How To Beat Procrastination And Get Going With Change

The hardest part of change is just getting started.

James E. McGinley, PhD
4 min readJun 16, 2022
Engine light that reads stop and start.
Photo by Ashutosh Dave on Unsplash

The road to failure they say is paved with good intentions. Deep inside we know what we need to do, and we want to do it, but we just can’t seem to get started. When we finally do get started, we usually have a honeymoon period with making new changes that fades back into procrastination or a lack of dedicated effort.

We end up where we started and wonder how it happened.

We ask ourselves all the time, why can’t I just get going?

Well, there are a lot of reasons we procrastinate or have difficulty moving forward. Some are our fault, some simply come from the daily chaos of life.

Part of the problem is external.

We have a lot of demands on us. This can leave us with little time for doing new things or for doing things differently. We are so busy living our life that we don’t seem to have the time to organize it, focus it, or shift it to the path we really want. We also may not be in a place or in an environment that supports us. We may not have access to what we need. We may not have people that understand us. This includes having supportive and encouraging people around us and good role models.

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James E. McGinley, PhD
James E. McGinley, PhD

Written by James E. McGinley, PhD

James McGinley, PhD is a professor, author, certified life coach, and licensed counselor.