Procrastinate!

Some 20 years ago, after I completed my Bachelors degree, my father gave me the gift of my dreams: a red Volkswagen car with silver wheels (even though I was still a 5 over 10 with my driving). A couple of days later, I was in the mood to paint the town red.

After finishing from a professional class with old people and an evening out and about with my mother and sister, I volunteered my ‘’driving skills’’ to help my mother drive her car into her parking spot in the compound. In less than a minute after I started the ignition, it became evident that I should have left my ‘’driving skills’’ deep in my bag. As I attempted to navigate the car into the corner where my mother liked to park her car, the vehicle took on a mind of its own and in the blink of an eye, it had driven itself right into the wall of the compound. Days later, after the heat of the debacle had died down and my mother’s fury had waned, my dad asked me this simple question: What do you think happened? Was it Magic or Maniac? The answer was simple: Maniacal ineptitude! At that time- even though I was the proud owner of a car- I had no business being behind the wheels of my mother’s car or any other car for that matter. Thanks to my poor decision to procrastinate my driving lessons, I was officially tagged an underdeveloped driver and my father had no choice but to retrieve the car he gave me until I had improved my driving skills.

Here’s a question for you: When the big job that you have always wished for comes, will you prove to be maniacally inept and risk losing the job; or will you be equipped to soar? In the course of my work as a trainer, I have met hundreds of people that have lamented their decisions to procrastinate acquiring a particular skill until the last minute. A good number of them confessed that they almost lost their jobs as a result.

It will surprise you to know that there are only two reasons for a poor performance on one’s job.
Number One: Procrastinating to developing oneself
Number Two: A lack of Self-Awareness
I was guilty of both. First, even though I had spent two weeks at a driving school, all the knowledge I acquired waned because I kept putting off my practice sessions with the misleading consolation that there is always time. Secondly, I deluded myself with the thought that even though I hadn’t been practicing, I had what it took to do the tangle. With tears and sorrow, i found out that I was dead wrong.
As a business executive or a professional in today’s unforgiving world, are you continuously grooming yourself, or are you waiting for the company to send you out on training? When the big break comes, you may gnash your teeth for waiting too long.

Know yourself. Carry out a personal SWOT analysis. Don’t wait for the world to find out first, identify your Weakness and Threats and work on them. Be honest with yourself, after all, you wouldn’t be doing yourself any favours if you lied during a self appraisal. And if you think that you can’t do an honest job, pass out anonymous questionnaires to people that know you best: family, co-workers and friends.

– If you are like millions of people that dread public speaking, register for a class on the subject. You will be surprised to find that there is really nothing to speaking in public.

– If your writing skill is not where it should be, don’t wait. Get a writing coach. Writing is tough, but it can be mastered.

– If your job requires you to understand strategy and execution, make the investment; get trained.

Stop postponing your self-development. You may delay, but time will not. What a pain it will be to wish a year from now that you had started today.