The problem with never starting a new adventure, let alone having the focus or concentration to keep going, is that other negative emotions attach themselves to your head, and then a well intentioned day just goes down hill and down hill until bedtime, which we all know seems to take forever to approach.
Then as you lay your weary head on the pillow (you can feel that softness now cant you? Ooh… how distracted are we right now thinking about how badly we want that pillow?), you need to convince yourself as you close those weary eyes and you trot out your genuinely intended yet feeble favourite line ‘I’ll do it tomorrow instead.’
The guilt and frustration and anger and low esteem and embarrassment all cling to you when you don’t even get the basics off the ground. The projection into the future about all the joy and love and success you have missed out on and lost forever compound the fear you will never be happy or worthy. And all this could be avoided if you only you had the slow motion foresight to choose, to combine, loving yourself for who you genuinely are with those dreams of who you chose to be, and do all of this staying in the moment, right now, as the mirror image of you, as you and what you do. But and this is the but… being you.. as you.
Its an easy habit to create just having that extra [Insert your extra thing / bad habit here] before you get started. Another coffee or an extra 10 in bed or another lap of the fish tank. The excuses are easy, because if you expertly procrastinate that extra thing then your naughty mind is trying to convince you that only then will you be truly ready. Just this one more thing and then perfection awaits your next project.
In reality if you do eventually get going then your mind isn’t always stimulated how it should be for the task at hand, and then focus fizzles out and just dwindles naturally. Your energy isn’t in love with the purpose of what you want to be starting.
Could it be this is a result of our on going search for instant stimulation and gratification these days, I don’t know, but I do see this play out so many times with my own life experiences. The need for something to reward right now? The cake without the baking. The bank balance without the patience. The entertainment without question. I don’t know, I’m not an expert psychologist, I just have a weak big tooth fish analogy and a trail of misunderstandings to work from.
Personally I find the ‘dream-state’ being a vital cog in learning to steady the mind and find the best levels of focus and concentration to attract all the good emotions and vibrations needed to have a happy, balanced and successful day.
I don’t mean simply the bedtime sleep dreaming. I know many of us don’t need too much convincing to use this as an excuse to sleep at the desk or doze whilst at the wedding service. My understanding of this state is the part of you which guides you to a place you control, you are aiming for and any internal obstacles are too insignificant to talk you out of it.
Stay with me, and don’t worry I’m not going to get complicated about this because complicated never works for me. Plus I don’t know enough to technically confuse us anyway. I mean I know there are various parts of the brain and mind, and this and that, but I also know I don’t need to know too much about them either. That halves the amount of procrastination excuses I can use.
One of my own biggest forms of personal procrastination over these decades is the learning to better myself syndrome. (I’m sure its only a syndrome in my head, they should name it after me if I discovered this.) To be a perfect learner, accumulating vast information and knowing everything possible in the universe. Only then would I be ready, the moment would be set to perform. Of course this would never be the case, there is never a perfect moment to wait for, but there is always that feeling inside that just finishing this one last book will make it ready. Just do this next course. One more Guru clip. A couple more practise runs. That’s the power of procrastination, pulling the strings, because we would all agree its commendable to keep growing, learning and experiencing, and its easily justified when you are keeping yourself active and busy this way. However being busy for the sake of it no matter how its dressed up isn’t always productive. There has to be a point when the actual authentic life living starting point is visible and active.
Essentially, and simply, and probably not so grandly excitingly; aside from all this external information gathering, the truth of the matter is that all I basically needed to know was, what I do best and how I have done it successfully and then keep doing it more.
The common denominator threading through all my own successful moments was state of mind. The daydream state I was able to enter and enjoy and eventually learn how to convert into real life action. I also discovered self-hypnosis being similar to a daydream state in many ways. Hypnotically learning to focus the mind, letting all external elements including how time passes, just fade away. Meditation is similar too and they are both things easily done by anyone at anytime. For free.
This also creates thoughts a little along the lines of a fear of not being good enough, or being capable of understanding enough or that people like me don’t and shouldn’t do this, that or the other. Can you relate to this? That sometimes activities such as meditation and yoga or hypnosis and various therapies all seem to be glamorised, and for the housewives of perfect-land crew. Even trying them sometimes creates awkward feelings of am I doing this right? Is this actually a thing? Of course you never know until you try.
So, to counter that, play the common soul as I do, no fancy buzz words, simply good old fashioned working class daydreaming and naps. Let those who who feel happier talking meditation and hypnosis do that and Ill nap and daydream. I’ll daydream to break the flow of unhelpful thought blockages. I’ll daydream to encourage a new flow of direction. I’ll nap when the day gets too chaotic and I need a sharp snap-me-out-of-this remedy. It’s OK to rebrand for our own personal needs. It’s OK to try and not be perfect first time. It’s OK, it’s all OK.
Intention
As with anything habitual you can break the old habit of procrastination or distraction by replacing them with new habits and this has to be fantastic news, a fabulous excuse to daydream. Yes?
Yet while those new habits formed and the process moved along, it began to change the way I used my mind, noticeably and without much need for patience. Because I discovered as part of this re-alignment, excitement and smiles easily attached themselves to this new way of thinking, quite quickly yet solidly. In turn those attachments as part of the newly formed habits created a natural and effortless motivation, generating lots of new little successes which follow each other like sheep and clump together into big big big dreams coming true.
All of a sudden the bed sheets in the morning don’t feel like shackles and fly off with a renewed enthusiasm to get moving because your dream state through the night prepared the way for your mind to kick start your soul into a new next day.
In turn, this triggers a whole new universe of events such as enjoying the work of the day, more work, better work, more creative ways of working, enjoying the trivia of the day and not noticing the hurdles that used to be enough to crush you back down the black hole until tomorrow, when maybe you could have another half hearted run skip and jump.
The focus of the dream state is simply now of self love, care and maintenance, to be happy, to be loved and to be worthy. When all you dream about is this abundance of magical feelings, then all you’ll see and feel and crave is this, and in turn, all you will receive is this.
So long as you keep dreaming of course. Day and night. Never let go of developing those dreams and making them bigger and more vivid and take them with you where ever you go. Isn’t that just the excuse we dreamers were all waiting for?
That’s not to say you will never be distracted again. You will. The old distractions will always flirt and tease. The world will always create new distractions that your curiosity may fall prey to. The new and old distractions will get married and give birth to demonic hybrid distractions but all of these are OK. And when you fall foul of them that’s OK too. Because this is always part of the learning and growing experience.
The distractions serve as a great contrast to the life you are dreaming. Once you compare the magic of your desired dream-state to the empty feeling of a day wasted in procrastination then your motivation to get back up and saddle on the big toothed fish, grows every stronger.
Remember you will never get to the end of a perfect life and that is that. So you might as well have fun and love and success growing and rambling through the many mazes that pop up.