I am taking 12 hours this summer session, so I should be really busy between school and working 30 hours a week. But I am not. And as much as I would love to attribute my lack busyness to the fact that I am a super genius and school is easy so I don’t need to study and I get all my homework problems correct on the first try. I know that is not the case.

Instead I am simply cutting corners, and putting things off. Now by no means am I simply accepting zero’s on my assignments, I do what I need to do (for the most part). Just not in the manner I normally do them. To me on time is late so I am always ahead, but now I am slightly behind instead of slightly ahead. And with test week coming up I have given myself quiet a hefty week next week.

So I should be stressed and therefore motivated to get back on the horse and catch up. To win every day by mastering the skills that were taught the day before. The motivation to execute my plan for success, to do the one thing that is standing in between me and a successful summer is almost within me. But before I do that I will watch a few You Tubers that I subscribe to over lunch. It won’t hurt, plus you can’t really do homework and eat at the same time. After lunch I’ll start the process of catching up.

But somehow those few videos turn into watching all the golden buzzer clips for America’s Got Talent, and Simon Cowell’s uncomfortable facial expressions as people sing. Then YouTube asked me if I wanted to watch things be smooshed by a hydraulic press, to which I obviously answered yes. This process kept happening until a few hours passed and I was watching grown men debate about the deeper literary meanings and hidden messages in Pixar movies, such as what happened to Andy’s dad in Toy Story? All in all spending my entire afternoon learning random information that will never have a purpose in my life.

This process repeated itself for a few days in a varying fashions, with the mixing of Netflix (but no chill), crosswords, and books. For some reason I could not muster enough activation energy to begin the process of doing homework. And as the days went on and the deadlines got closer, the energy or motivation to do what I need to do would grow. But it never was enough to physically get me to get up and do my mounds of school work.

And now the weekend is here and there are no deadlines to motivate me to do work. I could easily sit and watch Netflix, enjoy the weekend until Monday comes around and the study activation energy is large enough to get me motivated. But that is never a great feeling. The feeling of stress and panic as you knock out a week’s worth of work in a late night binge of caffeine and Spotify is not something I am found of. I am more of a planner that distributes his work evenly over the 7 days.

So what can I do to lower the activation energy needed for me to do the right thing instead of the easy thing? I am not always this lazy of a person. Now by no means do I always work and grind following every plan I make to a T. I am human, my discipline lacks at certain times. Sometimes it lacks for a minute as I eat another cupcake, or it lacks for a month and I accomplish things that aren’t all that impressive. Like watching 3 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy in a week.

I am not going to sit here and dissect all the times I am super disciplined and can have productive 18 hour days for a month, nor will I exam why two months later I have multiple days of absolutely no productivity. Because every situation has a variety of variables that are boring to talk about and lengthy to examine.

Everything you just read above was written last Friday, and you may have noticed that there was no blog on Saturday nor Tuesday. I still never garnered enough discipline to complete the things I set out to do. So this blog sat on my hard drive all week and became more and more relevant in my life as I played a mindless game of procrastination and frantic late night homework sessions. But it is getting better, I’m on the uphill climb, mostly out of necessity because of my test tomorrow. But there is a little natural motivation to be a productive member of society, the type of motivation that gives me the drive to work for 18 hours on a given day.

So I leave you with one note, not a challenge because who am I to challenge you to work hard as I eat queso and watch 12 year olds chase their dreams online as I sit and watch mine walk by.

It is not about how perfect I am, or how badly I am doing. It is about continuous improvement and never giving up, no matter how many bad days I have. It’s not too late to become who I might’ve been; all I need to do is start. And as long as I focus on my WHY, the reason behind my goals, as long as my why is purposeful and important to me, the rest will fall into place.

As always, make good choices, share if you like what I said, comment if you have something to add, and I will see you on Saturday, hopefully with more productivity.