A good way to deal with procrastination is to set a mini-goal. For example, set a goal to work at a project for fifteen minutes. Then work at it for fifteen minutes. When you’ve completed your fifteen minutes, you’ve completed your goal and you’re able to feel a sense of satisfaction for having accomplished just that much. Beware! You may find that by the time you’ve completed fifteen minutes, you just might want to continue, and you’ll find yourself going beyond your original goal! Better yet…
You may even find yourself completing the entire task!
What’s being enforced here is the law of inertia. When we are standing still it is difficult to get started…but once we’re moving, it is easy to keep moving.
Sometimes at the end of the 15 minute period you’ll stop and do something else, but you won’t feel bad about leaving the job. You may even choose to give yourself a little reward because you completed your mini-goal! You did what you said you were going to do. And those times when you decide to complete the entire task, you will find that it doesn’t seem like work. It is not something you should do, or have to do, it is something you want to do, and you feel even better once it is completed. It is said that life by the yard is hard, by the inch it is a cinch.
Recommended success statements.
- I am a “do-it-now” person.
- I like to jump right in and get busy.
- I am loaded with energy for the task at hand.
- I do first things first.
- I am energetic, ambitious, and motivated.
- I take action now.
- I love to get started on a project and stay with it.
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