How to Avoid Procrastinating

Are you procrastinating?

So many people who want to get started on a healthier lifestyle, get too caught up in all the details that they never feel confident enough to just begin!

They fill their time searching for the perfect program and constantly comparing the thousands of programs out there.

Meanwhile, we remain frozen by too many options! So we do more research. Maybe we type out a plan to follow but before we’ve even been on it for two weeks we read some new research that says a different way is better. We type up a diet plan, but oh no! Now we see that this fitness model says we should never eat fruit and she has a great butt and visible abs! Better write a new plan and find something to replace the fruit.

The perfect program doesn’t exist

You probably don’t need more knowledge. You probably actually know in reality the perfect program doesn’t even exist. You probably actually know what’s a healthy way of eating and what’s not, what’s a good workout and what’s not.

Even if there is a ‘better’ way to do things out there, it doesn’t REALLY matter. DOING is what is going to get you results! Do what you can NOW.

Just reading about things doesn’t change you. In the beginning, a mediocre plan followed consistently will work far better than a perfect plan which isn’t followed consistently. Putting something into action is what brings results!

Starting is what will get results

I had to give myself a kick up the butt recently about this. When I started mountain biking, I read a lot about how to do certain skills, I watched a lot of YouTube instructional videos about how to get better and I talked to a lot of people about how I could improve. I ordered new tires. I decided how and where I should be riding and for how long, and thought about ways to improve my cardio fitness. All the while my mountain bike sat in the spare room. How much better do you think I got with this approach?

I had to actually begin! Get on my bike, ride over the terrain, try new things, but the kilometres into my legs.

Maybe there was a better way out there, where I would have set aside a certain day to train specific skills over certain obstacles and cross-train in a pool and use hydrating gels. But if I waited until I put the ‘perfect’ plan together, I would still be using my bike as a clothes rack.

Some words of wisdom

Before every competition I committed myself to, I would print out the following quote by Goethe (slightly modified:

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to drawback. The moment one definitely commits oneself then Providence moves too! All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

Imagine what you can achieve in that time if you just start NOW!