The "Cure" To Procrastination and Laziness

And the dominant thoughts, emotions and behaviors that have been repeated over time become automated. We have all these wants and desires, but we have these circuits in our brain that are not working in coherence and in concert with each other. Hey there. Good morning and welcome to my Achieve Even More show every Tuesday morning. Have you ever considered that you might be in habit hell? Have you ever heard that term habit hell? Have you ever thought that you're lazy? And have you ever felt unmotivated? Let me know. Have you ever felt unmotivated? Have you ever felt like you're lazy? Have you ever felt like you're spinning your wheels doing more of the same every single week? One of the things I was talking to with a good friend of mine, Dr. Srini Pilate from Harvard, something that he coined this great term called habit hell. And what habit hell is you and I reinforcing, disempowering, negative patterns that we repeat over and over and over again that we have a hard time breaking free from. And so have you ever considered that maybe some of your habits are causing you to procrastinate? Maybe some of your habits are causing you to be unmotivated? Maybe some of your habits are so strong and have been reinforced so much that you are in habit hell? Does that make sense at all? So here's a question for you. Last week we talked about ending procrastination, right? We talked about the three causes of procrastination. Arousal, self image, and fear, right? We talked about that. Many of you made commitments last week to changing your behavior. So I'm wondering, did you follow through? Did you follow through on the micro commitments you said last week? Question, right? Is it easy to change behavior or does it take time? What is it about behavior that is so hard to change? Why do we have such a hard time changing? Right? The only human that likes change is a wet baby, right? So what makes it so hard to change? But if you understand neuroscience a little bit, just a little bit, you don't have to, you know, be an expert in neuroscience. But when we want to change, the motivation is there, right? We have a commitment to something that we want to achieve for a reason or a season. And we want to achieve the goals that we have. But change is hard. Why? John Foster, Comfort the governor. The governor in your brain. And Sasan, you're on the money right now, right? Is were you born with any habits? Let me backtrack a little bit. Were you born with any habits? And the answer is no. Nobody was born with any habits. And so what is A habit from a neuroscience perspective. What is a habit from a neuroscience perspective? So, Talia, because of the comfort zone. But why do we get into comfort zones? I want to have a dialogue today to get you to think. And Lucia da Vinci, you're right on the money. Is our brain. Our brain, all right, develops these patterns based on our dominant thoughts, our dominant emotions, our dominant behaviors. The dominant thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that have been repeated over time become automated. And there's a part of our brain that scientists believe is called the striatum, which is the part that triggers a sequence of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. So we learn, and then what happens? We learn, and then we behave. We learn, and then we give things meaning. We learn, and then we create our reality. And so we become accustomed to comfort zones. Here's a question for you. Is it possible to be miserable and comfortable? Is it possible to be rich and comfortable or poor and comfortable? Is it possible to be overweight and comfortable? Is it possible to be in an abusive relationship? And comfortable? Is it possible to be in a job you hate but comfortable? Right. So what's the answer to that? Of course it's possible. So what is it going to take to take a pattern, okay, that you have been accustomed to and change that pattern? Because if it's true, that we develop neuro patterns or neural patterns in our brain, which is nothing more than cells that connect, right? And then those cells that connect and fire those sequences repeatedly, the firing threshold, the ease at which that pattern fires, the neurochemicals that drive behavior does what? The ease at which the neurochemicals fire does what. It makes the pattern and the sequence eas easy to activate and follow through on where when we want to change, we have to actually. And use this word lightly, right? Use this word light, we have to deactivate the neurons and the patterns that are easy to fire off in that sequence. And so when we're looking to get out of what Dr. Pillay at Harvard calls his habit hell. Habit hell, we have to start off with a couple of techniques. And so, first and foremost, all right, do you have a clear vision for what it is that you want to achieve? And if you do, that's great. But it has to start with giving that occipital lobe, the biggest part of your brain, a visual of the vision, right? A visual of the vision. And when we create a vision of what it is that we want and we add, I might add, why must we achieve it? Now, think about this. You have habits. I have habits. I develop those habits. Those Habits then get reinforced, then develop me. If they're constructive, that's