by Joseph Skoda

Created on: March 11, 2010   Last Updated: March 13, 2010

Most people mean well.  They desire to work hard, bring up their children with honesty and integrity and look for ways of self-improvement.  This usually comes in ways of higher education, business ownership, retirement fund or outstanding investing strategies.  Even though the goals are there, we often get stuck with life in general.  This is what we can easily call procrastination.

Procrastination is normal and affects most people at some point in their life.  But, studies show that it is this very same procrastination that gets in the way of us reaching our goals and full potential.  After all, the Army use to preach “Be all you can Be.”  We should all want that for our own lives.

Whether in the Armed Forces or not, we still want to reach for higher horizons in our lives…Don’t we?  Parents usually want their children to be better off than they are and encourage those children to work and study harder to get a “break” in life.  But, is this what we should be teaching our loved ones?  It’s almost telling them to be prepared to buy lottery tickets on a regular basis because eventually you’ll hit the “Big One.”  This is crazy talk.

Work, family and sleep often get in the way of accomplishing our goals.  After awhile we may lose hope and become too tired to even try to get out or our own “Rat Race.”  This is when Procrastination is at its strongest.  This is also where most business owners lose their dreams.  In fact, 97% of people fail at their business ventures.  This is not because they are not smart enough but because when the income isn’t coming in fast enough, they often lose interest by getting distracted.

As we can see, distractions get in our way.  We often would rather spend our whole day checking emails or watching television than investing that time with our families and businesses.  So what is the bottom line?  Are we a lazy generation?  We all know that most of the population is overweight after all.  Why is this?  We don’t procrastinate when it comes to eating or buying a large television or entertainment center.

I believe strongly that our priorities are out of order.  We want to play first and work later.  This is the wrong way to set the example for those around us.  This has caused too much debt in our society and as we know many are losing their homes because of poor planning.

It’s time we get focused on the important things in Life and not let distractions get in our way.  Procrastination doesn’t have to rule us.  Take the right step forward today.  Lottery tickets and laziness will not secure our future.  Only hard and smart work will.  This helps us build self-discipline and avoid failure.

Procrastination doesn't have to be a bad thing or rule your life.

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