procrastination

Why you’re not where you want to be right now by Jaclyn Sison

I have a lot of dreams and aspirations, and I feel like I want to put them into work this coming year. I want to have goals, things that I can attain and say, “hell yeah I did that!” So why am I not where I want to be right now?! Why are YOU not where you want to be right now?! Cause we got all the damn excuses in the world, and here are my four main ones.

The difference between dreams and goals is that you work towards a goal.

“I’ll do it tomorrow”

Procrastination never got me anywhere good. It’s like looking at your laundry pile up and saying “yeah I’ll get that done” until you realize you only have one pair of clean underwear left and you only have socks that are missing their pairs. For me, it’s when I say “I’ll water the plants tomorrow” and 3 weeks later, I’m wondering why my Swiss cheese plant isn’t looking so good. Well, it’s because it’s a desert in it’s pot, and it’s my fault for putting it off.

I always have 2-3 major tasks I want to complete in a day, and applying for school is always one of them. It’s always a “I’ll look into it tomorrow” or “this is going to take too much of my time to do the application process, so I’ll do it when I have more time.” It’s awful how I always bump that to the bottom of my list. I’m lucky that the school I want to apply to does rolling enrollments, because if it didn’t, I’d have to wait even longer to apply. I swear I’ll apply before the end of the year. (We’ll see.)

“I’m not ready yet”

Will you ever be ready? In college, I would study for the NCLEX before I even got into nursing school. I was reading ahead of all of my classes, even before I was in the class. I was the student who always liked to be prepared ahead of time. I’d say nerdy shit like “if I read it beforehand, it’ll just end up being a review in lecture.” Yeah, that was me, overly prepared. So you can imagine what I feel like now when I want to set a goal and I don’t even know what my goal is. How do you even prepare for stuff like that? I was never ready to be a mom, and I’ve learned to wing it literally every day of Maverick’s life. And he’s still going strong! Just goes to show that you really don’t need to be ready to make life decisions, you just need to be flexible and adapt well. And if you fail one day, you remain resilient the next day!

“There’s so much stuff going on, I can’t handle it” or “I don’t have enough time”

If you’re able to binge watch HBO Max, then you have enough time to do anything. If you have enough time to check your 4runner forum on Reddit for 45 minutes, you have enough time to clean your actual 4runner (yep, that’s directed toward my husband, FIGHT ME FOOL.) Just kidding, my husband’s car is always clean, thank the Lawd. But seriously, if you have enough time to scroll through Instagram, you have enough time to write a blog or read a chapter in a book. If you have enough time to send tweets (do people still do this?) then you have enough time to try that new recipe you’ve been eyeing. There’s always time, and the important thing is managing our time. Because studies show that busy people get shit done, and those without a schedule usually don’t. I mean, it’s obvious why right?

I know for me that when I have nothing planned, I take the day less seriously. I feel like I have all the time in the world, so I fill my time with useless things like window shopping on Chrome, or watching Reels on Insta. But when I have days where it’s packed tight with events, then I actually am more productive, and that’s because I dedicate time to things. Which is why being on terminal leave was so hard for me because my days were literally filled with nothingness.

SO GET OUT THERE & MAKE GOALS.

So are you going to make goals now, or are you going to wait until next year? Because next year is in 21 days, partner! So even if you’re trying to procrastinate, guess what, you can’t! Let’s not wait another 365 days to make moves. LET’S GET IT DONE TOGETHER.