How To Stop Procrastinating and Achieve Goals
Simple Ways To Take Action and Work Toward Accomplishing a Goal
Apr 5, 2009
Is there a project or goal you’ve wanted to take action on but haven’t yet? Do you have the best intentions, but never find the right time or the motivation to actually move forward with it?
The truth is, once you actually take action, it isn’t usually too difficult to keep moving; getting started is the obstacle that holds many people back.
Here are some reasons why you may be procrastinating and ways to overcome procrastination.
Moving Past the Fear of Failure
Fear of failure is the number one obstacle. People fear that their idea or plan won’t succeed. They’re terrified of not reaching their goal. Everyone wants to be successful, and the thought of failing is often too much of hindrance to give you the incentive you need to actually try. If you knew you would succeed in what you wanted to do, wouldn’t it be easier and wouldn’t you feel more motivated to try? Of course you would!
A simple way to move past the fear of failure is to make a list of all the positive and negative things that may arise while pursuing this goal and the benefits it may bring to you once it’s accomplished. Look over the list and see if your idea truly is worth taking a risk on or putting into action. Do the potential benefits outweigh the possible risk of failure?
Each time you feel like procrastinating, take a look at your list and how your life could change for the better if you pursue it. This method is often an effective catalyst to get you out of a rut and moving forward.
Over Analyzing Can Hold You Back
A lot of people have good intentions as they get started moving toward a goal. They gather all of the necessary information, buy all the right equipment or supplies, and develop plans on what they want to do and how they plan to do it. And there it stops!
Whether you think too much, over analyze or are constantly preparing, this is vastly different than actually taking action.
Too much knowledge isn’t necessarily a good thing. Of course, you want enough information and enough facts so that you can be confident that your goal or idea will be apt to pay off in the end, but once you’ve got a good framework set up, it's important to take steps each day to make things happen.
Take That First Step Toward Reaching Your Goals
It’s been said that less than 10% of the general public actually reaches their goals. This has more to do with never taking that first step rather than lack of money, fear of failure, or poor planning.
That first step is always the most difficult. Once you’ve got it behind you though, the second, third, and each subsequent step will be easier.
Simply choose your goal, plan a basic framework for getting there, and take action each day — no matter how small — toward accomplishing that goal. If you stop thinking so much and simply take action, you’ll find that you accomplish more goals than ever before.
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