People wait all week for Friday, all year for summer, all life for happiness. - Unknown
People get comfortable doing their same old routines, so they procrastinate and avoid taking initiative to make their lives better. They wait on someone for an apology, Mondays, first-of-the-months and new year's to start doing something they want, they wait to quit, wait to express love, wait for others to make them happy.
Basically, people wait for life to happen to them.
Here I'll write about five things you should not wait for ever again.
1. Wait for others to validate your decisions
Seeking approval leads nowhere. Don't ask for permission to live the life on your own terms. The greatest freedom you can have is to not care what other people think of you and your choices.
It’s better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
We are seeking approval for anything - from our parents to choose career outside their ultimate vision for us, from our friends approval to pursue different lifestyle. This behavior is engraved to us when we were children. Back then it was useful and desirable. But as we grow older it gives us more harm than good. We accept safe choices everyone's expecting of us. We don't take risks. Don't make life-changing decisions. We procrastinate, and we're stuck in worry and fear.
Don't let opinions of others create your reality, because no matter how hard you try you cannot (and shouldn't) please everyone. The only person to ask for approval is you.
2. The perfect conditions
You cannot afford to wait for perfect conditions. Goal setting is often a matter of balancing timing against available resources. Opportunities are easily lost while waiting for perfect conditions. - Gary Ryan Blair
Perfection does not exist! So the idea of the perfect conditions or perfect time is just a setup for failure. If you are waiting for circumstances to be perfect, you'll never get anything done.
When going after your dreams, getting started is always the hardest part. When you don't have everything under control, and you have to maneuver and learn from mistakes.
It's scary. But it's also the only way to grow. By taking action. By putting yourself out there, and being ready to tackle anything that comes your way, to cope with every obstacle. What stands in the way becomes the way.
The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself...That is the moment, you might be starting to get it right. - Neil Gaiman
3. Vacations to travel
Traveling and exploring the world is something that's often put off for later, when we won't have crazy schedules, family responsibilities, lack of money and fear of breaking out of our comfort zone.
Traveling is not about forgetting your responsibilities and jeopardizing your security. It's about growing and learning, taking chances and doing what you love and what makes you happy.
Traveling will actually make you much more responsible.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain
Traveling can be more affordable than you think. Choose places with lower costs of living, or places closer to you, don't rent fancy houses and spend money on non-important things. Consider some ways you can earn while traveling - depending on your skills you can give freelancing lessons and services, teach math, yoga, languages, whatever you are good at. Or just make Steemit your travel blog!
Seize the day. If you really want to travel, then find a way to make it happen today, because life becomes too short if you don't go after what you want.
4. Wait for someone to make up their mind
Waiting around for someone to acknowledge and appreciate you is like waiting a lottery every week for your numbers to show up. It is not a sign of strength and patience, but lack of self worth.
Weather you are waiting for your crush to finally make up their mind about you, or for a potential business partner to start contributing to that project of yours... waiting for someone to change or dignify you, destroys your confidence and devalues you. If you don't feel like you are a priority to someone, than you should make it easier for them and leave.
By sticking around constantly, you're saying to other person that you are okay not being a first choice. That you'll always be there if they decide to settle with you one day after they try all other options.
"If you hesitate between me and another person, don't choose me"
5. New Year to start working out
"I'm gonna start working out in January, that way I'll be swimsuit ready by summer".
"I'll buy gym membership after my next paycheck."
"I'll start eating healthy after I get that new job."
We tell ourselves so many lies each year just to justify our procrastination. Have you ever noticed how parking lots at your local gym are always packed full for the first few weeks of January? You have to wait ten minutes for your machine to be available. Every year millions of well intended people make new year's resolutions to start exercising and creating healthy lifestyle.
Sadly, just few weeks later, the place will be half empty again. Only five percent of people stick to their commitment.
Change is painful, and we are addicted to our usual routines. It takes about a month of focus and effort to form a new habit. So next time you decide to get in shape, force yourself to stick a bit longer. Soon it will no longer be chore, but something you enjoy doing.
Benefits of regular exercise are endless and include reduced stress, improved brainpower and memory, confidence boost, and, of course, better shape and weight control. Everything you do for your body accumulates over time. So make a conscious effort starting today to get this area of your life sorted.
We should all stop being reactive to things happening to us, stop waiting for someone else to bring us happiness, for an amazing life to magically unfold before our eyes.
Have the courage to live the life true to yourself, not the one others are expecting of you.