One of my favourite podcasts is Adam Grant’s WorkLife.
And this week’s topic of procrastination is touching on a phenomenon amongst innovative and caring people like you who dream of stepping up to contribute something meaningful to society, but never share it with anyone but their coach.
Well, your idea won’t serve anyone if you don’t act on it. Not acting likely also impacts you negatively as you beat yourself up. Before you go down that rabbit hole, pause, and know this:
You are not alone! We all procrastinate.
Procrastination is part of the human condition. But why?
Procrastination isn’t caused by laziness. We don’t postpone tasks to avoid work. We do it to avoid negative emotions that a task stirs up – like anxiety, frustration, confusion, and boredom. What’s more:
Often we procrastinate the things we are most passionate about.
This really makes sense to me when I look back on my life so far: The more personal and important something felt for me, the more I have procrastinated putting it out into the world, for fear of being ignored or judged. A constant “not yet ready”, “not good enough”, “not yet enough information gathered” would be my inner chatter, and still is whenever I embark on something new or even pick up the phone.
And self-judging inner voices are what we keep hearing from many of the great people that we are fortunate to talk to.
What are you telling yourself to hold yourself back from unleashing your potential?
If you don’t hear voices like that, you might suddenly get tired, lose yourself in social media or tend to suddenly very important household tasks.
Here’s the thing: We need everyone who cares to get into action
to respond to climate change
to end the obesity epidemic
to rid the education system from its industrial age legacy so it can meet our children’s needs to learn how to learn, to build resilient personalities, and to not lose their creativity
to turn companies from profit driven to triple bottom line driven organisations.
The list goes on.
We need courageous, purpose-driven leadership. We need people who speak up, who create connection and enrol others. We need people who are ready to not be hero-leaders, but who will co-create with others so that collectively we can experiment our way into what works for us as individuals, for society, for business, and for our fellow animals and allows our planet to keep on nourishing us.
Therefore, we are on a mission to support changemakers to get their work and word out for the benefit of the greater good.
We need you to contribute to society and environment!
If you are in your late forties up into your seventies, we invite you to a 30 minute conversation about how you are contributing, or would love to contribute to society and the environment in a positive way.
If you know someone like that, please point them our way!
Thank you!