Mike J Sullivan, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Mike J Sullivan
"Oh, I can't get anything done. I guess I'll sit aroung and procrastinate." 7/14/2013 3:48:45 PM
One way to deal with procrastination. THE BANGKOK BLOG:
A recent comment came into my website. The person was looking for a way to stop procrastinating. I don’t have all the answers. In fact, at times, I have very few. But I’m inclined to believe that if a person is having trouble getting started, it’s because fear has crept into the picture. That fear rests in a fear of being successful. “Wow, what if people actually like what I’m doing? Then if I’m successful, I’m going to have to change and deal with my success.” There’s a fear of doing this, working at the back of your mind. There is also the fear of being rejected and feeling foolish. It’s like a hollow feeling of self-defeat has come over you, stopping you from getting started. So naturally you’re going to sit around, looking vague and distant, and not do anything. ”Oh, I’m just a little lazy.” That’s a cop-out for your lack of mobility. It’s not going to help.
SOLUTION: The best way I know of to deal with fear is to stare it down. Meet it head on. Admit that you are scared, but that this time you are going to take control. You’re not going to be scared and allow the fear to overwhelm you like it has for the last ten times that you promised yourself that you weren’t going to yield to the fear. Soon you will find that you can brush the fear aside and not think about it anymore because you are turning over a new leaf in your life and making a fresh start. You’re not going to sit around any more. You’re going to get off the Internet. You’re going to put off chatting with your friends for a while. You’re going to turn off the TV and you’re going to get started completing your next project.
As a fiction writer, I stare into a blank page every day. I’m scared. I don’t know where the next sentence is coming from. I’ve done my outline. I think I know where the book is going. But getting the first sentence down on paper is often difficult. And there is the urge to stop, think about walking the dog, or watering the flowers, or taking a trip down to the market. But I know if I start doing any of these things, I’ll go into a tailspin and start procrastinating. Then I know what the result will be. Nada, zero, nothing. The book will never get written. THE THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO YOU NEED TO GET DONE. That’s the message I told him. The message is simple and direct. It has been seen and heard many times before. But simple messages are usually those that speak the truth.
