Misdiagnosed Success Barriers - Why People Really Procrastinate
Misdiagnosed Success Barriers - Why People Really Procrastinate
Following excuses as the alpha dog of success barriers, running from problems takes a swift second. At first thought, the idea of running from problems may seem like a ridiculous thing to do. I mean, you're in business, and problems are an everyday occurrence right? The type of running that I am really referencing here is procrastination. All of us procrastinate at some point in our lives, and an off day now and then is going to happen. However, when we habitually put things off by way of wrongly prioritizing our activities is when it becomes a giant problem. Procrastination goes far beyond putting things off; it can be disguised as prioritization.
How Procrastination Leads To Giant Success Barriers
You see success barriers don't just happen upon us, they are created usually by our own poor choices. We don't boldly state our decision to not do the things we need to, but rather we plan poorly and the fruit of our decisions is procrastination. In other words, we focus more time and energy on the less important tasks, leaving the most important fruit producing activities incomplete. It works something like this.
The first hour of the work day is where most people lay the foundation for their success barriers. The majority of people will get to the office and begin their preparation for the day. They sip their coffee or drink of choice, check emails and voicemails. The average person spends at least an hour getting ready for the day organizing their tasks and to do lists. Then the first distraction sets them off course for the rest of the day because they need to respond to the emails they just received. Before they know it, it's time for lunch and off they go. This is the first place we go wrong and literally open a door for procrastination to steal our productive time.
After lunch it's back to checking voicemails and emails and responding to every urgent matter that comes up. By the end of the day, so many people realize they only accomplished maybe 20% of what they needed to. So they carry those items over for the next day, and start the same routine over again. Day after day, week after week the same poor planning is repeated. It doesn't take a genius to realize that eventually all of this nonsense will catch up with us because our lack of productivity shows up in our income. The unfortunate detail in this scenario is that too few people will realize that procrastination is fueling and compounding their success barriers.
This doesn't only apply in our daily business lives. Procrastinating leads to larger than life success barriers in our personal lives as well. If you are using credit to pay for things, it can be easy to make purchases, pay the minimum and move onto next month. We can become complacent in our relationships and sweep little things under the carpet. There is always tomorrow. When we fail to plan and prioritize correctly in our lives, essentially we are planning and preparing for failure. When we don't deal with our most important tasks first, it has a compounding effect. Pretty soon we are faced with mountain size debt, and we are tripping over that carpet filled with all of our "should haves."
Facing Your Giants And Removing Success Barriers
Like I said before, success barriers are merely the result of poor choices. Most people will list their easy tasks first, and the most difficult tasks last. When we do this, we can sometimes go days, weeks or even months before getting to the difficult tasks. This is due to another error we make where we have a tendency to respond to the urgent instead of the important. The urgent can be something as simple as a customer or business associate who needs your help, and instead of scheduling the time to help them, you meet their needs first, putting your schedule second. Although there are some things that must be done in the moment, most things can be scheduled. It is when we develop the habit of always taking phone calls and responding to the urgent needs of everyone else, that our own productivity and goals suffer.
There are things you can do today so your small challenges don't become giant success barriers.
1. Plan your day the night before. The very last thing you should do at the end of the day is organize for the following day. Make your to do list and spend a few minutes visualizing how you want your day to go. This allows you start your day running since you already know exactly what you need to do.
2. Prioritize your to do list. Make your list of 5 things you must do in order to move your business forward. Replace your habit of listing the easy things first with listing the most important items first. Ask yourself, of these 5 items, which task will make the most impact on my business? List that item first. Repeat this with the remaining items until you have them ordered 1-5.
3. Transfer your to do list to your daily planner. This step is critical, yet most people fail to do this. Begin in order and make sure to allot enough time to complete each task. Some tasks will require the input or work of others, so you may need to be somewhat flexible. However, make sure you continue to schedule the time each day in order of priority. Learn to live by your schedule. What gets scheduled gets done.
Facing your giants simply means you tackle your important tasks before they become a bigger problem. Success barriers are only small problems that flourish because of excuses, reasons, or lack of essential attention. This usually happens through avoidance. Often times we avoid the important or difficult things in the hope that they will just go away, or solve themselves. They never do.
You can apply these same guidelines to your personal life as well. Whether it is debt, relationships, health or weight problems, face them head on and deal with them before they become giants. It begins with setting the right priorities, and developing a plan of action. You can remove all success barriers when you remove the excuses, plan your work and work your plan.
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