CATEGORY: Little Pieces Of Life

The suitcases had been packed since the night before. Philip had left the tickets, his headphones, a charger, and a short list of everything he needed to remember on his desk. The following morning, he and Marios would be flying to Amsterdam. They had been planning the trip for months, and now there were only a few last details to sort out.

The doorbell rang shortly after eight. Marios appeared at the door, holding his phone in one hand and a large pizza box in the other.

Philip looked at him first, then at the box.

“Pizza again, seriously? Weren’t you supposed to start eating healthier on Monday?”

Marios put the box down on the desk and laughed.

“I’m waiting for you. Open that office you’ve been talking about for so long, and I’ll be your first client.”

Philip didn’t answer. He opened the box, took a slice of pizza, and turned the conversation back to their departure the following morning. The two of them continued talking about the trip, the routes they wanted to take, the places they planned to visit, and everything they hoped to fit into the days ahead.

For Philip, the trip had come at just the right time. At twenty-five, he had already completed his degree in Nutrition and Dietetics, earned his master’s degree, and gained his first practical experience through an internship at a hospital. After several years of continuous education, he felt he deserved a break before deciding what to do next.

The truth was, he had no shortage of options. He had thought about sending his CV to private clinics, had even discussed the possibility of setting up his own practice, and sometimes imagined himself working alongside doctors and other healthcare professionals. All of these possibilities genuinely interested him, and whenever he talked about them, his enthusiasm was obvious.

Lately, he had also begun flirting with the idea of pursuing a PhD in his field. He had always believed there was endless room for more knowledge, and the prospect of continuing to learn excited him. There were areas in which he could specialise further, programmes he had already singled out, and additional training he thought might be useful someday.

Perhaps that was why the trip to the Netherlands had taken on a second purpose for him. He would relax, spend time with Marios, discover new places, but he had also made sure to include Maastricht in their itinerary. He wanted to see the university for himself and, above all, learn more about the research environment in nutrition and metabolism that had already caught his attention.

As Marios spread his things across the desk, he noticed a few printed pages among Philip’s papers. At the top of one of them was the name Maastricht University.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

Philip explained that for some time he had been looking into a doctoral programme that interested him and that, since they would already be in the Netherlands, he thought they could include a visit to the university in their trip.

Marios looked at him, puzzled.

“And what about the practice you were going to open? How are you going to do both?”

Philip didn’t seem particularly troubled by the question.

“Well, then I’ll open it after the PhD. What’s the point of starting now if I’m only going to leave it halfway through?”

The answer came so naturally that, to him, there was nothing strange about it. His practice had simply been pushed a few years further into the future. Just as other things had been pushed back before it.

The conversation ended there, but Marios’s question stayed on Philip’s mind for a while. How many things had he decided needed to happen before he could truly begin his professional life?

First there had been his degree. Then his master’s. Now, perhaps, a PhD, and later maybe another specialisation. They were all interesting, they could all add to his knowledge, and there was a perfectly good reason for choosing each one.

But Philip already had enough knowledge and experience to make a start. And yet that beginning kept moving a little further away. It wasn’t because he had decided he didn’t want to work. Quite the opposite. He often talked about having his own practice, imagined what he wanted it to look like, even thought about the way he would work with the people who trusted him.

Perhaps, then, the question wasn’t how much more he needed to learn.

Perhaps it was why he always felt that he needed something more before he could begin.

Procrastination does not always look like doing nothing. It does not necessarily mean that someone is unmotivated, uninterested, or without goals. Sometimes it hides behind constant preparation. We read a little more, organise our plans a little better, wait until we have more experience or until we feel more ready.

And all of these things can indeed be useful.

Until they stop preparing us for the next step and start protecting us from taking it.

Perhaps that was what was happening to Philip. He wasn’t avoiding effort. Without fully realising it, he was avoiding the moment when his knowledge would have to leave the safety of theory and be tested in practice.

Procrastination offered him one advantage he had not yet recognised. As long as the beginning of his professional life remained somewhere in the future, he could imagine it exactly as he wanted it to be. His practice could succeed, he could become an excellent professional, and everything he had dreamed of remained possible.

Reality, however, would bring something else with it.

The possibility of failure. A wrong decision. A client who might not be satisfied. There would be days when the phone might not ring and others when he might return home wondering whether he had handled a case correctly.

As long as he didn’t begin, none of those things could happen.

