The most dangerous word

The most dangerous word

Tim Connor

What’s the most dangerous word in the English language?  Care to guess? OK, I’ll give a few clues; everyone uses it from once a day to several times, it contributes to disappointment, stress and it’s harmful for relationships and careers, it’s a cause of distraction and a lack of focus, it negatively impacts success and happiness.  Got a clue yet? One more clue – when people use it they seldom consider its consequences.  There yet?

The word is – tomorrow. Surprised? Disagree? Don’t care? Well whatever your response - let me explain.

Tomorrow can mean within the next 24 hours depending on the current time or beyond that considering what motive a person has when they use it.

Rather than pick the word apart let me dig into the rationales, attitudes, interpretations or application of the meaning of the word that impact life.

It’s clear that when we use the word “tomorrow’ this implies that we will delay actions or decisions until some point in the future (and not always tomorrow). In many ways it’s wise to take time to consider, evaluate or postpone some of life’s actions until we have stewed on them or done more research or evaluations, but unfortunately many people use this approach for everything that they feel will cause some current pain or difficulty when doing it now. I am not talking here about procrastination as this is an entirely different topic, but the inability to do now what in the long run will create better outcomes than waiting for things to change, evolve or get better from our perspective.

A couple of quick questions –

Why do we wait –

There are numerous reasons why we put things off till tomorrow but the most frequent ones are; fear associated with our inability to know or control the future, the excuse that we have too much to do today, the hope that whatever needs attention will suddenly disappear or get better if we don’t act, the lack of confidence that if we act now things will turn out the way we desire and laziness – we just don’t care.  None of these are valid reasons or rationales for failure to take action.

Yes, as I have said there are times when we need to chill, wait and contemplate, but I’m not referring to major life, career or relationship issues when I talk about doing – whatever tomorrow.  I am only suggesting that many of the simple, routine or normal tasks that we face each day deserve our attention and action when they show up.

I’ll give you a quick example that I recently dealt with.

One day last year I had a client who hired me to do a two day custom in-house training session for their management team.  I sent an invoice and waited over 30 days prior to considering what I should do (as all of my invoices are always paid within 10-15 days).  I sent the client several emails regarding preprogram requests and the status of my invoice.  I had no responses. As the time was closely approaching for me to travel to the engagement on the west coast I pondered what should I do.  Call the client in a week or so as not to appear desperate or call today. 

I decided to call today and the client said they never received the invoice or emails. Was it technology or an excuse – don’t really know but they told me they would get a check in the mail that day.  My point – I wasted a great deal of time wondering, considering, evaluating is this program cancelled, but they just hadn’t told me – time that could have been better spent and ultimately the worry was useless as what I was fearing never happened.  Been there?  Did you wait or just take action?

What are the pitfalls of waiting –

As I said above waiting can waste time, increase stress, add to the disappointment of not knowing, impact other actions or decisions that you are currently considering as well as a direct or indirect impact on your relationships.

I am not by any means suggesting that whenever things don’t go your way should pull the trigger immediately as some things require time to distill but the question is – which things deserve or require action and which ones will be better served by waiting?  These are situation by situation considerations but ask yourself – how do you determine this distinction?

What are the benefits of not waiting -

I think I have already covered this in the previous segment but let me add that while waiting some things will resolve themselves and some things needing more consideration time will produce better, more creative or favorable outcomes.

“If you are not ready today you will be even less so tomorrow.”

Ovid