What if Olympians Procrastinated?

I LOVE the Olympics.

I’m a casual sports fan during the year but when the Winter and Summer Olympics come around I become obsessed. I watch as much coverage as possible, holding marathons each night to catch up on everything that happened during the day.

But it’s hard to put my finger on what I love the most. Maybe it’s the feeling of unity and national pride I feel every time an American does well, or the excitement of not knowing what each event will bring or perhaps the emotional stories behind some of the world’s greatest athletes.

But maybe most of all, I love the inspiration I feel to do something special and momentous myself. Many Olympic athletes sacrifice their childhoods and all of their free time to perfecting their sport and winning the elusive gold medal. Procrastination isn’t even a word in their vocabulary…because if it were then they’d never make it to the Olympics in the first place.

So if Shani Davis can coach himself all alone to win Olympic gold medals, then I should be able to motivate myself to do anything I want…right?

So This is What an Epiphany Feels Like

I can’t believe I hadn’t seen the connection before; it seems so obvious now! I put off things that seem like a challenge because of the fear that they won’t come out “perfect” or as I envisioned. Instead, I delay them in order to do the mindless tasks that I know how to accomplish easily and with little thought.

But I’m starting to realize that I’d rather be faced with the task of problem solving a challenging project than deal with the stress of procrastination. Because at the end of the day, I want that feeling of satisfaction and pride that I get after taking the leap of faith and seeing a challenging project through.

And that great feeling has always been my motivation to move on to the next project. But just like falling out of the habit of working out, it’s hard to get back on the wagon after getting lazy. So I’m going to siphon the inspiration from all the amazing Olympians that I’ve been watching all week and use it to fuel my motivation to put down the TV remote and accomplish something!

There is a week left of the Winter Olympics though, sooo there’s a slight chance that I’ll continue to siphon a little bit longer before I put down the TV remote. I mean the Olympics only come around once every four years!