great. I keep building upon those. If they're destructive, it keeps breaking me down. Right. If they're positive, great. If they're negative, too bad. So what is it that we have to do to get out of this habit hell loop? So first, right, is we create a vision. Perfect. So can you commit between today and next week that you will create a vision for your health, wealth, relationships, career, business, finances, and charitable charitable contributions? Can you create that vision first? That's part of the process of how we are going to get out of habit hell and into habit heaven. So if you can give me a like or a love or leave me a, you know, a note here in the chat. All right, so that's number one. Number two, here's what I really want you to engage in. When we set a goal, we're using the Einstein part of our brain. But what happens this, there is another part of our brain called the limbic system, which is part of the brain responsible for emotions. Right, emotions. Now, why is this important? Well, when we set a vision and then we have maybe fear of failure, fear of trying our best and not achieving it, fear of disappointing ourselves or our family again, fear of being embarrassed or ashamed or ridiculed or judged, fear of being ridiculed, fear of having to look in the mirror saying, there you go again. You set a vision and then you didn't follow through. So a lot of times when we're looking to make changes, fear triggers, and then we lose motivation. So a lot of people think I'm lazy, not me, I'm not lazy. But they think that they are lazy. They're not lazy. They're in a safety, protective, triggered mental and emotional state. So a lot of times if we don't have a vision, we can just be lazy to our habits. But when we have visions and goals that we want to achieve, sometimes we're not lazy. We may not be motivated, which shows up as laziness, but it's not laziness. It's actually a protective mechanism that our brain just says, hey, you know, I don't want you to have the emotional pain and discomfort in case of failure. Does that make sense? So when the limbic system deactivates your motivational centers, that's like having one foot on the, on the gas, saying, I want to go over here, I want to change. I want to achieve these goals and dreams. But then you have another foot on the brakes that says, hey, but what if you fail? What if negative, right? What if negative? So we have these levers or circuits in our brain that turn on or off. And what happens is when these circuits are turning on or off, the average person, and I didn't know this until I did the research, which I've been doing for 40 years now. But the average person is just repeats that pattern over and over and over again. I want this vision, I want this goals. I want to get out of debt. I want to make more money. I want to leave my job, I want to start a business. I want to grow my business. I want a better relationship. I want to be a better father, I want to be a better mother. We have all these wants and desires, but we have these circuits in our brain that are not working in coherence and in concert with each other. So. So we have neural chaos. And it shows up as laziness. It shows up as not being motivated. It shows up as procrastination. So if you want to eliminate procrastination, if you think about why am I procrastinating? Why may I be lazy at times? Why am I rationalizing? Which means why am I telling myself rational lies over and over and over again of why I'm stuck, of why I'm sabotaging, of why I'm not taking action. See, not taking action is an effect. Being unmotivated is an effect, right? Being unmotivated is an effect. Procrastinating is an effect of either a self image disconnect, which is also protective mechanism. When we don't feel that we are worthy the goal that we want to achieve. When we don't feel worthy of the income we want you. When we feel there's a disconnect between our hidden self image, whether it's our weight, right? And the hidden self image that we have. A lot of people that you know, that lose weight, gain it back. Why they stopped that diet or exercise program that they started. Why? Well, they reach their ideal weight, but their hidden self image is what's driving the behavior. So they never took the time to change the hidden self image, which is like a set point for income, for weight, for relationship, for business, et cetera. Does that make sense? I want you to start thinking about cause versus effect. For every effect there's a cause and for every cause there's an effect. But most people are looking at their result and they're going, oh my God, look at my result, Therefore, here's who I am, therefore I'm going to be stuck here. As opposed to saying, here is my result. What's the effect. And so if you're procrastinating, all right, procrastination is an effect. If you're self sabotaging, self sabotage is an effect. If you're unmotivated and maybe feel lazy, that's an effect. If you're starting and stopping things, that's an effect. If you're not completing things, okay, then you have a pattern of being a starter but not a finisher. Does this make sense? I want you to understand cause versus effect. It's one of the greatest laws of the universe. And so when I find individuals that lack motivation, motive for action, I want to