You'll feel the same tomorrow

One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is that tomorrow we'll magically feel much better than we do today. Perhaps today we feel drained. Perhaps we didn't sleep well the night before or that the meetings at work were particularly stressful or our favorite sports team lost. And so, we think, today, let's just relax. Tomorrow I will get this done. Tomorrow, I'll have the energy and motivation. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow, you're only a day away. (To be fair we only think of this last line if we're big fans of Annie.)

Nine times out of ten that's just not true. You will feel the same tomorrow. And the day after. If you're not up for doing it now, you might never be up for doing it. You'll just keep putting it off until it's too late.

So today is the day you should do that thing. As the Roman poet Horace said, carpe diem, motherfucker. (Or something like that.)

The important thing to remember is that motivation doesn't matter. Motivation is fleeting. It appears rarely and it doesn't last long. What matters is consistency. That means showing up. Every. Single. Day. Even when you're tired, or sad, or stressed. Because you know what? We're incredibly good at being tired and sad and stressed. Ask around! But we can't let that take control of us. If we want to control our lives we need to have routines and habits. And when things come up we need to take care of them as soon as we can. Along with the immense satisfaction we'll get from that, we'll also find our productivity levels have gone through the roof. And -- dare I say it -- we might find ourselves a bit less tired and sad and stressed. Funny how that works.

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