But something else was gradually becoming clear. Procrastination may temporarily protect us from what we fear, but at the same time, it keeps us away from what we want.

Philip was avoiding the possibility of failure.

But in doing so, he was also postponing the possibility of success.

The problem with procrastination is that, at first, it can seem almost harmless. A week, a month, another course of study. There is always time, and we can always begin a little later.

But time does not pass without consequences.

Little by little, what we postpone begins to weigh more heavily on us. A decision that once seemed relatively simple grows larger in our minds. We think about it more often, and disappointment in ourselves begins to appear alongside it. We know we want to move forward, we can see that we are not doing it, and we begin to wonder why.

That was beginning to happen to Philip. The practice he had once imagined with excitement was slowly becoming something he preferred not to think about. Whenever someone asked about his professional plans, he always had an answer about what he intended to do next.

What he didn’t have was a clear answer about when he intended to begin.

And perhaps this is one of procrastination’s greatest traps. We do not postpone only an action. Along with it, we postpone experiences, opportunities, mistakes we could learn from, and even parts of ourselves that we can only discover by trying.

Because some things cannot be learned before we begin.

We learn them by beginning.

There is another side of procrastination that we often fail to notice. When something makes us anxious, uncertain, or simply uncomfortable, putting it off can make us feel better in that moment. The decision moves further away, the pressure eases, and for a while we no longer have to face whatever is making us uncomfortable.

“I’ll do it tomorrow” can bring a small sense of relief.

But tomorrow eventually becomes today.

And then whatever we postponed is still waiting for us, only now it may be accompanied by even more anxiety, guilt, or disappointment because, once again, we did not do what we had promised ourselves we would do.

This does not necessarily mean that we procrastinate in every area of our lives. Someone can be reliable at work, responsible with obligations, punctual for appointments, and dependable when it comes to what others expect of them, yet repeatedly postpone one particular area of their own life.

Perhaps, then, instead of so quickly telling ourselves, “I’m a procrastinator,” it is more useful to ask:

“What am I postponing? And what is it about this particular thing that makes it so difficult for me?”

Because sometimes, behind a simple “I’ll do it later,” there is something more that deserves our attention.

When Philip returned from his trip, his daily life quickly settled back into its familiar rhythm. This time, however, one thought stayed with him more persistently than the others.

Why was it that every time he came close to beginning his professional life, something else appeared that seemed more important to do first?

One evening, he opened his computer and, instead of searching for another educational programme, began looking for information about procrastination.

As he read, he began to realise that it was not as simple as he had imagined. Until then, he had associated procrastination mostly with laziness, inactivity, or poor organisation. But he recognised himself in none of those things. He was responsible with his obligations, completed what he took on, and could work with great focus when he had a specific goal.

He began to understand that someone could be consistent in many areas of life and still repeatedly procrastinate in one particular area. Perhaps saying “I’m a procrastinator” did not explain very much after all. What mattered more was understanding exactly what he was postponing and why.

As he continued reading, he discovered that not every delay is procrastination. Sometimes we consciously decide to leave something until later because the timing is not right or because something else genuinely needs to come first.

In his own case, however, he was beginning to struggle to find a real reason. He had the knowledge, the necessary qualifications and, most importantly, the desire to begin. Yet each time, he moved the starting point a little further away.

Then he came across something that made him stop reading for a moment.

Procrastination can bring temporary relief.

He thought about how many times he had told himself “not yet” and immediately felt better. At that moment, he didn’t have to think about finding a space, expenses, first clients, or responsibilities. All of that could wait.

The difficulty had not disappeared. It had simply been handed over to his future self.

But the future eventually becomes the present. And when it does, what we postponed is still waiting for us, often accompanied by more anxiety, guilt, or disappointment because, once again, we failed to do what we had decided to do.

Philip kept searching and began to recognise another part of himself.

He didn’t simply want to begin.

He wanted to begin the right way.

He wanted to know enough, to be prepared for every possibility, to avoid mistakes, and to feel certain that he would succeed. But perhaps this need to feel completely ready was part of what was holding him back.

Because wanting to do something well is one thing.

Believing that we must be completely prepared before we allow ourselves to try is another.

He also read that procrastination can create a strange cycle. The more pressure we feel, the harder it can become to begin something that already makes us anxious. We postpone it so that we can feel temporarily better, but the postponement itself creates new pressure.

