Underestimating is Holding You Back
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I feel like underestimating how hard something is directly contributing to commitment issues and procrastination. For example, if you are between the ages of 16 and 27 and you had a semi-deep conversation with your friend, chances are you have thought about starting a podcast. The thing is most of us haven’t even taken the first step to create an account, my friend and I decided that we would host a podcast in his car this past summer, and we never even recorded a single clip of footage. This raised a question, what does it take to actually commit to something instead of just saying you’ll get to it later?
Underestimating the Work
There has probably been an instance in your life where you underestimated something or someone and you ended up being baffled as to how hard it was to cooperate with it. For example, maybe you had this teacher who was laidback and went easy on students, but halfway through the school year they showed their true colors. This could be applied to starting a podcast. It sounds easy in the beginning, but once you actually need to be relatable and interesting, you’re lost. I found that giving it a second thought and researching before making a commitment made my life a whole lot easier. Thats for commitment, as for procrastination, I started scheduling my days through different methods and I found that time-boxing was the most efficient for me. Underestimating will definitely leave you unmotivated, second thoughts and a clean schedule should make the process of committing to a goal a lot easier.
The Professional Mirage
If a professional is doing something flawlessly, chances are they’ve been doing it for a while and underestimating their work by thinking you could do it as efficiently as them will leave you with underwhelming results. I call this the professional mirage, seeing someone do something well means that they have went through trial and error and got a grasp of the concept and you might be in illusion that you can conduct it with the same efficiency. This is another reason I found that many may resonate with, when we can’t do something as well as others we are discouraged and tend to put things off. To cope with this, when I am interested in a new skill, I start off with the mindset that I am bound to fail or do very bad. I lower my expectations in the beginning and raise them as time goes by, spending more time mastering that certain skill.
There isn’t much to this. Procrastination and having commitment issues when it comes to trying something new or achieving a goal is pretty simple, if someone is doing something flawlessly, chances are they’ve been doing it for a while and there is a small chance you’ll do it as efficiently as them. Instead of underestimating and having high expectations for yourself, know that you’re a beginner and it starts off rocky, but it gets better as you stay consistent.
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