I subscribe to the e-newsletter of Lifehacker Australia and was recently directed to the following article, which I too will recommend:
Read :: “Saying ‘I Will Do It In The Future’ Is an Excuse for Failure” by Trent Hamm.
Trent Hamm, it turns out, is the author of a blog called, The Simple Dollar, posting on financial matters. The article is a fantastic personal development/motivational ‘kick-up-the-backside’, as it reminds us “not to put off till tomorrow what can be done today”.
In personal development, this really is a key concept (the best ones are usually this simple). We can make all sorts of plans for ourselves, our families, our careers that we want to, but unless we start actually acting on those plans, they will never be fulfilled. Which, again, goes without saying; yet, how many of us are stuck in this trap? I know I am.
I am a man of ideas, yet very few accomplishments. I too struggle to take action, often even towards the smallest of tasks. I too can make up all sorts of excuses why this or that can’t be done now, it must be put off till tomorrow. I dare say even in my spiritual life I am painfully aware of how little like a spiritual giant I am. I could be so much more for God, but am not, for no other reason than … well, there are too many excuses to list here.
My future-self is not going to help me and will probably be even less capable of helping get where I want to be because, as the Lifehacker graphic so admirably illustrates, my patterns of procrastination that I am presently setting in will be even harder to break later.
I pray that God’s Holy Spirit can ‘do a number on me’ and bring me back to life again.
