The real reason we never procrastinate brushing our teeth.

Another discovery from the book Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy.

I had an unexpected call with a friend of mine who I haven’t spoken to in a really long time. The conversation started off with one question:

“what are your goals and aspirations and how do you plan to accomplish them?” 

It led us to ask another question:

"Why do we deviate from achieving those goals?"

"Why don't we do the things we want to do?"

We have some habits which we wish we did daily. It could be: reading a book, reading the Bible, praying, exercising, going for a walk, journaling, contacting X number of customers for your business, submitting X number of proposals to your potential clients, and much more.

We have so many habits we want to inculcate into our daily lives, but we tend not to do so, or even if we do, we are inconsistent with them. These might be habits that will have a massive positive impact on our lives. But even though we know this, we are still not consistent with them.

The same goes for our goals. We write our goals down and have a plan to accomplish them, but somewhere along the way, we drop off the wagon.

It means that even though we have all the measures outlined to achieve a goal, it doesn't always mean we will go after it consistently. Why?

Before we answer that question, let us go back to habits that we do every single day non-stop. Habits that we have done for years and years and rarely ever missed a day.

Habits like brushing your teeth every morning, taking your bath, rubbing a deodorant, spraying a body spray, applying body lotion, etc. These are habits that we have never missed, and that we have inculcated into our daily lives.

Imagine if you were as committed to doing your micro-habits as often as you did these. How much closer would it get you to your goals?

The truth is, these habits we practice every single day we do them because we understand clearly what the consequences are of not doing them.

We know;

If we don’t brush our teeth - Our breath would stink

If we don't wear deodorant - Our bodies would smell

If we don't wear lotion - we'll look ashy (I hope it's not just me this happens to)

And much more.

We are more focused on doing things when we understand clearly what the consequences of not doing them are.

Now to answer the question we asked; why don’t we go consistently after our goals even when we have all the measures outlined to achieve them?

Even though we know that a goal would have a very positive impact on our lives, we don't always go after them because we do not understand the consequences of not achieving them.

“what would my life be like if I do not attain this goal?”

“what are the consequences of my inactivity?”

American cartoonist Sidney Harris says:

“regrets for things we did can be tempered with time but is the regrets for things we did not do that are inconsolable.”

The thing is, the consequences are usually so way off in the future that at the present moment, it is difficult to visualize them.

We need to ask ourselves these questions;

“what would happen if I do not take that exam?”

“what would happen if I do not learn that skill?”

“If I do not accomplish this goal in my career, where would that leave me?”

“How would my life be if I never start this business?”

“How would my life be if I don’t draw closer to God?”

Another way you can do this is to ask yourself these questions about the habits you are trying to stop;

“How would my life be if I smoked for the next 20 years?”

“How would my life be if I kept drinking this much?"

“How would my life be if I remain addicted to this thing?”

“How would my life be if I continued to spend so much time in bed?”

Visualize the future and see the consequences of those habits.

Do your research and see the negative impact they've had on people. The issue with most of these habits is that the consequences are long term and we are likely to overlook most of them.

If every time someone took a puff of a cigarette, they dropped and died, there would be no cigarette smokers in the world.

Visualize on paper, the impact/consequences of not going after those goals and you’d be more driven to accomplish them.

If you have any questions or would like to talk to me about something that resonates with you from this post contact me on WhatsApp