Procrastination

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Penny August, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Procrastination.
We all do it. We start out enthusiastically with great ideas and big plans and then – something comes up and we put aside those plans – just temporarily. Just for today. But then tomorrow comes and we don’t get back to whatever it was we started – or maybe we feel a little bit intimidated or not quite ready – so we delay it again, and again, and again…until we have lost whatever it was we had intended to do in the first place.

When you were a little child, what was your dream? Chances are you know exactly what it was. Maybe you played with numbers all of the time, and knew you were going to be a mathematician when you grew up. Maybe it was singing, or acting, writing or business. Maybe you played Doctor or lawyer with your friends. But along the way, your parents or your teachers or your friends – and eventually your own subconscious – either verbally or non-verbally through eye rolls or funny looks or laughter, even – talked you out of your dream. They may have thought you weren’t smart enough. They may not have approved of a musician in the family. They may have thought the competition in your chosen field was too tough for you to be able to advance. So before you knew it, little by little, you buried your dream – until it was so well hidden, so far down in your subconscious that you may not even remember what your little inner child knew you wanted. But that is exactly what you must find. Because that, I believe, is where your talent lies, and is what you were meant to do in life.

Identify your Goals.
When I was a little child, I was acting all of the time. I would grab a broom and while sweeping the kitchen floor would sing, “Cinderella”. I would imitate Shirley Temple and dance up and down our six steps to the landing with Bo Jangles. I was Juliet at age seven to my cousin’s Romeo in our grandparent’s attic. I flew off our blue naugahyde-covered basement bar as Peter Pan with my friends as the Lost Boys. I was always acting. But my parents never saw this, or if they did, they ignored it. By the time I got to college, I began as a freshman in Fashion and Scene Design for Theatre. I vaguely recall being encouraged by my mother in the Fashion Design area. That was something that somehow must have seemed more realistic – more do-able for her daughter. I later transferred to another college and into an Acting major, but after I was graduated and wanted to move to New York to live out my dream, my parents both admonished me about the dangers of living in the Big Apple alone, and I let my self be persuaded instead to pursue a graduate degree in Art Therapy. After that, I worked as an Acting teacher, a Talent Agent, an Administrative Assistant, and a Real Estate Broker, along the way becoming a wife and mother and life went flying by.

And this is how it goes. You’ve probably heard the saying by the 19th century English novelist, George Eliot, “It’s never too late to be who you might have been”. I respectfully disagree. Sometimes it is too late. There is a point at which we cannot be who we were meant to be or who we wanted to be, or who we thought we would be, so we are forced to become someone (or something) else.

Since you’re reading this article, it’s probably not too late for you. If you’re older, it may be too late to pursue your original goals or dreams, but it’s not too late to pursue new ones. Figure out what they are. Figure out what you need to do to achieve these goals. Draw up a time-line for achieving them. Get to it, today, because if you don’t, then next week and next month and next year you will be singing the same old, “should’a, would’a, could’a” song. And nothing will have changed.

Penny August is a Personal, Career and Life Coach living in the Denver area. She has a B.S. in Theatre Acting and is a Certified Pyschiatric Art Therapist. She has worn many hats, but the one that fits most comfortably is that of coach. She has been married forever to her best friend and has two grown sons and a miniature Schnauzer named Max. For coaching, please contact her: penny@pennyaugust.com