Ever felt indecisive? Or overwhelmed on where to start? Do you want to stop the procrastination beast from eating up all your time and great ideas?

After reading this post, you will get practical ways to accomplish just that. You can change your default ways of thinking and start moving closer to your goals. 

Recently I have had these moments of feeling indecisive and overwhelmed quite a lot. Ever since I decided to create this blog environment, to be honest. There are so many things I want to share with you on life development that I simply did not know where to start. 

My journey started 14 years ago and my obsession with life development is only getting stronger. When I realized that my purpose in life is to share this knowledge with others. To help them grow and improve their own environment for the better, no matter their circumstances. That is when my mind was doing overtime. 

To give you the best possible value for your time I only want to share content on subjects that have my own personal interest. Talking with passion on these subjects will give you more than me talking about what is popular at the moment. These are my 3 main domains:  

Ok, so I channeled my thinking into categories. You would expect this to help me in getting focus, right? Not really, this was the moment I started to hear the heavy breathing of the procrastination beast behind me. 

Which topic to tackle first? How do I write a blogpost? Should I research more? And many more of these questions made me indecisive, overwhelmed, and wondering what am I doing?  I procrastinated my way into hours doing a little bit of everything. Producing no real result. 

Spoiler alert! 

I had to slay my own procrastination beast to bring you this post, read on to find out how I did it. How did I go from fear, anxiety, and stress to stop procrastinating, finding that focus and motivation to start doing it? 

Sometimes a solution doesn’t need to be super sophisticated or thought through. 
Usually, the things you have heard already so many times, really work! In my case, I combined 2 of my favorite quotes with a great proverb. Let me break it down for you. 
Maybe you can adopt this logic to your own situation. 

Eat the elephant one bite at a time

To be able to share my personal life development knowledge with all the dads, I had to step up and break out of that phase of feeling paralyzed. My wish was to simply close my eyes and when I opened them again all this knowledge and experiences would just be there for you on this blog page. 

Having closed my eyes quite a few times, the content never magically appeared there. I had to do it myself somehow! I had to simply put my impatient way of thinking aside since I proved to myself already that that didn’t work. 

Takeaway: This is my 10 steps action plan going from dreaming to action:

1. Sit down somewhere where you can relax with little distractions. 
2. Think of your big elephant project. Try to break it down in categories.
3. Take your notebook and brainstorm all kinds of smaller activities that need to be done within those categories. Do that for not more than 7 minutes.
4. Just keep writing, don’t stop to correct grammar, or delete silly ideas. Write everything down that comes up. 
5. When you are done. Put your workbook aside and walk away. Really do that!
6. After you have cleared your mind, get back to your notebook and have a look. Try to group some of the things together, but make sure that the grouped tasks can be done in around 30 minutes max. 
7. Now, grab one of those kitchen timers to cook, if yours cannot leave the kitchen area buy a new one anywhere. I bought 2 so I will give one away to someone with the nicest argument in the comments below. Don’t hold back, I will read them all  
8. Take your timer and pick one topic or group of topics from step 6. 
9. Set the clock at 30 minutes and start with those actions. In my case I just had to start writing something. One word at a time, Pomodoro style.
10. Focus all your attention for 30 minutes only to this one task. You can do 30 minutes, right? Then take a 5-minute break, take a drink or go to the toilet, stretch. And do another 30 minutes if you can. 

That way, for me, this blog started to form. It is as simple as that. Nike was right all along: Just do it!  

If you followed my lead, we went from dreaming about the end goal to a more piece-by-piece action step. Chunks that we could handle. No matter how small they are.

I personally cherished these small successes of 30-minute tasks once I completed them. And I felt the enthusiasm grow along the way. Like Zig Ziglar once said. “There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs”. 

Continuous Improvement is better than delayed perfection

Now I broke gigantic work down into actionable steps. You would say that my puzzle was solved right? Well, if you are anything like me you will come across this phase of overthinking and planning my steps repeatedly. It can absorb a lot of my energy. By making me feel I am getting closer to my cause.  While there is nothing really tangible being delivered.  It is my mind playing tricks with me.

I kept reading more information and planning everything in detail. So much so that I could only define it as if I was sabotaging myself! I was subconsciously just postponing my cause. I had to change my default way of thinking. Things do not need to be perfect from the first step. Instead, just start.

I know where to start, I know what to do and I can do it. So, Nike is right here again:  Just do it! I know it won’t be perfect, I know I will still make mistakes. But that is all ok. Nobody arrives at the top of the Mount Everest on day 1. It is a journey. So, let’s start walking! 

Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow.

Ok, now I got a plan of how to go from all these big thoughts to smaller doable steps. And I overcame this need to first make it perfect before delivering. The last thing that really got me moving was when I decided to do it today! 

To achieve the future results I aim for, I need to act today. Every day. That is when things started to really happen. I now have to focus on just that little step of today. 

Summary: Here are my 3 steps on how I slay my procrastination beast:

1. Stop wanting to complete your elephant project at once.  Brainstorm with yourself and make 30-minute actionable steps.  
2. Do not aim for perfection. Just do it. Start and know you will learn while doing. 
3. Stop planning, start today and be ready to fail. But keep going. Cherish the small successes. 

I just did it!

Here it is, my first post is done and online, and ready for you to read. If you made it this far, I hope you were able to stop your procrastination beast. And go from indecisiveness and feeling overwhelmed to taking 30-minute actions. If this triggered you into action too, please let me know in the comments below. You would make my day to know I helped someone somewhere on this beautiful planet. 

You may also read 7 tips for a healthier holiday season.

Thank you for reading and I sincerely hope I sparked action in your life. Real growth moves slowly, you must put in the work. If you have time, check out my other posts as well. 

All the best, Remko