This article was originally published on Aug. 31, 2016.
In the past, I have written how you’ve got to get your self-esteem up and make sure your self-talk is positive, to become a more attractive person. Now, we tackle the ugly, three-eyed monster of procrastination, resistance and fear.
Have you ever heard of the Ziegarnik Effect?
Basically it says that something left undone will plague you forever until you do it. Human nature is to finish what we start and if it is not finished, we experience some type of discomfort. This discomfort manifests itself in different ways.
It usually shows up in your life as procrastination, resistance and fear. In the book The War of Art, author Steven Pressfield says, “Procrastination is the most common manifestation of resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize. We don’t tell ourselves, “I’m never going to write that book.” Instead we say, “I’m going to do it tomorrow.” And tomorrow never comes.”
When it comes to fear, Pressfield says, “Resistance has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. We feed it with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer resistance.”
The bottom line is that we have to produce in order to be happy. Said another way, if you desire happiness, you must create.
To create we must work.
According to Jim Rohn, we must labor. Why does a mother go through the pain and labor to have a child? Because she knows what the outcome will be. New life only comes through labor. Labor produces life. Sure, it might be painful, but we do not get a miracle without it. I don’t understand why everyone is afraid of a little pain. It only lasts a short while, and yet you gain so much from it.
So, unless you put that good idea into labor, it will work no miracle. You must write that book, compose that song, start that business. You must labor in order to be happy.
The greatest sources of unhappiness are self-inflicted. When you are not happy with who you are at your core and when you know you are doing less than you could do, you can’t feel that good about yourself. Do you recall the Bible character Judas? He was the one that betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. He got the money, a success story, right? Wrong, he later committed suicide. Why? He felt guilt and was not happy with himself. This will not be you.
Timing is everything. And the time is …
Now! Now is the time to act, to produce, to create, to labor. Not tomorrow, not next week, now!
“Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a…