Down the corridor of life

There are as many techniques to beat the procrastination habit as there are days in a year. Not convinced? Well a simple search of the internet and an online book store such as Amazon will prove my point. If you can’t be bothered to look then you will just have to take my word for it.

But why are there so many?

Every person on this planet we call earth is different. We are all unique – just like everyone else. We think, speak, react, and solve problems differently. We respond to stimuli in a multitude of ways – usually very differently.

So rather than blindly following the suggestions of one person (including me), it is time to have another look at the term “self-help”. Self-help means understanding what you did to overcome your own set of problems. By all means take the suggestions offered by people who have been there and done that, after all why re-invent the wheel when you can just go and buy one at the store. But use what works and discard what doesn’t. Do not attempt to fit their solution to your problems - blindly, without questioning. “Self-help” should be that, a way to overcome your own problems, and to do that you need to devise your own set of rules by which you live your life, not follow someone else’s.
Look at it this way, the reason why the techniques described by someone have worked for them is because it is their plan, and the method they have chosen to overcome a certain obstacle in their lives. And more importantly, they wanted it to work. They believed in it, they lived it, they modified it, and believe it or not they are still making changes to their own plan.

Do you remember going to school? Of course you do. Do you remember how as you “grew up” you had to move classes, learn new things, make new friends, and change schools? You outgrew those teaching methods, the chairs, and even the people you were friends with at the time.

As you make changes to your life, you will need to learn new skills. It is no good reading the Saturday paper and then deciding that you don’t need to read the news ever again, because nothing is going to change over the coming weeks. Of course things are going to change, and so it is with our own “self-help” strategies. It is important to challenge your thinking, and the way you look at things. You will need to rethink your strategies, and plan your goals for the next few months and years based on the knowledge you have now and the knowledge that you know you will have to have or achieve in order to reach them.

So how do you design a new life?

Change is not easy. It is far simpler to do the same thing today as you did yesterday. It is easier to do enough just to get by, to not challenge your day, your thinking.

Are you happy in your habits? Are they like a comfortable pair of slippers you wear and are afraid to throw away? Or are you not unhappy enough to change any of them? Do they serve your current needs and requirements?

The good thing about some habits is you don’t have to think too deeply about them. It allows us to listen to the radio whilst we are driving. Or iron our clothes whilst watching the television. We run on auto pilot, and only jolt ourselves when we hit a patch of turbulence. But we know that things will even themselves out again and we will be able to get back to coasting through our lives.

Imagine that every day you are given a blank canvas on which to work. Now are you going to be the kind of person who hauls out the same canvas day after day, re-painting the same lines? Re-painting the same picture.

Can you imagine getting to the end of your life and having to walk down a corridor with your daily paintings hanging on the walls? How scary would it be to see the same thing? Row upon row of the same picture, an endless stream of monotony, interspersed occasionally with the odd picture that stands out, a day that was “special” in some way.

You pause for a moment, to reflect on what made the day special, but then as you return to the walk down the corridor the paintings return to the same themes again and again. You stop and try to go back to that picture you saw earlier, but it’s no longer there. You have to keep walking, past picture after picture of drudgery.

Now imagine what it would be like to walk down a corridor where the walls are lined with vibrancy. You would walk quickly towards the next one, to see what new and exciting things you had done. You would smile, you would frown, and you would remember the happy times, the sad times, and the days of pure bliss. Each day the painting is filled with something different.

What would your paintings look like? 

And you can start to make a difference by doing one new thing a day, it's like trying a different kind of food, or wearing a colour you've never tried before. Change doesn't have to be massive, but it can be achieved one small change a day at a time.