The Best Time To Move From ‘I Will Do It’ To ‘Doer’ Is Now, Your Future Self Will Thank You

Halima had a notebook with the same line written on the first page of every new term since junior secondary school: “This year, I will be serious.” She wrote it in primary six, in JSS two, in SS one, and again in her first year at university, each time with fresh ink and fresh hope, and each time the promise dissolved somewhere between week three and the first real distraction.

Her cousin, Yusuf, two years older, watched this ritual from a distance with the quiet amusement of someone who used to do exactly the same thing, until the year he stopped writing intentions and simply started showing up differently.

The difference between Halima at 20 and Yusuf at 22 wasn’t talent, luck, or even discipline in the way people usually mean it.

It was one decision to stop being a person who will do it and become a person who simply does it.

Saying “I will do it” feels safe because it lets you keep the dream alive without risking the discomfort of trying and possibly failing at it today.

Your brain treats the promise of future action almost like the action itself, releasing just enough relief to quiet the guilt, which is exactly why you can feel good about a plan you haven’t started.

There’s also a quieter fear hiding underneath the delay, the fear that if you start now and it goes badly, you’ll lose the comforting fantasy that you could have done it well if you’d really tried.

A planner measures progress by how good their idea sounds when they explain it to friends, while a doer measures progress by what actually exists at the end of the day, even if it’s rough around the edges.

A planner waits for motivation to arrive before starting, while a doer understands that motivation usually shows up after the first ten minutes of action, not before it, which means waiting to “feel ready” often means waiting forever.

A planner treats mistakes as proof they should have waited longer, while a doer treats mistakes as information, simply data that tells them what to adjust next time around.

A planner often surrounds themselves with people who admire the dream, while a doer seeks out people who will honestly tell them when the work isn’t good enough yet, because that honesty is what sharpens skill.

A planner is performing for an imagined audience, worried about how starting and possibly failing will look, while a doer has made peace with the fact that starting messy in private beats explaining excuses publicly for another year.

Picture, for a moment, the version of you five years from today, looking back at this exact week.

That future self isn’t asking whether you felt fully ready, whether the conditions were perfect, or whether your friends were also starting at the same time.

That future self is only asking one simple question: did you begin?

Every skill you keep postponing, every business idea you keep “researching,” every application you keep “about to submit,” every healthier habit you keep starting “from Monday,” is a small debt you’re quietly handing to that future version of yourself, with interest.

The honest truth is that you don’t owe your future self perfection; you only owe them a start.

Pick one thing you’ve been “planning” for over a month and give yourself permission to do a rough, imperfect version of it within the next 24 hours, because rough and real always beats polished and imaginary.

Tell one person, a friend, a sibling, a mentor, exactly what you intend to finish and by when because spoken commitments carry a weight that private ones don’t.

Replace the question “Am I ready?” with the more honest question “What’s the smallest version of this I can start in the next hour?”, since smallness removes the pressure that keeps you frozen.

Track what you actually complete each week instead of what you planned, because completed lists rebuild self-trust in a way that wish lists never can.

Be gentle with yourself when you stumble, because becoming a doer is about delaying less often than you used to and recovering faster each time you catch yourself slipping back.