One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get rid of the clutter in my home office.  Going through a pile of old papers today, I came across an article from the March 28, 2004, edition of Parade Magazine “Getting Yourself Back on Track,” by Dianne Hales.  The article discusses breaking the self-defeating behaviors that underachievers engage in, such as procrastinating, missing deadlines, and other habits that undermine our chances for success.  This kind of behavior, not surprisingly, is extremely common, as one out of four adults routinely engage in this kind of behavior.  Hales notes that underachievers feel that they have little control over their circumstances, so they may not be as motivated as high achievers to take action to improve their lives.  Instead of tackling a difficult task, they curl up in ball, make excuses, and seek comfort in some form.  In her article, Hales provides a quiz to see whether we are sabotaging ourselves:

-Do you procrastinate and constantly put things off?

-Do you miss deadlines?

-Do you hold back rather than engage fully in your life?

-Do you try to get by with the least possible amount of effort?

-Do you quit things just as you begin to succeed at them?

-Are you stuck in what you thought would be a temporary situation?

-Do you blame others or bad luck when you don’t succeed?

It’s a simple quiz, but can reveal a lot about your behavioral tendencies.  I know that in the past year, I have been guilty of procrastinating on tasks such as reorganizing my home office and seeking additional funding for my start-up.  Both are very different things to accomplish, but critical to my future success.  So, as you make your list of 2008 resolutions, keep in mind that the very human tendency to put off tackling difficult goals may be the very obstacle we need to move past in order to move forward.