I'll Do it Tomorrow

I have a confession to make. I’m a liar. I lie to myself a lot. The biggest lie that I tell myself is that I will do it tomorrow. I’m going to do a lot of things tomorrow, you see, that’s how I ended up writing this blog at the last minute because I thrive on procrastination. I can plan and plan and plan to do things, but it always comes down to the last minute – especially when it comes to my personal life.

The lie, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” has been a staple in my life for as long as I can remember. There are many things that I plan on doing tomorrow that I’ve been telling myself for twenty or more years in favor of doing things that are more pleasant such as relaxing, watching television, or playing on my phone.

This week on the podcast we are discussing the book “Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be” by Rachel Hollis. In the book, Hollis discusses the different lies that we tell ourselves. In the end, Hollis says, there is one truth and that is “you, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are.” This is probably my favorite statement in the whole book and it’s right on the first page. As someone that chased “happiness” for years, not realizing that I was chasing the wrong thing, I would often put the blame on external factors and not on myself. “I would be happy if…” or, “I can’t get this done until I accomplish this” and so on and so forth.

So, the takeaway is: take responsibility for…everything! I’m still working on this. The “if” and “can’t” factor is a huge hurdle that I am constantly jumping over, but personal growth doesn’t happen overnight. The message is that we are always a work in progress and we will always make mistakes, but we just have to get up, wash our faces, and live our lives to the fullest.

Here are some of the major lies that I’ve told myself over the years:

• The lie: I’ll publish tomorrow. In high school, I completed my first novel. I wrote it for a school assignment and then decided to expand it. In college, I decided to look into getting it published, and the publisher told me I needed more pages to make it truly a full-length novel. So, I began the editing and expanding process and I have been doing it for twenty years now. I keep telling myself that I will look into self-publishing my novel when I have time to sit down and write. Every year, I try to push myself to complete the process, but I continue to hold myself back. I could give a bunch of excuses why I haven’t published one of my novels or stories such as “time” or “work,” but it’s a lie. I have been holding myself back from publishing my work.
• The lie: I’ll diet tomorrow. This is a big one. I struggle a lot with my weight to the point that I have to be vigilant about what I put in my mouth. My biggest struggle lately is that due to depression and other external factors, I have been off the rails with my diet for the last year. It seems that I will take one step forward to lowering my cholesterol and eating healthier, and one huge step back if I give in to temptation and eat something fried or sweet. I tell myself that yes, I messed up today, but I will start dieting tomorrow. So far, I am only kidding myself.
• The lie: I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow. This lie piggybacks onto the dieting lie. I recently went to the doctor after months of putting it off. I don’t like visiting doctors much, and it always seems like as soon as I find a doctor I like, they move or they quit practicing. Back in August, my insurance company sent word that I would have to find another primary care doctor and, of course, I put it off in favor of doing something else. This was something that my parents struggled with as well – going to the doctor and getting checked out. I can make a list of all the things I hate about visiting the doctor, but I won’t because those are just excuses, action is the only thing that will benefit me in the long run.
• The lie: I’ll deal with my grief tomorrow. My father died in 2017, and my mother died fifteen months later. Since then, I have been running from dealing with my grief and the storage units containing my parents’ belongings. In the back of my mind, I thought that if I put off dealing with their things and my grief that it would go away, but here I am, almost six years later, trying to get up enough courage to open my storage lockers and begin the process of cataloging everything. Many times I have been told that I should be “over it” by now – the death of my parents. This has mostly been told to me by people that still have living parents. I don’t think you ever get over a loss that heavy, but I do know that I can deal with it better than I have been, such as seeking help or talking to someone. I just have to stop telling myself that I will set up an appointment “tomorrow.”
• The lie: I’ll clean the house tomorrow. I have a junk table in my house. It’s a table sitting by the door that I set stuff on as I walk in the front door with the intention of coming back and taking it to its proper place. Most of the time I set stuff on that table and forget about it. Months will go by, and it will still be sitting on that table by the door. Dust will start to collect on that object until, suddenly, it has been there for a year and I pick it up and wonder why it even exists. Most recently, I picked up an unopened envelope from that very table and realized that it was sent to me in mid-November and it is now March. I have lived in my apartment for almost two years, and I guarantee you that I have only cleaned the floors twice in my kitchen. So, I make these grand plans to clean one little thing when I come home from work and then tell myself that I will do it tomorrow because I am too tired today. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to end.

One of my favorite Shakespeare speeches from the play “Macbeth” began with the repetition of the word “tomorrow” and talks about how men put things off until tomorrow until they have no more tomorrows left, only the memory of broken promises. As I write this blog I am reminded that tomorrow is not guaranteed, so we need to start today, and that is the point of getting past the lies we’ve been told (or tell ourselves), so we can become who we are meant to be.

I want to hear from our readers. What lies do you tell yourself? Have you read the book? What did you think? Comment below!