And somehow, what we did to avoid anxiety ends up increasing it.

For the first time, Philip did not ask himself what else he needed to learn before opening his practice.

He asked himself something different.

What exactly was he waiting to feel before allowing himself to begin?

And perhaps this was the first question he could not answer with another degree, another specialisation, or a PhD.

The more closely he observed himself, the more he began to understand that he wasn’t postponing only a professional decision.

He was postponing everything that would come with it.

Until then, as a student, he had known his role well. There were classes, professors, exams, assignments, and clearly defined goals. He could prepare, study more, improve an assignment before handing it in. There was almost always something he could do to feel more prepared.

His own practice would not offer that same sense of safety.

There, someone would sit across from him expecting his guidance. There would be decisions for which he alone would be responsible, people who might not follow his advice, cases that would challenge him, and questions he might not immediately know how to answer.

And then he began to recognise a fear that, until that moment, had been hiding remarkably well behind his need for more knowledge.

The fear that he might not be good enough.

Perhaps that was why the thought of further education was so appealing. Every new qualification gave him more than knowledge. It gave him a little more time before he had to test himself outside the familiar world of studying.

But now he could also see the trap.

If he waited for every doubt to disappear before making a start, he might be waiting for a very long time.

He began to wonder whether he had set himself a condition that could never truly be met: first feel ready, then begin.

But what if it worked the other way around?

What if some of the confidence he was waiting for could not be gained through more books or more studies, but only through experience?

He did not need to abandon the idea of a PhD, nor did he need to stop loving learning. He needed to distinguish something far more difficult: what he was choosing because he genuinely wanted it, and what he was choosing because it helped him delay what he feared.

Perhaps that was the most important difference.

He did not need to stop being afraid in order to move forward.

He needed to start moving forward even if part of him was still afraid.

Philip had spent a long time thinking of the beginning as something enormous. Finding the right space, organising his practice, building a client base, being financially prepared, knowing how to deal with every possible case.

When all of these things came together in his mind, beginning felt like a mountain.

But perhaps he didn’t need to begin with the mountain.

He took a sheet of paper and wrote at the top:

“What can I do this week?”

Not in six months.

Not when he felt more ready.

This week.

For the first time, he tried to break down what he had viewed for so long as one enormous decision into smaller steps. Find out what he needed in order to begin practising professionally. Look realistically at his options. Calculate the initial costs. Visit possible spaces without that meaning he had to rent one the following day.

And, above all, stop asking himself to solve today every problem he might possibly encounter tomorrow.

This was new for him. Until then, he had been waiting to feel ready for the entire journey before taking the first step.

Now he was beginning to understand that perhaps he only needed to be ready for the next one.

And somehow, the beginning no longer seemed quite so overwhelming.

He had not opened his practice yet. He had not conquered procrastination, and he certainly did not suddenly have all the answers.

But he had stopped waiting for the perfect moment to move.

Procrastination does not disappear simply because one day we decide to become more disciplined. Nor do we always need to wait until we have the motivation, confidence, or certainty to do what is in front of us.

Perhaps the first step is much simpler: recognising the moment when we begin negotiating with ourselves.

“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“I’m not ready yet.”

“Let me get through this period first.”

“I just need a little more time.”

Sometimes these thoughts are completely reasonable. At other times, however, they are simply our way of moving away, for a while, from something that makes us uncomfortable.

At that point, perhaps instead of asking ourselves, “Why can’t I just do it?”, it is worth asking something different:

“What do I feel when I think about doing it? Anxiety? Fear? Uncertainty? Boredom? Am I afraid I won’t succeed? Am I waiting to feel more ready? Or does what lies ahead seem so overwhelming that I simply don’t know where to begin?”

The answer does not always have to be a big decision.

It might be a phone call, an email, an application, ten minutes of work, or simply finding one piece of information. Something small enough to be done today.

Because the first step does not need to prove that we can complete the entire journey.

It only needs to move us from where we are standing.

Philip still did not know exactly where his professional path would take him. He didn’t know whether he would eventually pursue the PhD that interested him so much, nor whether his own practice would develop the way he imagined.

But he was beginning to understand that he did not need to know all the answers in advance.

Some of them could only be found by moving forward.

And perhaps that is one of the hardest lessons for those of us who procrastinate: we do not always need to feel ready before we begin.

Sometimes, we need to begin before we can start feeling ready.