Chapter One

before taking action, he backs off, saying to himself, “I know I should sit down and pay the bills right now, but I don’t feel like it. I’ll do it tomorrow!”So, procrastination can not only take the form of either an obsessive thought or a compulsive behavior, it can also be a complex mix of both components, working together as a disharmonious tag-team helping to propel procrastination to its highest heights.

The Good News—Change Is Possible

So then, the question needs to be asked: If habitual procrastination has been such an all-encompassing, formidable, and difficult foe, how could a person such as myself wind up writing a book on overcoming it? Luckily, although I may have stopped taking care of myself at times, I was not incapable of observing and eventually changing many of my negative behaviors, which resulted in my ability to produce this book.

Truth be told, there are still times when I am approaching an unfamiliar task that I may feel some degree of apprehension. However, the difference between then-and-now is like the difference between night-and-day, because today I don’t allow feelings of fear or anxiety to get the better of me. During my transformation from procrastinator into “do”-er, I began to find a new sense of balance, and as the process continued, I noticed myself feeling a bit more comfortable in my own skin.

If you work at overcoming your own habitual procrastination you’ll start overcoming the fear that has interfered with your ability to deal with the tasks and projects that you’ve learned to automatically shy away from. You’ll discover that you are far more capable than you thought possible, and your new definitions of yourself will be based upon newer self-beliefs garnered from positive experiences.

Actively procrastinating is like stumbling through life like an ill-prepared actor. When I was a practicing procrastinator I sometimes wondered, if I were miraculously transformed into what I would have called a regular person, how I would look back on my earlier life? Would I hate myself for all the opportunities I’d lost, and if so, what would I do with all the anger that I imagined would come? Having bridged that gap, I now find myself at peace with those times. All I can say is that I simply did not know any other way of living.