The third lesson of the season: waiting for perfect is just procrastination wearing a reasonable disguise.
I am, and I say this with full self-awareness and zero shame, the queen of procrastination.
Work procrastination. Training procrastination. Life admin procrastination. Replying to texts procrastination. I contain multitudes, and most of them are very good at putting things off.
I’ve wanted to start a walk group for a long time. A real one — organized, consistent, community-driven. Something that gets people moving together in a low-barrier, welcoming way.
But I kept waiting. For the right time. The right people. The right location. The right everything.
And here’s what I’ve learned: the ducks are never all going to line up. Not perfectly. Not the way you’ve arranged them in your head. Something is always going to be slightly off, slightly not-ready, slightly not-yet.
So I did it anyway. Imperfectly. A little nervously. Without all the ducks.
Procrastination rarely feels like avoidance. It feels like preparation. Like you’re being responsible by waiting until conditions are right. Until you have more time, more confidence, more clarity, more whatever.
But most of the time, the waiting isn’t making you more ready. It’s just putting more distance between you and the thing you actually want to do.
The antidote — and this is the part nobody talks about enough — isn’t willpower. It’s substitution. When you catch yourself procrastinating, don’t try to white-knuckle your way through it. Replace the avoidance behaviour with a tiny version of the thing you’re avoiding. Not the whole thing. Just the door.
Open the door. That’s it.
Sign up for the class. Text the person. Show up to the first session even though it feels awkward and uncertain. The first step is the hardest one — not because it’s the biggest, but because it’s the one where all the anxiety lives. After that, the second step is easier. The third one easier still.
Racing season is over. My legs are slowly forgiving me. I’m looking ahead at next season, at what I want to do differently, what I want to build, what I want to stop waiting for.
I don’t have all the answers. The ducks are not lined up.
I’m going anyway.
The third lesson of the season: waiting for perfect is just procrastination wearing a reasonable disguise..
