Finding New Strength Intro

Hi

I am a chronic, serious procrastinator who  can easily spend a day in bed watching DVD's rather than doing what I need to do to avoid creating problems, let alone have any success in my life. I have recognised quite how chronic I have become in the last six months and have been looking into tools and techniques for changing this before I end up on my deathbed full of regrets for a wasted life. I have just finished a series of meetings with a life coach and through that I have discovered how to manage my time. I use MS Outlook with its calendar and to-do list, but of course I still struggle with my behaviour because it isn't about logic but rather, for me anyway, about emotion. 

I am a good student but I do my assignments at the very last minute giving myself a lot of stress and I am not really realising my potential because of this. This self sabotage extends to paying bills on time, tax returns and other practical administrative and  financial matters or really any task I dislike! 

 Until recently had a problem with excessive anxiety but I seem to have found much improvement (a cure even !) with some acupuncture sessions followed by emotional freedom therapy. EFT has been stunning for me and I have dampened down a lot of unwanted emotions from past traumas and difficulties. I was draining myself of energy every time I thought about the past and was in danger of becoming very bitter. Now I have freedom from that and I am fairly serene much of the time.

So now, having less emotional problems,  I am able to  make  progress on this procrastination problem of mine. Slow, frustrating, progress with plenty of relapses but in the past two months I have increased my productive hours per day from almost zero or a random amount,  to on average  at least 5-6. I have been attempting to increase my productive work by one hour every week, planning and charting progress. I will be attempting seven hours productive work per day next week, providing I am well.

 I got the tax return in on time this year avoiding the fine and have started to tackle my long list of to-do administration. I have started and stalled with my decorating and I really need to get out there and get a job, any job. I am still avoiding that because I am scared of feeling the anxiety that interviews cause and just plain scared in general but I need to remember that I have tools to handle that and I won't relapse into a pile of mush. Baby steps.

I am really fed up with how I am.  I don't do what I should do, cause myself problems and then give myself a horrible time because of it. I really want to change. Why is change so difficult? 

I am very pleased to have found this site and I find the daily check-ins useful. It is comforting to know that I am not the only one with these issue. I have read your daily schedules and I feel in awe and a bit daunted as you all do so much. However it  does give me hope that I can change and start to live a life little affected by this problem,the life I was meant to live. I have had these issues for a long time so I suppose I can't expect overnight success but rather slow progress. 

Thanks for listening

Helen

P.S. There is a free (open source , cross platform Outlook look-alike called Sunbird, http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/)