I once heard it said from a Nigerian friend, “Tomorrow is the most pregnant day of the week.” Roughly translated it means that we tend to put things off until tomorrow. Procrastination is a huge supervillain that can stand in the way of our personal achievement and peace. However, procrastination can be overcome with one ingredient: courage. It’s time for courage! Courage is having faith that whatever the outcome, we can appreciate and learn from the experience by moving forward. We may not always achieve the goals we expect, but we can learn from the process.
However, procrastination has allies of mayhem that can derail us in our endeavors. In the book Limitless, Jim Kwik identifies the following supervillains: Distraction, Stress, and Multitasking as helpers of procrastination. When I read the book, I pondered this idea of supervillains. In my mind’s eye I saw a big person with multiple arms that each had enticing projects to work on in each hand. This was The Multitasker. They wanted to drag me away to work on too many projects to ever accomplish one efficiently. The Stressor had pneumatic presses attached to his arms and feet and he could attach those to you, and it would squash you slowly, making it difficult to breathe, never allowing you to get anything done. Captain Distraction was a formidable enemy. I imagined this villain had a bag of enhanced squirrels. He could release a squirrel at any time to get your mind off the task-at-hand.
Kwik identifies Focus and Meditation as tools to combat these enemies. I would also suggest courage. One of the “Quick Start” challenges he recommends is to find the project that you have been putting off, and attack that project with focus. Take away your distractions, prep your mind with meditation, and concentrate on finishing that one task. Congratulate yourself on that task, and maybe even take a moment to write down how you’re feeling with that achievement. This way, you’ll be able to relive those moments of success and maybe even help refocus on the next project.
In dentistry we like to think in a proactive sense. Wouldn’t it be better if you never felt pain as opposed to waiting for it to hurt, then getting it fixed? Dental pain is the worst!!! It’s time for courage to vanquish that procrastination to make an appointment to have things looked over. Dentistry is made up of wonderful providers: old, young, male, female, of every nationality and background. Our goal is to help improve your health. Happy New Year, we look forward to seeing you again!
