Why You’re Not Doing The Things You Said You Wanted To, Part 5

Missed the previous 3 parts?  Get ‘em here and here and here and here.

Meanwhile, part 5 is live and on the scene, and we’re going to talk about how you avoid taking action when you don’t value your time enough to get mad when you’re wasting it.

The truth is, even though you might blame time pressures, money pressures or emotional pressures for why you’re running behind, the truth is that you are likely the bottleneck that’s limiting how fast you move towards what you say is important in life.

I’m not trying to depress you.  I’m slapping you in the face so you can wake up and do something about it

Life’s Cruel Irony: You’re Making Yourself Waiting In Line

Listen, I know what you hate.  You hate always being in the left lane and having that idiot do 5 miles under the speed limit.  You hate waiting in line while the slowest cashier in history takes care of that genius who waits for the total before deciding it’s time to fish out his checkbook (”Oh yeah, I guess I need to pay for this stuff, don’t I?”).  You hate waiting for videos to load, on flights to land, on the operator (who should be “standing by”) to get to your call.

You hate waiting in line.  Your time is valuable.

And yet you do this to yourself constantly.

You have things you want to do, “when you get the time.”  Spending time with the kids.  Writing that book.  Taking a long, hot bath.  Getting in shape.  Going on a vacation.  Getting that room painted.  Developing a side business that will let you quit your 9-to-5 hassle.

Yet you don’t do it. Because your favorite show is on.  Because you want to sleep in.  Because you want to surf the web some more.  Because you want to continue the meaningless small talk in the office.  Because the video game console is calling.

Because basically, your goals want to become realities, and you’re telling them to wait in line. For stuff that doesn’t matter in the long run.  And I’m not saying that entertainment is bad – you can be sure when the new Terminator movie comes out, everything will have to wait in line for a few hours in my life – but for a lot of us, this is a non-stop line where the trivial things keep the good stuff from getting done.

And you should be just as mad about the good stuff waiting in line as you are about the times you wait in line.

Breaking The Cycle – Here’s What You Need To Do, Right Now

There’s only one way to really get past this goal-killing brutality, and that’s to go against every bit of manners they taught you in grade school and tell yourself it’s okay to “cut in line.”  When you feel like watching TV, stop for a moment and imagine that long bath – the thing that will relax you a whole lot more than vapid mass-media storytelling – and say, “Hey, you can cut in line.”  And then do it.

When you want to play video games, look at that room you want to paint waiting patiently back there, think about how good you’ll feel to have it done, and then say “Hey, you can cut in line.”  And then do it.

Don’t stress about willpower and prioritizing and becoming stronger – just be a little mischievous and say, “Psst, that other thing?  Let it wait a while.  You’re getting taken care of first.”  Looking at it from that perspective helps to take the edge off.

Learn to hate letting your goals stay stuck, waiting in line.  Your time is valuable.

And leave me a quick comment to let me know what you’re going to let “cut in line” right now – then go take care of it.

Keep rocking -

Dave