One of the main reasons most people avoid the very tasks that can free them from mediocrity is their lack of self-confidence. Mediocrity is nothing more than not living up to your true potential. What you can do is absolutely amazing. What you will do is often disappointing. Most people have been conditioned to do only what they ‘can’ do or only what they have been told they ‘can’ do or have done successfully before.
Lack of self-confidence will automatically prevent you from doing it because you lack that feeling of certainty that comes from being confident. Self-confidence is nothing more than a visceral belief in yourself and your abilities, even if you haven’t before. Procrastination is not just a device to avoid mundane tasks, but on a much higher level it prevents the ‘big’ decisions and ‘big’ actions that can make a real difference in your life.
This is a big deal because the only way you can consistently move your life forward is to consistently take action. When you fail to move forward, you fail to grow and without growth there is ‘death’. If not physically, certainly emotionally and spiritually. To get from where you are to where you ultimately want to be, you would have to do things that are uncomfortable for you; things that are not familiar to you. Without a sense of certainty and self-confidence, chances are you’ll never do it. Your doubt will prevent you from even trying.
On the other hand, if you are full of confidence, you have confidence and certainty in yourself and your abilities to produce a specific result, regardless of previous performance or whether you have done it before. Self-confidence is what creates a sense of certainty within you. This feeling of certainty is nothing more than a feeling created by you. When you’ve done it before, it’s relatively easy to recreate the feeling and therefore feel safe. It’s not something you have to face again. As human beings we tend to avoid uncertainty and the unknown. This is why procrastination can steal your future because procrastination will prevent you from taking the actions that will create the future you want. Confident people are people who have an action mindset. They are people who know that action and trust go hand in hand as one creates the other.
With a lack of trust comes a certain level of fear. Confidence is not an absence of fear, but a presence of courage to face fear and to do it despite everything. the doing; action is what drives away fear. Not taking action not only accommodates the fear, it creates it and because of the fear of failure, you will find a ‘good reason’ not to take action and procrastinate.
Taking action is the ultimate cure for a lack of confidence, and a wavering sense of certainty can be anchored by using your personal power to act. When you use your mind and emotions to trigger your nervous system into action, you literally push uncertainty away from uncertainty and lack of confidence is nothing more than a “mental condition.” Whether you consider yourself confident or not; either way you’ll be right. Confidence begins and ends with the image you have of yourself. It’s as simple as that. The image you have of yourself; your self-esteem, it will boost or undermine your level of confidence. At this time you can decide to start focusing on a different image of yourself. Start directing your thoughts toward how you want yourself to be, instead of what you fear you might become. As you do this, you will begin to feel safe. Remember that confidence is nothing more than a feeling, and as you focus on these feelings, the results are sure to follow.
Many people today wake up in middle age only to realize they haven’t done anything they’ve always wanted to do. They realized that they had spent 30 years procrastinating, putting off doing what they should have done. This is one of the main causes of depression and what is generally known as a ‘mid-life crisis’. However, the ‘cure’ lies in eliminating procrastination and taking action and acting on your dreams and desires. It is never too late to have a happy childhood. It is never too late to act on your dreams and desires. It is your actions that will shape your life more than anything else. What you do and what you don’t do will be the creators of your life and you (and only you) have total control over it.
When you take responsibility for your life and realize that everything depends on you, you become empowered to make it the way you ‘see’ it. No one else is responsible. When you take responsibility, you take on your ability to respond and act. The moment you do this, you unlock a level of confidence within yourself that can empower you to take action. Confidence comes not from any physical proof, but from an inner knowing that you can. You create a sense of certainty by beginning to doubt the doubts you previously had in yourself. Ultimately, procrastination cannot survive in the mind of a confident, action-minded person.
