You Still Suck

by Mark on October 8, 2012

You still suck. Admit it. Even after I clearly explained Why You Suck, you didn’t stop sucking. You know why you still suck? It’s very simple. You promised yourself that TOMORROW or some other day in the future would be the day that you stop sucking.

Cognitive errors cause us to procrastinate.

My theory is that one of the biggest reasons that we put off making changes or taking action is because we have a bug in our thought process. We think of our “Future Self” almost as if it was a completely different person. Specifically, we think of our Future Self as someone with a lot more discipline than our “Present Self.” We then invariably fool ourselves into thinking that we really are going to change in the future, so we put off making the change now.

This is a huge mistake! The odds are that the way you think and decide tomorrow is going to be pretty much exactly the same as the way you think and decide today. If you decide not to take action today, there is an extremely good chance that you will decide not to take action tomorrow.

There is no tomorrow.

Apollo Creed: DAMN, ROCK! COME ON! What’s the matter with you!?!
Rocky Balboa: Tomorrow. Let’s do it tomorrow.
Apollo Creed: THERE IS NO TOMORROW!!! THERE IS NO TOMORROW!!! THERE IS NO TOMORROW!!!
Rocky III

Apollo Creed was right. There is no tomorrow! There is only today. When tomorrow arrives, it will be today, and your brain will once again try to trick you into thinking that your Future Self will have the discipline to take action the next day. Don’t fall for it! Your Future Self sucks just as much as you do!

“I trust no one, not even myself.”
– Joseph Stalin –

If you want to stop sucking, today is the day.

We have to learn to be more realistic. The reality is that how we choose today is most likely how we are going to choose tomorrow, so the trick is to figure out a way to get ourselves to take action TODAY.

“What we do in life echoes in eternity.”
– Maximus (Gladiator) –

Ask yourself if the decision that you are making today is acceptable for you to make for the rest of your life. What if the decision that you made today somehow was made permanent so that it would be the decision that you made every day? Are you willing to live with the decision?

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