Overcoming the procrastination habit: With age comes wisdom

Do you procrastinate less the older you get? Are you more motivated to get on and do things, because you know time is running out?

I think the answer to that is - it depends. The motivated person will always do what needs to be done in order to achieve their goals. For the un-motivated person, they will find all sorts of ways to perfect the procrastination habit. And I feel age is no barrier.

No matter how old you happen to be, there will be times in your life that you will suffer the procrastination habit. With the exception of babies, young children and some "elderly" people being the exception to this rather bold statement.

Kids don't want to go to school or do homework, adults hide behind the television so they don't have to do any work on their projects, most people don't want to exercise, even I find it hard to write sometimes.

Why?

Well part of the answer lies in the fact that our emotions rule our world.  We are prone to hormonal swings, food cravings can send our blood sugar rocketing and our thought processes wild, and addictions - well they wouldn't be called addictions if we could deal with them on a logical basis now would they?

The other part lies in the thoughts that we have. We allow other people into our space and they can either nurture you or slowly eat away at you. The television impacts us with blood, guts and gore. Bad news sells and we soak it up like psychic sponges. We listen to people whingeing on the radio, we play video games that do little to inspire and we drag ourselves to work and school where we are bombarded with noise and other people's expectations for us. 

Fear rules our lives. We fear we don't have enough, we fear what will happen if we are seen doing something we shouldn't, we fear that we will run out of time and we won't have completed anything. But rather than it acting as a motivator - we stop dead in our tracks and wait for the freight train to hit.

So what can you do - well remember that you only have today. Today is a certainty, tomorrow - who knows. We cannot do anything about the past, apart from learn from the mistakes we have made and hope we don't have to repeat them.

So if today is all that we know we have, what are you going to do to ensure that today is the best day that you have lived so far? Are you still content to do the same things in the same way if you knew that today was it? Sure long term planning is important, but it is the steps you take today that will determine whether or not you will reach that point 10 years down the track after you have climbed your own particular mountain.