Stop Doing What You Know You Shouldn’t Do!

I now ask myself, “If I know what I am doing is wrong, why am I doing it?”

Just STOP!

The biggest waste of talent, care, interest in others and progression is doing the things we know we shouldn’t. It takes time to think about those time wasters. It takes time to waste all that energy doing those things and all the while….

We are not creating, we are not living our lives.

If you are watching hours of TV, you are wasting time and losing precious opportunities to be creative.

Spending hours swiping on your phone, getting small laughs or playing games, you are wasting your time. All that opportunity to create your life is passing you by.

Going shopping just to wander around in a fantasy world that is unproductive.

Are you procrastinating? That makes every single task longer. EVERY ONE OF THEM!

What am I Wasting?

Life! 

Your very precious and time-bound life.

Ever notice how the time will fly binge-watching a TV program or a run down the YouTube rabbit hole? That’s your life being used up by someone else.

Notice how we extend time and excitement when we do what we know we should be doing?

I know about the YOLO movement, the LYBL acronyms, but they are just to suck you in again to the time-wasting machine or to make you feel bad about yourself. 

You are never wasting time if you are creating. NEVER.

Think of Edison working on that lightbulb or phonograph. Over and over, out in the workshop trying to make something that would improve all our lives. Over and over failing. He used his time, despite hearing loss at a young age, failures and various setbacks.

But I am not Edison and neither are you, so it’s not about comparing what is being wasted but noticing the time that we are giving up to pointless activities to stop us from being who we are supposed to be.

Believe in Yourself

One of the first hurdles you and I need to overcome is to believe in ourselves. We are capable human beings. We are able and we are all born with creativity and energy. 

Each day we are given energy to use to be creative, to offer the best opportunities to improve the world and make our little contribution count.

Perhaps you need this little booster to see how much you are missing out on.

Stop, Look, Listen… this is the highway code for crossing the road in the UK. It can be used for life too when we get to the place where we are so absorbed by doing things we know we shouldn’t do.

You are more than a Social Media profile that contributes to an ad revenue machine. You are more amazing than the billions of images you can see daily online because you are real, the rest are just pixels on a screen.

You live with real people and can touch real things. Imagine missing the people around you because you chose to look into a screen, or waste time wandering around the shops.

You are an amazing part of your family and community, even if you don’t talk to anyone and only visit the local shop for milk, you are a contributor. Everyone is.

How to Make that Start

Give just 5 minutes. 5 MINUTES to what you know you need to do today.

Here is an article I wrote about making the decision to start – 5 Second Rule to Courage – so if you are feeling it now, stop and act on your 5 minutes. It may end up being the next 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 5 hours… but you were doing what you know you were supposed to.

Tomorrow do it all again. When you think of it, do it. We all know what we are not supposed to do.

Others may do things better than us, but that is them following their creative will, we have our own unique take on the world, and comparing is not the way forward, doing is!