Later Is a Liar: The Emotional and Spiritual Aspects of Procrastination and How to Eliminate It

By Richard E. Toney

The book explores what possibly causes people to procrastinate and how the persons emotions and spirituality create the process of procrastination. The book also has several features that will assist the reader in determining how they should look at a project or a task and make preparations to complete it. At the end of each chapter, there is a section called, What does this mean? This section gives you an idea of how the chapter relates to the emotional and spiritual aspects of procrastination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Apr 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490757674

Richard E. Toney

Richard E. Toney is a licensed Professional Counselor who decided to write this book in order to assist others in the prevention and possible elimination of procrastination. Through his person struggle with procrastination and his experience of working with clients who procrastinated, Mr. Toney describes the emotional and spiritual aspects of procrastination and ways to eliminate it. He has been a part of the mental health field for over 12 years to date. His expertise covers the age range of clients from the age of 6 years old to 105 years old. He is involved in many projects such as coaching, counseling, and speaking engagements where his expertise is requested. He has been to Colleges and Universities, speaking on various different topics and has had the opportunity to be a guest on an internet radio station several times.

Book preview

© Copyright 2015 Richard E. Toney.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-5766-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-5768-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-5767-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015904685

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Trafford rev. 03/24/2015

22970.png    www.trafford.com

North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

fax: [phone]

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Get a Move on!

Chapter Two

Be Grateful

Chapter Three

Define Yourself

Chapter Four

Be Good to Others

Chapter Five

You Get What You Give

Chapter Six

Be Obedient To Your Craft

Chapter Seven

What’s it worth to you?

Chapter Eight

Faith Without Works is DEAD

Chapter Nine

Put Your Heart Into It

Chapter Ten

Step Into It

Chapter Eleven

You WILL NOT Do It Later!

Chapter Twelve

The Finale: FORGIVE!

DEDICATION

For my mother, Mable B. Toney, and my late brother, Robert Toney Jr., thank you for always believing in me; even when I didn’t believe in myself.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would first like to thank God for allowing me to have the ability to move forward in my life to achieve my endeavors. I would like to thank my mother who encouraged me throughout this process and continued to tell me to go get it because it’s yours. She has always been the beam of light that I needed in my life. To my friends and family who have encouraged me along the way and allowed me to have my space when I needed it, I am truly grateful. For you all, I decided to stop procrastinating!

CHAPTER ONE

Get a Move on!

Ten of the sayings that you’ve said or heard someone say, related to procrastination are:

1. I (we) can do that later.

2. Hold on, we’ll get to it.

3. Let’s wait awhile before we start.

4. I don’t know if I have time right now.

5. Do you really want to do that right now?

6. Can we start some other time?

7. I have things to do today, already.

8. I’ll get to that later, because I really want to help you with that.

9. We can start on that tomorrow.

10. I know I said I would but let’s work on it next time.

These statements or similar statements are what we have said to other people or what other people have said to us in the past. We have been prepped to do something, but then, life gets in the way. How many times have you promised a friend or a family member that you were going to do something with them but never do it? How many times have other people promised you that they would do something for you OR help you do something only to realize that it has not been done yet? This chapter will discuss how you get a move on.

There are things in our lives that take priority and then there are things in our lives that take a back seat. I am a firm believer that when we allow things in our lives to take a back seat, we are not allowing ourselves to live full lives. Promises broken can be mended if we take the time to do what we say that we are going to do. It is mainly about integrity. As the statement goes A man (or a woman) is only as good as his (or her) word. With that being said, when you procrastinate, you are not only showing yourself to be dishonest with others, you are basically insinuating to yourself that you are dishonest. In other words, you are a liar to yourself.

Getting a move on means that you are interested in NOT putting things on the back burner. That you are working on building a mindset that is abundant and filled with truth and meaningful activities that you WILL complete! I must say that writing this book has been a challenge. I knew that I wanted to write this book because I also suffered from the inability to complete what I set out to do or stated that I would do things that I really did not complete. I even went as far as telling Clergymen that I was working on specific projects and have yet to complete them. Now, how bad is THAT? I started to reevaluate myself and my life and where I wanted it to go. Do I want to be that person that was viewed as always having something to do or did I want to live a life where I took one project at a time and maximized the benefit of doing what I needed to do and complete the task ahead of me. I began to look at the things that I had promised people and noticed the things that I did not do. There were many times that the promises made would go unmentioned by either myself or the person that I promised that I would help. I am not sure at this point as to whether the person respected me enough or if it was a case of me forgetting that I lied to someone (there is a slight possibility that it was the fact that I didn’t want to bring up the lie). There is a strange feeling that you get when you say that you are going to help someone with something and you don’t do it. Especially when the person is around you. You tend to ‘walk on eggshells’, not wanting the person to bring up the topic. Often times, you’re safe because the person won’t bring it up if they have brought it to your attention before (several times). The other person may then tend to believe that you are liar and that you only wanted to feed their appetite of wishful thinking for a moment and sometimes even your own appetite of exhibiting a sense of expertise in a situation that you more than likely know that you have no time to help a person out of.

So, what causes us to procrastinate so much? Is it ego? Do we want to appear a certain way in the presence of others? Or does it just feel good to tell other people that we will help them do something when in reality we know that we are not? Whatever your reason is, it is now time to get a move on and stop lying about things that you know you’re not going to do.

I believe that some people procrastinate because they think that they have bitten off more than they could chew (this will be discussed a little later in this chapter but I will discuss it slightly here). They don’t take the necessary steps to look at the project or activity in steps. They simply look at the activity as a whole, perseverate on the size of the project and put it off until later. If people would only understand that there are always steps to project, then the project would not seem so difficult. Take for example the concept of writing this book. I knew that I wanted to write it and I desired that the book be twelve chapters. I did not look at the book as a whole in its entirety because with the thought process that I have, I would have thought that the task would have been impossible. This would have caused me to procrastinate on the book and it more than likely would not have happened. So what I decided to do was look at the book as completing one chapter at a time. When I did this I noticed that the interesting thing