The Tipping Point is important/because it’s not just you who can smell the Happy Playground up ahead/—the monkey can smell it too.
Once you hit the Tipping Point,/the monkey becomes more interested/in getting to the Happy Playground/than the Dark Playground.
When this happens,/you lose all impulse to procrastinate,/and now both you and the monkey/are speeding toward the finish.
Before you know it,/you’re done,/and you’re in the Happy Playground.
One last word of caution:/what makes procrastination so hard to beat/is that the Instant Gratification Monkey has a terribly short-term memory. Even if you succeed on Monday,/when you begin a task on Tuesday,/he has forgotten everything/and will again resist entering the Dark Woods. And that’s why persistence is such a critical component of success. Laying each brick yields an inner struggle. But in the end,/your ability to lay brick after brick,/day after day,/is what lies at the core of a procrastinator’s struggle/to gain control over his world.
So much of what makes people happy or unhappy/—their level of satisfaction,/their self-esteem,/the regrets they carry with them/—is severely affected by procrastination. So the time to start improving is now.
One last word of caution:/what makes procrastination so hard to beat/is that the Instant Gratification Monkey has a terribly short-term memory. Even if you succeed on Monday,/when you begin a task on Tuesday,/he has forgotten everything/and will again resist entering the Dark Woods. And that’s why persistence is such a critical component of success. Laying each brick yields an inner struggle. But in the end,/your ability to lay brick after brick,/day after day,/is what lies at the core of a procrastinator’s struggle/to gain control over his world.
So much of what makes people happy or unhappy/—their level of satisfaction,/their self-esteem,/the regrets they carry with them/—is severely affected by procrastination. So the time to start improving is now.