Procrastination can rob you of wealth, health and happiness.  Procrastination is the difference between barely getting by and living like a king.  Procrastination puts the man or woman of your dreams into the arms of another.  Procrastination  steals your youth and throws it away.

I don’t mean to sound overly dramatic, but procrastination is your worst enemy.

The following are my top 10 tips to conquering procrastination and living the life you want.

1. Make A Commitment!

Say it out loud: “2009 is the year I’ll stop putting things off and start building my dream life!”

Great – you’ve made a commitment to yourself!  Now hold yourself to it, because you deserve to have the life you desire.

2. Define What You Want!

It may sound strange, but most people do not know what they want out of life.  You probably have a vague idea of the kind of life you would like to live, but how about the specifics?

If you want to be thin, what exact weight do you want?
You want to be rich, but how much money is rich to you?
Do you want to start a business or work from home?
You want to healthy, but how do you define healthy?
Maybe you are unhappy because you want to get your wife/husband or girl/boy friend back.

Whatever it is that you want, write it down and make a list.

When you go to the grocery store you probably make a list of all the things you need right?  This is the same thing, only it is much more important than a grocery list….  this is a list of what you want in your immediate future.

When we procrastinate it’s often because what we are planning to do is not really aligned with what we truly want.   Once you have this list, you will know EXACTLY what it is that you want.

3. Make Health and High Energy A Priority!

Without good health you are less likely to have the energy needed to make positive changes in your life.

So ensure that you eat right to feel great,  sleep well, exercise and meditate.

Incidentally, it is thought that regular meditation will actually delay the worst effects of the aging process.

4. Set Small Goals & Accomplish Them

Setting small goals for yourself will keep you heading in the right direction and will enable you to avoid procrastination.  Small goals that you accomplish put YOU in control of your life.

No need to make this complicated, just keep simple and attainable targets that you can accomplish each week.

It is best to write them down one simple step at a time.  For example, if you want to remodel your bathroom, you don’t have to do everything all in one week.  Instead, take the entire job and break it down into weekly tasks and then no matter how many tasks it takes, it will always be one step closer to being done at the end of each week.

Apply this to your life as well.  I you want to lose 20lbs, you don’t need to do it all at once.  Simply make it a goal to lose 1 pound per week.  It keeps you on task and avoids procrastinating “starting a diet”.  1 LB per week should be easy enough.  Don’t focus on the big picture of 20lbs… that seems like a lot.  Don’t think. OMG I have to do this for 20 weeks.  Instead, just focus on the week you are having and the 1 pound goal.

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5. Visualize Your Life Without Procrastination.

See and feel the benefits in your life if you didn’t procrastinate. What could you do and achieve?

Make mental pictures and/or movies of the life that you want.  See what you want as if you already have it.

Begin to act as if you’re not a procrastinator.  We all categorize ourselves as many different things.  We call ourselves fat, skinny, loud, quite, outgoing, shy, tall, short, active, inactive, etc.  What you call yourself is what you become.

For example, I use to be sickly.  I was always run down and caught every cold going around and even a couple of them that no one else did.  I categorized myself as sickly.  Both consciously and subconsciously.   Today, I am exceedingly healthy, and that all began by categorizing myself as healthy.  Yes, I visualized and I used affirmations back when I was sick a lot, and created a new me that is what I called myself then.

Does that make sense?  It means that you say, act and feel as if you already have what you want even though you do not see it at the time.

It’s one of the things I reveal in great detail in My Secret Course.

6. Banish The Negative Gremlin.

The negative Gremlin is that little voice in your head that makes excuses for you.   It says things like “I don’t have time for this” or “I can’t do that”.  The negative Gremlin is a saboteur from within.  If you listen to it, you will never exercise, never eat healthy, never be rich, never find love, never have all the things you want because the Gremlin wants you to fail.

The best way to beat the negative Gremlin is to use affirmations and/or subliminal videos, because the negative Gremlin lives inside your subconscious mind.  After awhile the negative Gremlin becomes a positive Gremlin, who expects you to achieve everything you set out to.  It will become a little voice in your head that tells you that you can achieve anything you set your mind to.
7. Avoid Over Commitment

People often fall into this trap around this time of year.  They say “YES” to everything and try to take on a thousand different goals all at the same time.  Of course acting like this only dooms yourself to failure because you only have so much energy and so much time in the day.  When you over commit yourself you find yourself upset at the end of each day at all the things you didn’t accomplish.

This will lead to procrastination and eventually you will drop everything and begin listening to that negative Gremlin we spoke about earlier.

Identify what is most important to you and only focus on those areas which will make the biggest difference to your life. It will enhance your focus and motivation.  Your energy will be less divided and your success rate will be much higher!

8. Track Your Progress

It feels good to see how much you get done.  Keeping a list of all the things that you have accomplished can be very motivating.

Often it is easier to see all the things that we have yet to do than it is for us to see all the things that we have already done.  T

This one tip alone can make the difference between feeling good about yourself or feeling like a failure.

9. Reward Yourself

Once you start to complete tasks, reward yourself by giving yourself something that you want.

Take fun activities such as watching a movie and give it to yourself as a treat for accomplishing a goal.  This way the movie is not stopping you from getting something done and is instead an incentive to hurry up and accomplish it.
10. Just Do it!

Always Act Now!  No excuses. Don’t wait until you’re “in the mood”. The

mood may never come!

Seize each day and take control of your life. Start with what is easiest, so that you experience immediate success, which will give you the fuel and motivation to take on larger projects.

Do any of the above and you’ll be well on your way to Kicking the Procrastination Habit. And if you’re procrastinating over doing any of the above, then remember that life is the biggest deadline of all!

Life is what happens while you wait around for something to happen.

No more waiting.  Make it happen now.

Wishing you the best in 2009,

– John Derrick