Procrastination is one great way to avoid success, but there are others you can create. Why wouldn't you want success? Success comes with responsibilities, and many people don't care for those. It is so much easier to not leave your comfort zone with the "Someday I'll _________philosophy." You take no action and one day die with regrets.
Some people fear change of any kind. If you were very successful, you might opt to live elsewhere in a different house, make new friends (and maybe let go of some old ones?), You'd wear different clothes, go different places, do different things? Would your spouse or partner say they didn't recognize you anymore and leave you?Would any part of your life be the same? That's some scary stuff, thinking about all those things changing.
We have choices and not choosing means we won't get our dream that we have been fantasizing about for so long. We will get nothing or random tidbits that fall on us. Because we figure if we choose we risk losing. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, but we tell ourselves at least we didn't lose anything. But what about the promising opportunities we lost out on? What if we do try and try hard, and not get our dream? What then? Think about this:
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory or defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt
Do you really want to measure out your life in coffee spoons, as T.S. Eliot wrote?
Do you want to be on your deathbed with deep regrets, cursing the fears that paralyzed you and kept you from choosing, taking risks, and getting into action?
If we succeed we get in touch with our personal power, and not everyone is ready for that. We are far more powerful than we let ourselves believe. That power also carries responsibilities, doesn't it? We have no one to blame bad things on that might happen. We are obliged more than ever to look out for the weaker souls who have little or no personal power.
If we choose our dream, what happens to all the other choices we don't choose? We fear doors closing for good on long-time schemes and pipe dreams.
Perhaps we feel unworthy of success so we do our best to sabotage it. We procrastinate on giving birth to an idea we've had that just might succeed. We don't go back to school ever, after spending years saying we would go back in months or years. We turn down the promotion because we "don't want the headaches that go with it, which is just another way of avoiding responsibility. We don't end up sharing our life with the one person we truly loved because we always believed they were too good for us.
We are worthy of success as are all God's children. It's we have unique talents and qualities. We must forgive our selves and others for everything in order to feel worthy. Resentments of any kind, ancient reasons for self-loathing, must be let go of to begin a new quality of life. Resentments harbored against another keep us out of the radiant light of the spirit and dwelling in darkness.
Ask yourself honestly if you fear success and accept the truth that comes to you. Do this: Make a list of all the reasons you are afraid to succeed and give examples of the actions or failure to act that go with them.
Do you tell people your dream and share how much you want it, and then do nothing to work towards it? Do you set goals and priorities that center on choosing your dream? If not, what do they focus on? What we give our attention to grows is a well-known truth.
Now give yourself some positive strokes and make a list of signs that you do want to succeed no matter how small they are. Are you making any attempts to succeed? How? Can you rise above the cultural programming that says ordinary people do not find extraordinary success? You must believe in your dream to bring it to life. You must not put qualifiers on your success.
Take one action, even a small one, towards fulfilling your dream today. Make a vision board you can look at every day that reminds you of what you want in your life in five or ten or twenty years. Add to it as dreams surface. Do one thing that you have been procrastinating on for a long time. At least start action even if you don't complete the whole thing today.
If you have a belief in a power greater than yourself, ask it what it would have you do and to show you the path to it.
Do it now. Today. This moment. Live a life without major regrets.
