Time after time, I am on different internet forums, and I end up communicating with people who want to start a blog or website and are, "going to get started soon", "are thinking about it", or "still going over my options", and so on. While a bit of planning and research will serve you well when starting any project, oftentimes, months later, these same people are "still thinking about it".
While there are many reasons that may stop someone from even starting a project they have in mind, fear being the most obvious, the idea of perfectionism seems to be a strong runner up. Yet the only way to overcome these fears and stop procrastination, is to start doing.
How To Stop Procrastination
Stop Thinking About Doing It.
There is a proverb, “Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.”
There is no such thing as the perfect plan. In fact, you can spend so much time being concerned about getting everything right and perfect that it wears your initial enthusiasm down. The end result being is that time passes and so does the perfect moment.
Yes, you should want to be reaching for excellence, but who starts out with being excellent?
Excellence will only come from trial and error.
Just Make a Decision And Start Following Through
Forget trying to be a perfectionist. In its pathological form, perfectionism is an unhealthy belief. It stems from the notion that, "anything I do that is less than perfect is not worth doing". This way of thinking leads to one becoming paralyzed and then immobilized from from even starting your project.
And so you end up:
* never launching that website or blog because you just can’t find the perfect template.
* spending way too much time tweaking your design because you want it to be perfect, while neglecting your content, which to the search engines, is far more important.
* never posting that article, because it's not yet perfect.
* never going forth with that money making idea because....
I think that you get the idea.
To start overcoming procrastination, just start with something that is good enough, and then keep working to improve on it. Don't just tweak ideas. Make a basic plan, take action, and then start tweaking and improving the actual results
When I started my first blog, my site rankings were in the millions, within six months, with a bit of dedication, I was in the top 100,000 and now its under 50,000 and still going up.
Just Take The First Step
Getting started on a project is not a life and death decision. If you want to stop procrastination, let go of the fear, stop thinking and start doing, and forget starting out with, "its got to be perfect"
I'll leave you with the words of an actual doer, who was not a perfect person, and all his decisions were not perfect. Yet he is an example to be followed today.
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Be Fearless
Billy Ojai
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
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