A substantially revised and expanded version of Part III of The Lifelong Activist (Managing Your Fears) that now offers important new material, including about the "false" solutions many people futilely employ to solve their procrastination problem. Of course, it also discusses the true - i.e., effective - solutions in detail!
Other topics discussed are: perfectionism, negativity, hypersensitivity, coping with fear and panic, time management, determining your authentic mission, and leading an empowered and joyful life.
Excerpt:
An Early Morning in May (or September, or January…)
So here’s what happens:
You have a plan – let’s say, to wake up at 7; be washed and dressed and breakfasted by 8; at your desk, easel or other workspace by 9; work three hours; exercise during your lunch break; eat a healthy salad at your desk; work four more hours; come home; eat dinner with your partner; work a couple more hours in the evening; and then curl up in bed with a good free book.
But you don’t follow the plan.
Maybe you wake up late at 8, or 9, or…noon! The plan is trashed before you even get started.
Or, maybe, it takes you not one, but three hours to make it to your desk. And then, once you’re there, you spend an hour or three reading the newspaper, Web surfing, and making personal calls.
Or, maybe when lunchtime rolls around you don’t exercise and instead of a salad eat a gigantic submarine sandwich and then spend the rest of the afternoon feeling sluggish and don’t get much done.
Etc.
Procrastination is when you get bumped off the “path” you set for yourself for the day. Meaning, you start the day with a plan, but somehow, by the time bedtime rolls around, you haven’t accomplished some, or all, of what you had intended.
There are other definitions of procrastination, but I like mine because it reflects the notion that, at every moment, you’re making a choice to either stay on your path (or schedule) or leave it. The challenge of beating procrastination is the challenge of resisting the urge to leave your path. This is also the challenge of beating blocks, since a block is really an ongoing procrastination problem that lasts weeks, months, years or decades.
This ebook will help you figure out what is causing you to leave your daily path, and what you can do to stay on it. It offers not one, but three proven solutions to procrastination: I’ve used these solutions myself with great success, and so have many of my students and coaching clients. Moreover, these solutions work fast. Students who employ them often shoot ahead like arrows on their goals, even if they’ve been blocked for years. I’ll explain why that is so later in the book. For now, just relax and read on, and rest assured that, by the time you finish, you will be much more empowered to finally defeat your procrastination problem and live the productive and happy life you’ve always yearned for.