Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself?

I decided to take a brake from the Wilde quotes and take the title from a rather different yet, in my eyes, nonetheless brilliant lyricist. The quote is from the Neil Young song "Tell me why?", which in itself would also make quite an apt title given this post's subject.
For years now, I've been telling myself that "I am going to do certain things and achieve certain goals in this specific period of time", all the while convincing myself that what I'm saying is true as I apparently believe on some level that I have the kind of self-will and work ethic that will allow me to do so. The truth of the matter is that in actuality I do not, and I've known this for quite some time, and yet every time I want to achieve something I convince myself that it will be different from the last time. I tell myself that, in spite of the past, this time I will succeed, but I very rarely do. Evidently, I find it hard to keep promises that I make to myself.
An annoying habit of mine is attempting to psychoanalyze nearly anything about anyone that intrigues me, though I have found that such practice comes in useful when I wish to self-examine. I've come to the conclusion that my inability to realise my own desires, whether they be short-term aims or long-term goals, likely stems from a similar trait belonging to my father. When I was young, my parents were pretty much constantly working, always busy running their business, yet it wasn't like they didn't make time for me. As preoccupied as they were, they always showed my sufficient love and attention when they spent time with me. My dad would always make me and my sister promises of exciting things we were going to do, of all the fun stuff we would eventually get up to. Of course, these assurances were hardly ever realised, not because my father hadn't intended to stick to them, but because he was unable to do so due to his involving life. So I came to accept and expect that when he made plans with me, they would likely be unfulfilled. To me it became a fact of life, perfectly normal, and is something that I believe I now imitate.
It was when I had originally intended to write this post - about two months ago - that this really hit home. Despite being overcome by fear over the fate of my AS examination performance, I found myself unable to do the work and revision which I had set out to accomplish at the beginning of the Easter holidays. I kept delaying it, assuring myself there was still time until there very nearly was not. Luckily enough - and with the help of some hard working friends who both aided and inspired - I managed to pull the proverbial finger out and get some serious, hard and thorough revision done. However, this affair had highlighted this inadequacy of mine and fore-grounded it as a serious problem. I feel that I've done pretty well in my exams so far, but at the same time think that if I had actually put in the amount of effort throughout the year that I had intended to when it began, I could have done that much better. Thus, from now on, I'm going to resolve to tackle this problem of mine, and to try and make better arrangements with myself.


Sincerely
J.