Is it too late to talk about the New Year?

Probably… I know some would say we’re way beyond talk of resolutions, intentions, and productivity. My procrastination made me miss the hype that comes with Jan 1, the hype that reminds us how much fun it is get to “start over” and hope and plan for better things to come.

Yes, this is what procrastination does: it makes you start a blog post the second week in January, and then you don’t sit down to finish it until 6 weeks later.

I felt motivated. I promise. I knew my plans were important to me, but instead of jumping in, I distracted myself with other important things like TV or Facebook. While my lack of focus didn’t make me feel good, I couldn’t get myself started.

Have you ever felt like you really wanted to do something, but you couldn’t commit to it?

When that happens, how do you get that momentum to get going?

For me, I sometimes just have to find a way to pull myself together!

You have to just do it.

Since the past 16 months have felt relatively unproductive for me, I thought I was more than jazzed to get back to my normal progress and productivity. I was ready to leave all the cancer battling behind and focus on the things I was really excited about.

But as ready as I was, I found it difficult to take action.

When I started this blog post 6 weeks ago, I thought I knew why.

It seemed that part of my task list was out of my comfort zone, which made me avoid it altogether. That procrastination for one or two tasks permeated into all of my goals and tasks, not just the dreaded ones.

One particular goal seemed to be in my way. I wanted to put more energy back into my weight loss coaching business that I had neglected during the “year of cancer.”

As part of this goal, I set my first action step to visit nearby medical offices to create relationships and essentially ask for referrals for my weight loss coaching.

It’s basically cold-calling, and I hate cold-calling. Ugh! Dentists, you know what I’m talking about. I know you hate sales, and I know how we generally hate sales people walking into our offices.

I was afraid to do it.

That fear got in the way of my overall productivity.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t let that fear stop me entirely. I pushed right through it. Or I should say, I struggled right through it. It wasn’t as easy as I had hoped, and I didn’t like it at all.

That one task acted like a cloud hanging over me, and it completely stifled my drive and my creativity with everything. I began to wonder why I chose it for my first action step!

Luckily I had an accountability partner, so I committed to it.

When I completed it, I immediately felt a weight lifted.

That was when I finally felt free enough to sit down and write this blog post. I thought I had it all figured out, and I was ready to get into doing the things I really wanted to do… things like write blog posts.

You can see how well that worked out. Here I am 6 weeks later.

It got me thinking about a few things. Yes, there is a part of me that knows that sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do. We can spend so much energy trying to avoid it, and in the end, we always come out on the other side just fine. If we could just skip all the worrying and delaying, wouldn’t we get what we want much more quickly and easily?

If moving past what we need to do should make us naturally more driven to do the things we want to do, then why was my procrastination still around?

When I sat down to write this post, I thought I was cured and ready to get going. But that’s not what happened.

Just when I thought I was ready to jump in to writing blog posts, creating course content, and planning for upcoming speaking engagements, I found myself continuing down the road of procrastination.

So maybe it wasn’t just getting through the undesirable tasks.

Maybe it was something more.

Eventually I couldn’t stand my lack of commitment any longer, and I had to sit down and coach myself.

That was the turning point.

I revisited my goals, and by revisited I mean, actually wrote them down instead of keeping them swirling around my head.

These were goals that were important to me, goals that are non-negotiable. So it was simple to start my action list. Before my cancer diagnosis, making lists was my most helpful tool to keep myself productive. In the 16 months of treatment, I think I made one list. I needed to get back to what I knew worked for me.

My self-coaching worked!

It worked because I reconnected with My Why. I reminded myself that my relationships, my health, and my mission to help dentists are all worth working for.

And I became more intentional with my efforts.

What are you avoiding?

If, like me, you find yourself not following through with all of the big plans you made for yourself two months ago, now is the perfect time to start.

If you know you need to do something, but you are resisting it, then you might either need to decide not to do it, or just do it anyway. Getting some accountability for those less desirable tasks can help you push through the very thing you’re wanting to avoid. Then you can get to the good stuff.

If you know you want to do something, but you are resisting it, then the key is to reconnect with Your Why and get more intentional with your time and efforts.

There is an alternative, of course. That is continuing to let your procrastination keep you right where you are.