Have you heard or said any of these before?
‘I’ll start tomorrow’
‘There’s not enough time, so I’ll just wait’
‘I’m just not good enough’
Unfortunately, you are human (I hope) and are prone to thinking thoughts.
These thoughts oftentimes become scrambled with the truth.
This is why you can talk yourself into a panic attack or into believing tomorrow will be any different than today.
The Tomorrow Trap
These three lies we tell ourselves;
- ‘I’ll start tomorrow’
- ‘There’s not enough time, so I’ll just wait’
- ‘I’m just not good enough’
Are all ways of having our cake and eating it too.
We get the satisfaction of the idea that the thing you procrastinate is already done, it’s just a matter of time.
The thing is the brain doesn’t deal well with time, it can’t distinguish exactly between a task that has been done and a task that needs to be done.
That’s why we need planners and to-do lists because our brains don’t have that app downloaded.
Therefore, when you tell yourself you’ll start writing your book in the future your brain already thinks it’s done so you won’t act on your intention, because in your brain you’ve already done it.
Avoiding the Trap
Luckily, there are always ways around these things.
Productivity hacks they’re called in the biz.
The thing with putting off your writing has one simple way to avoid this perpetual putting off the machine.
That is just do it.
Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.
Simone de Beauvoir
Rather than putting off starting things such as your writing, think what can you do right now?
Can you outline your novel?
Write a paragraph?
Draw a picture of a character?
ANYTHING
Some progress is better than no progress.
You’ll find that the more you take little actions, the more progress you’ll make. In the present!
Progress in the present beats delusion in the future, every day of the week.
I post writing tips every day so if you enjoyed this post check out this one;
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