How To Live A Life That Completes Dreams

Character That Conquers Procrastination: How To Live A Life That Completes Dreams tackles the issue of procrastination by looking at it through a different lens. Instead of the usual tips and tricks, this book focuses on the idea that procrastination is often a sign of deeper character challenges. It argues that to live a life that's both meaningful and productive, it's essential to face and beat procrastination.

The book's main theme is that real change comes from within, and it explores how procrastination is more than just a bad habit – it's a reflection of underlying issues with one's character.

What sets this book apart is its aim to provide a lasting solution to procrastination. It compares its philosophy to teaching someone to fish instead of just giving them a fish. While it does offer help for those currently struggling with procrastination, the book's goal is to encourage a way of living that keeps procrastination at bay.

It stresses that building a positive character is crucial for a productive life, and that we are responsible for shaping our own character. The book emphasizes the importance of self-awareness in this process. It's not just about getting past procrastination; it's about changing yourself to prevent it from happening again, leading to a more fulfilling and successful life.

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Excerpt from Character That Conquers Procrastination © Copyright 2023 Richard Gordon

SELF AWARENESS

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

–Lao Tzu

Self awareness is vital to successfully dealing with procrastination. It helps us to recognize when procrastination is a problem, and when it is not. It helps us understand our motives and choices, and allows us to exercise courage.

Self awareness is a product of honesty. It is being aware of oneself, including one's traits, feelings, and behaviors. It is not easy to complete the challenge of self discovery because it requires a desire to dig beyond the surface of ourselves, and to confront anything that is lacking or not true. This honesty is absolutely necessary because without it, it is impossible to evaluate what makes you unique… impossible to see what makes you strong in some areas and weak in others.
You become self aware, first, by having the desire to know yourself. To actually become self aware to the point of usefulness takes a conscious desire to visit that place within, where all our traits reside. The process of becoming self aware is not always comfortable… It takes courage… a willingness to go where everything you find out about yourself will NOT be to your liking. We must discover and acknowledge our weaknesses before we can deal with them. This is where honesty comes in.

Sometimes we are living smaller than what we really are, simply because we have not discovered what we are made of, or what we really want. This is not a good thing because in those situations where we have no knowledge of what can be, our actual living can be reduced to fantasy… or even worse, a lie. It has been said that living a lie will reduce you to one.

Honest self-awareness is a critical step to living a truthful life.

…

What is Character?

Character is what drives us as individuals… it is, literally, the influence on our actions from all the collective traits we embrace, at any particular time. Character is the “why” in the life- choices we make. Character, in and of itself, is neither “good” nor “Bad.” The quality of the character lies in what we build it with.

The bricks with which character is built are called, traits. These traits are the “Quality Tags” we attach to a person when we try to describe their personality. There are all kinds of traits… good and bad. If we call someone honest or generous, we are describing character. Likewise, if we call someone conniving or miserly, we are describing character. The quality of character depends on the traits it is built with. AND, ultimately, we CAN select our own character traits.

In the beginning it seems we are, more or less, assigned certain “starter traits”… those elements that give us the base of our personality. But that is not the full story. The traits we build with are influenced by our up-bringing and elements of our environment. But as our life progresses, we become more and more responsible for our own character. One of the gifts of being human is that, as we mature, we have the capacity to select and embrace the traits of our on-going and developing character. In short, our character is built by the traits we choose.

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