What Are You Waiting For?

I went to Vietnam with my family recently and, having not been overseas for a couple of years, I’d forgotten how much time you spend waiting around when you’re on holidays. I know some people revel in the downtime but it drives me insane! I just think about all the time I’m wasting – standing in line for security, waiting around for planes (and buses and taxis and trains), checking into hotels, waiting at restaurants – when there are better things I could be doing with my time. Fair to say relaxing is not my forte then!

But then I got to thinking (must have been all that spare time I had!) how much time we waste in our lives intentionally waiting around for things. Or to put it another way, procrastinating about things we really want to do, or know we should be doing, but we’re scared to take action on for one reason or another.

I came across a great quote recently that said: “All procrastination is fear”.  It really resonated with me because I thought about all the things in my life I procrastinate about (publishing this blog was one of them!) and it was true – all my procrastinating comes back to being scared.

I may not procrastinate about training – but that’s because it’s something I’m confident about and is so ingrained in my life that I can’t imagine not doing it – but I procrastinate about things in other areas of my life: booking holidays, buying new things, studying, business decisions. And it all comes back to being scared – of not doing something perfectly. Of not getting it right the first time. Of not making the best choice.

And I see it all the time as a trainer too. People say to me: “I’ll start to exercise/ eat better/ look after myself more when… work settles down/ the kids get older/ my life is less busy/ I’m less stressed/ I’m a bit fitter (yes, seriously!).”

All these excuses are just another form of procrastination. And I get it – a lot of people are really scared to make a commitment to their health, even though I can see they want to make a change. They’re scared it will be too hard, they’re scared of failing, of what other people might think, of not meeting their own expectations.

But here’s the thing, if we wait for the perfect storm – that magical, mythical, perfect time in our lives when work’s not too busy, the kids aren’t too demanding, we feel refreshed and energetic and motivated – then we’ll never take action. We’ll just be waiting our whole lives and never doing the things that are most important to us or that we know will have a positive impact.

This year my husband and I have a new motto, it’s become a bit of a running joke between us: “Let’s get s*&%t done.” And it’s worked – we booked the trip to Vietnam (after procrastinating for at least six months), we bought a new car, I’m taking a few risks with my business, I’m writing blogs again(!!), we’re planning a renovation.

If there’s something you want badly enough, don’t wait around, don’t be scared of failure or of not being perfect – make it happen. If it’s to do with your health, it’s even more critical that you take action now. Not next week or next month or next year. We don’t know what’s around the corner so why sit around waiting for the perfect opportunity to make a change that will do us good? As Nike says: Just do it. You won’t regret it. Start here with a free trial at one of our bootcamp, boxing or mums and bubs sessions.