Overcoming My 15-Year Procrastination Battle: A Guide to Your Victory

Ever since I was in my senior year in High School, I wanted to live a life where I was free to do what I wanted and when I wanted.

I’ll never forget sitting at the back of the classroom in a Science lesson, dreaming of being a famous drummer in a band and making a living touring the world.

Everyone around me at the time was talking about going to university and picking a study so they could enter the corporate world.

I couldn’t think of anything less soul-destroying.

Why do we exist in a world where we spend the majority of our healthy adult lives away from family, friends and fun?

I could not fathom this idea, nor did I want to be part of this system.

But, unfortunately, “it is what it is” — I hate this saying

Thankfully my parents encouraged me to pursue my interest in technology, go to college and enter the corporate world in IT.

Got a Job as an IT Helpdesk Analyst.

It “paid the bills” — another saying I hate

It helped me live a comfortable life. I had money I could use to buy things I liked.

But the biggest problem I had was time.

Not enough time to do the things I loved.

I am passionate about music, art, video games, movies, skateboarding, travelling, and photography. Many things I’d never have enough time to do while working 9–5.

To keep me entertained, I joined a band with some mates from High School, we rehearsed “outside of business hours”.

At the time, I thought:

We just had to keep writing and playing shows, and eventually, we’ll make it.

We didn’t.

Some of the guys had kids and we eventually separated.

A year later, I joined another band!

The lead singer shared the same dreams as me, wanting to exit the corporate world. He was driven and full of passion, and he really pushed us to grow.

We did pretty well, got some big shows lined up and produced some CDs (remember those?).

I thought: 

But after a few years, the momentum died, and we separated.

I needed something else to do, another pathway leading me out of the 9–5.

So I partnered with a friend and got into digital marketing, building and selling products. My business partner was full of energy and momentum and led the business.

I learned about Facebook ads, building funnels and marketing automation—skills to build an online presence to start selling digital products.

I thought at the time:

We built an online audience, had an email list some some small sales.

The online marketing business plateaued. We pivoted to different niches made some small sales and plateaued again.

The creative vision started to deviate. We both wanted to go in different directions and ultimately separated from the business.

More time had passed.

I started a YouTube channel with three friends. We were passionate about psychology and created weekly content on human behaviours and personality types.

Two of the guys were very structured and helped us build out a content strategy plan. This helped us build out some good momentum and consistency.

I thought: 

We did okay until, after a year, we decided to separate due to different creative visions.

You are responsible

The point I’m trying to make from all these creative endeavours is;

• I expected someone else to save me. I expected someone else to lead me to my dream of freedom.

• I expected someone else to drive the projects and keep up the momentum.

• I thought the people in each one of these projects would lead me to my dreams.

No.

If I want to live my dreams, I need to be the one driving.

I need to be the one directing.

I need to be the one growing and doing the hard work.

15 years later, and I’m still in the corporate world, I haven’t reached “freedom” yet.

But the good news is I have learned.

I have learned a lot about myself.

I learned that I relied on others to build, organise, plan and network.

I learned that I was subconsciously outsourcing my problems.

The more you subconsciously outsource, the less control you have.

If you want your dream lifestyle, you control that destiny. Identify where you outsource your problems and instead learn how to do them.

For me, it was planning, organisation, building and networking.

You are a business, and a business is only as strong as its weakest link.

If you want your business to grow, you need to grow.

Work on your problem areas, understand them, and get 1% better daily.

Take this as a lesson for yourself. If you are in a similar situation and you’re trying to build your own destiny. Make sure that you are in control and that you are not outsourcing your problems.

Outsourcing work is ok, but make sure you’ve put in the effort to understand and define that process before you give it to someone else.

How to save yourself

This year, my creative journey has rebooted.

I am going back to basics.

You’re observing it right now.

Writing.

Writing is the most basic human skill we have, yet it is the most profound thing you can practice.

Writing consistently teaches you a lot about yourself. You are forcing yourself to make sense of the noise in your head.

Writing helps you connect the unstructured pool of information that’s swimming around. You will build understanding and refine your knowledge.

What’s better is that you will become a better communicator, not only written but verbally too.

You are focused in the moment. You are not distracted. You are forced to think and piece together information that you will remember.

That information sticks and you can easily share it with others, verbally or written.

Writing is the foundation of all good creative content, think about it:

• Books

• Movie Scripts

• Playwriting

• Songwriting

As you can probably tell, I’m very passionate about writing

But what you can see from this is I’m focusing on myself and my creative vision.

I’m using writing as a way to create a foundation of thoughts, ideas, and plans for the future.

I’m backlogging future YouTube videos, short stories, Tweets, book ideas and product ideas.

Make a writing habit whether it is journaling, stream-of-consciousness writing or morning pages. Set a 10–20 min goal of writing daily.

This will help you gain clarity on your path forward and your vision, and over time, you’ll know how to build it.

But what if my creative passion is more visual, like painting, drawing or photography?

That’s fine; you can still write. Write about your goals and your passion in a journal for yourself. Tell yourself what it is you want to accomplish.

Write what worked and what didn’t work, and document your results.

What is nice is when you go back over your notes randomly and see the progress you made.

I came across a journal I once wrote in 2018. I wrote a whole page about “Why I should start blogging and focussing on writing.”

I got annoyed at myself because I didn’t continue with that dream, 6 years later, I’m now doing it.

Consistency is powerful; write every day and don’t stop.

You’ll realise how much of a procrastinator you are.

You’ll stay true to yourself and your goals.

Summary

No one is going to save you.

If you are unhappy with your lifestyle, it’s up to you to plan, organise, gather and build towards it.

Writing helps you focus on your goals and gives you objective feedback. This can help you understand your weaknesses.

Where are you subconsciously outsourcing your weaknesses?