‘’You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.’’

This is a quote from the movie Enter the dragon starring Bruce Lee. I was really young when I saw the movie so when I heard this quote I didn’t know what it meant and how essential the thought behind it was for the journey of self-development I embarked on.

It’s been four years since I actively started looking into self-development theory and it got me to dream again about helping people, make a difference and creating a lifestyle of my own design, but there was one thing that stood in my way and that was procrastination.

I’ve read a lot of different articles and adds about products that deal with procrastination and how to get rid of it. Most of them contained atleast one sentence like one of these.

Use this product and never worry about procrastination again EVER!
Get rid of all your procrastination problems by using this!

You wouldn’t believe how much theory I’ve read and tested when it comes to procrastination and out of all that testing I can say one thing. These promises of getting rid of your problems forever is nothing more than a lie. It’s not that these programs and strategies don’t work, but there not magic pills that fix your problems and you’ll never have to deal with them again.

In reality you’ll fall of and in my opinion this is a part of life. I would learn about a new procrastination system than I would try it and all would go well for three weeks and then something would happen that I didn’t take into account. It could be social obligations, an accident or just misjudging how much time certain activities would take. This perfect system would collapse and your back at ground zero.

I do think you can make almost any system work as long as you accept one thing. It won’t make you into this perfect being that will do everything perfect.Your succes will come in waves, but the good thing is you can decide how long it will take for you to get back at the top of one of those waves.By accepting this you can start becoming flexible.

You can’t bat a thousand when it comes to life. Knowing that you can take measures accordingly. If something goes wrong you need to create back up plans. How can you get back up and try again? What can you do so you don’t repeat the same mistake? You need contigencies, because that is truly how you become
shapeless, formless like water

painting by Joshua Bassham