Have You Ever Put Something Off for So Long, It Becomes a Constant Irritation?!

Some of you may know that I spend a lot of time travelling in the car, to and from Abingdon each week as I take care of the wonderful people of Oxfordshire, as a chiropractic intern in college.

Over the last few weeks, the tyres on my car kept catching my eye, and each time I thought to myself, “I must check the pressure in those”, as something didn’t look right.

Time passed, week by week and I kept thinking the same thing, but did nothing about it. Finally, on a cold wet morning, I decided to pull over at the garage and check the tyre pressure. I was shocked to see the numbers on the screen as all tyres were way below what they should have been!

I am embarrassed to say that one tyre was only at 13 psi, which is below half the recommended pressure for that car! Being an ex-police officer, this is not only embarrassing but a huge safety issue when on the road for myself and others.

I started to ask myself, “If I had continued to ignore the tyres and carried on with my long car journeys each week, what might have happened?” Not only was it decreasing the efficiency of the car, but it could have resulted in something a lot more serious.

The reason I’m talking about this minor incident, is that I realised this can relate to many things in our lives. I started to think about other things that I had been putting off and asked myself why I was doing so.

Whether it be your health goals, or a simple admin task that has been on your ‘to do’ list for the last month, I challenge you to have a think about what you need to get done to move yourself forward. The way I have found helpful is to make a list with 3 columns:

1. To Do
2. To Delay
3. To Dump

Put those irritating ‘To Dos’ on your list and divide them into categories. By splitting them into the 3 categories will help you filter what is really important to you and needs to get done sooner, and also what you can delay and pick up later. You can also scrap ideas completely by putting them in the ‘To Dump’ column – this is a very satisfying thing to do!

The next thing you may ask is how do you determine what goes into which column? This is a great question. The way I filter my list, is by asking myself what do I actually want to achieve and why?

Once you have answered those questions, have a think about when you want to achieve it by.

This will help determine whether it is on your ‘To Do’ or ‘To Delay’ section. To identify if you want ‘To Dump’ an idea, my best recommendation is to really ask yourself, is this idea going to serve me or help me reach my goal? Do I actually want to do this?

Take some time to reflect on this. I am confident that if you start to organise your ideas onto a piece of paper, you will not only feel clearer in your thoughts, but you will also feel a sense of satisfaction that you have taken your first step to moving forward. The next thing is to take HUGE action on the ‘To Do’s’, even if it is a tiny step each day which will help you get there, and review your list on a daily basis, so you keep making progress and they don’t get forgotten.

So don’t be like me and let things play on your mind until it gets to the point that if you keep putting it off, there may be significant consequences. As we approach the end of 2019, take some time to get clarity on what you would like to achieve, let us end the year strong and start 2020 as we mean to go on!

I would love to hear how you get on so please do let me know in the comments below, and if I can be of any help please feel free to let me know.

With love,
Sarah