Serial Procrastinator

“Are you are serial procrastinator? Come on fess up! Is there something you have been wanting to do, like for ever? For me it was writing, and here I am now with my own blog and have been given some awesome opportunities to guest blog too. How did that happen?! I feel so lucky, but I guess if I hadn’t taken a chance I wouldn’t have these opportunities I feel so blessed to have. I can’t say what finally made me take the leap, a few wonderful friends encouraging me, my desire to live my own truth, divine intervention perhaps, well whatever it was I haven’t looked back. I wrote the following blog for a website that promotes books, offers book reviews and supports aspiring writers and bloggers. I thought I would share it with you, you may have seen this on reflectionsfromme.com facebook page, but if not here goes . . .”

You know some days, (or most days) you just want to curl up with a fabulous book, maybe blog or write a few chapters of your one day best seller, a girl can dream, and then life gets in the way. There’s other people we need to consider besides ourselves, and not just people but pets as well, but all you want to do is get lost in the characters of your book.

So here is my advice: stuff the cleaning —seriously who cares if the beds go unmade, or the floor is gathering dust balls—and the grocery shop can wait, it’s not like we need to eat food in order to survive. If you are serious about writing, then write!

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: we kind of do need food to survive. But my point is that there is always an excuse to not sit down and write.

I am a huge procrastinator; I should say I am in a twelve step program to overcome my addiction to procrastination. I seriously blew my own mind when I started my own blog and most people who know me well had their minds blown along with me. Normally, I would have sat on the idea for ever, and probably would have given up before I even started. And the same can be said for when I noticed that the Bit’N team were looking for new minions, my automatic procrastinating self would respond . . . yep, probably never. I would have waited until it was way too late, or talked myself out of it for fear of rejection. But I have to ask myself, where would that have gotten me?

So WHAT if no one likes my blog, I realised that I fail more if I never even try to succeed. If I keep procrastinating, if I keep letting the ‘things’ in my busy life get in the way, then I am never going to be happy. How do I know this? I know because it’s what I’ve been doing for the past ten years, and until I started just ignoring that ‘stuff’ and sat myself down to write, I wasn’t feeling happy, or fulfilled. So maybe I can’t go as far as ignoring the fact that I have three gorgeous munchkins (my children) that need me, but what I can do is take every opportunity that comes my way to write!

That is my advice to all aspiring writers out there: stop procrastinating, stop making excuses—you are never going to overcome so called ‘writers block’ by walking away from the computer. Just start typing, anything; random, weird words, fix it later, or even toss it out later, but just start! It is easy to walk away and not make yourself vulnerable to rejection, criticism, or failure, but in walking away, in not fighting for your passions or dreams, you are failing before you even begin.

I have come to realise lately, in my wise old age, that failure is not what I once believed it to be. It is not about being rejected, or being fired from a job, failure is never trying in the first place, never giving something your all. So if you are sitting there reading this in order to avoid doing something, then your time is up, be inspired and just go do it!

“So that is what I wrote, and yes I am talking to writers, but it doesn’t matter what the dream is, isn’t it just time to do it, to shine your light, and live your truth?”

Thanks for joining me, love Mackenzie xx