I’m like most people — if something seems difficult, my first reaction is to look for some way out of it. But I can see that I won't get very far doing what comes easy, because the bottom line is — most things worth doing aren’t easy. So obviously, to get anywhere in life, I’ve got to overcome the human tendency toward laziness.

 

I’m often guilty of avoiding a task by busying myself with something else I’d rather be doing. I’m not real fond of writing, but I like web design. It’s something new for me, so I could easily spend most of my time learning and trying new things on my website and very little time on writing.

 

But the reason I’m doing this website is to be an encouragement to others, so neglecting the writing part would be to neglect the main reason for doing it in the first place. To counter this one thing I do is “dangle a carrot in front of the horse”, so to speak. I make a commitment that I won’t do any design work until I’ve spent a certain amount of time writing. Many times that does the trick.

 

Something else I do, especially when I feel like something is just too much for me, is break it down into smaller, more manageable tasks. That’s how I’ve done it with this website. Apart from some limited experience in the past with programming, I had no experience at all with any aspects of putting together a website. But by taking small steps in the direction I wanted to go, I built upon each task, and little by little, I’ve gotten to where I am today.

 

Sometimes someone with an immediate need can be a motivator. That's what got me over the hump of starting on this website. For a while I’d been contemplating doing it but had been hesitating to take that first step of opening a web hosting account. What finally motivated me to take that step was when someone asked for help with a web hosting account.

 

Laziness is something that’s always a struggle to overcome. I've found that having different ways to motivate myself, like the few I’ve mentioned is a big help. Regardless, I know that I've got to pull myself out of not wanting to make the effort needed to make progress in order to be successful and keep moving forward in life.