health would suffer serious repurcussions if I did and I’m smart enough to know that and disciplined enough not to eat cake all the damn time.

I’ve taken that same attitude and turned it toward my passion. I’ve set strict limits on the amount of time I’m allowed to spend working on it so that I don’t permanently damage the rest of my life by overindulging too much now.

It’s very interesting to note that as I’ve become bored out of my mind during my “free” time, I’ve started doing stuff around that house that I hate doing, and I’ve started spending more time with my family and been lucky enough to realize how much I’ve missed being with them more.

This method of creating an environment where I’m pretty much forced to choose to work on stuff that I would otherwise continue to procrastinate on has been working exceptionally well.

For two weeks, dirty laundry hasn’t stayed dirty for longer than one to two days. I haven’t went to bed a single night with dirty dishes sitting in my kitchen sink.

I’ve had to maintain strict limits on how much time I can shift to tv watching, because I have a serious passion for that too. The truth is though, that now that I have so much more “free” time where I’m not working on my passion, I get to watch as much tv as I can stomach and still have time to get these other things done too.

Do you have a bunch of stuff waiting on you to get it done?

My suggestion? Don’t tell yourself how much you need to get it done. Give yourself some free time where you limit the good stuff. You, like me, might find yourself avoiding total boredom by working on those perpetually put off tasks that are just waiting for you to finish them.

Post from: Perpetual Procrastination

Boredom can beat procrastination

All the old posts are gone.

I changed hosts—not exactly true—I didn’t change hosts so much as I changed accounts under which I was hosting this account, and in the change-over I needed to restore my backup for this site’s database.

I procrastinated. In fact, I’m still procrastinating. I have the backup and I could restore it, if I wanted to. But… it’s work, and frankly I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. My old posts weren’t all that good anyway.

How many times can I tell the world that I’m about to start posting regularly before they start to think I’m just a big fat liar?

Procrastination is an insidious disease of the psyche. I will probably never overcome my procrastinating ways, but I’m tired of trying.

I’ve found a better way.

So—there’s no point in recovering a bunch of old posts telling people how I’m working to overcome procrastination or how they can overcome procrastination.

There’s no need. Here’s the secret. Seriously, listen up. This is the only way anyone can ever overcome procrastination.

Find your passion.

You heard me. Find your passion.

When we have a passion, we don’t procrastinate. When we’re passionate about something, it’s a struggle to keep from spending every moment, every day working at it. When we’re passionate, we’re driven.

Can you imagine procrastinating on something you’re driven to do? Asked another way, how many “driven” people procrastinate?

Wouldn’t you like to be driven by passion?

Wouldn’t you like to stop procrastinating?

I repeat, we must find our passion. It’s the best—the easiest—the only way to stop worrying about procrastination.

I will still procrastinate on the things that don’t matter, but now that I know what does matter, procrastination will never be a problem for me again.

What does all this mean for this site? It is Perpetual Procrastination after all. I think it’s time I let you in on a little secret—my passion. I love to write—it doesn’t much matter what the topic is, but writing is a passion for me. Same goes for website development. I love to create websites that make me happy. So, this site will follow me as I let my passion lead me to fulfill a long-held ambition.

Can I use my passion to overcome my perpetual procrastination?

Will I finally build this site into something that works—and not let procrastination stop me in my tracks? I’ve worked through hardship before, but once boredom sets in, procrastination has always followed.

Will I succeed? Will I fail?

Post from: Perpetual Procrastination

Passion and Procrastination