How to Wiggle Out of the Mud! - 4

Begin Now

By Ron Ross

The easiest thing you can do if you’re stuck in the mud is to PROCRASTINATE! Do nothing. Just sit there and wallow in the sticky, putrid, dreary muck you have been comfortable in for years.

After I earned my 4-year bachelor’s degree I wanted to get a master’s degree. My excuse for not taking classes was that I had a wife and three kids, a full time job, a part time business, and I was active in several community organizations. Besides that I had no extra money for tuition and books. I had plenty of excuses to procrastinate.

Then one day I decided to take just one class, so I enrolled in a graduate program at Creighton University in Omaha where we lived at the time. Just one class. Not two or three, or a heavy load. Just one class.

And then another and another. In the summer I took a couple of those high-powered summer school graduate courses that last only two weeks. And it wasn’t long until one day I was told I had enough credits for my master’s degree. It started, not with a big student loan, not with a large commitment of time and money, but with the taking of one single class.

In Omaha at the time there were several hundred professionals just like me who wanted to advance their careers with graduate study. They had the same opportunity I had, they were no busier than I was, and many of them were more intelligent than me. The difference was that one day I decided to take one small step.

What do you want? What are you waiting for? What are your dreams? What great achievement have you been putting off because of some lame excuse that you’re too busy or too poor or too dumb or too old or too young or too whatever?

You’ll never Wiggle Out of the Mud if you’re greatest skill is procrastination. The Chinese have a proverb that says, “The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”

Look at your mountain, get a vision for your future then focus on what you can do today. Start picking up some of those small stones that litter the path directly in front of you. Do something. Get started. Advance the ball.

Give yourself permission to make a few mistakes and to have a few bad days. In the process you will learn new skills and discover hidden talents.

Once you’ve begun you’ll find that each step brings with it a new challenge, a new hope, a brighter vision, a sense of achievement, and eventually satisfaction.

Someone once said, “Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.” Today take one step in the direction you want to go and before long you will arrive at the destination of your dreams.

Success begins when procrastination ends.

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©Copyright 2016 Dr. Ronald D. Ross