understand why. Are you unmotivated? Are you always unmotivated? Are you always right? Let me give you an example. Let's take teenagers. You know, they're starting to date boys and girls 15, 16, 17 years young. Let's say they're motivated. They're watching TV, you know, they're lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy. And let's say one of their friends calls them and says, hey, let's go do this, and it's something they want to do. Or a member of the sex that they're interested in calls them up and, and says, hey, I really think we should get together. Don't they all of a sudden become hyper motivated? Hyper motivated? Why? Because the motive for action triggers the reward center, which is connected to the behavior center. So if you don't have a reason why you must take action, you won't. It's easier for this organism called your brain, okay, to conserve energy when there isn't a motive for action. So as I mentioned before, as you are creating your vision or your goals and a combination, the questions you should be asking yourself is why must I make or take the desired actions and sustain them? Why must I? Who other than me will benefit as a result of me changing these habits? What will I experience? What can I contribute? Who will it make? Me? Does that make sense? We have to get our reasons to do something and make it bigger than our reasons not to. Did you hear what I just said? We have to make the reasons we want to do something bigger than why we shouldn't, couldn't, and don't want to. So if you don't have the motive for action, then you are not going to have this frontal lobe and midbrain, top of the brain, middle of the brain, integration, which is what's required for goal achievement. Did you hear me? Not goal setting, goal achievement. And if you don't have this integration, this, this working relationship between the part of Your brain that sets the goal and the part of your brain that's responsible for the emotions of staying stuck, staying unmotivated, staying lazy, staying with your habits. You won't change. So if you want to change, learn the process of change. Now, does anybody remember from last week? All right, how long does it take for change to sustainability? How long does it take for change to sustain? Based on the University of London research that I shared last week and the week before. So somebody says three weeks, somebody says 100 days, 21 days. Somebody says, who else? Come on, just give a guess. 21 days. So the old belief back in the 70s, 80s, and even in the 90s was that it takes 21 days to. To create a new habit. Well, that's not true. So all of the new research suggests and shows, and I want, before I give you the number, I want you to imagine something, okay? Imagine that you didn't have any habits. And when you were learning habits like walking, eating, dressing yourself, tying your shoes, writing, talk, you know, speaking the language, learning mathematics, one plus one equals two. Two plus two equals four. Four plus four equals, you know that trick, right? So how long did it take to learn some of these patterns? So that those patterns were automatic, Right? And some patterns you can create relatively quickly. So let me give you an example. If you took your finger and you stuck it in the socket, or you took a metal like a knife and you put it in the socket and you got a shock, that wiring in your brain, because it's a painful, in some cases a traumatic experience. Wires. All right, a 10,000 times more cohesively than something that's pleasurable, 10,000 times faster. So all of the research shows that it takes between 66 days and 365 days to create a pattern that then starts to reinforce itself. So we use conscious effort initially. And when we're using conscious effort, we have to do what we. We have to use every part of our brain to get us to do the action. We have to create a new memory for it. We have to create a new habit for it. We have to create the motive for behaving that way. We have to create the rewards. We have to create patterns to eliminate the resistance. We have to create patterns to deactivate the triggers that want us to stop. So it takes between 66 days and 365 days to create a new pattern that can override the old patterns. Does that make sense? And so there are four levels on the learning scale that we go through, right? Number one, and somebody, maybe you can type this into the chat for me, so everybody can see it. Number one, when we may be starting out is we may be what is called unconsciously incompetent. We're unconsciously incompetent. That's what we don't know. That we don't know. That's level one. Level two is we become or we are aware that we are consciously incompetent. We are aware that we are incompetent, like I'm incompetent at whatever. Then with practice, with deliberate practice and energy and focus and attention, we become consciously competent. Now, through effort, we become competent. Now, when we are in the conscious competence stage, when we are in the conscious competence stage, we better be competent at doing the right things. Because if we are consciously competent at the wrong things, we get good at the wrong things. So. So let me repeat before I give you the fourth one. Unconsciously incompetent. Consciously incompetent. Now, I'm aware that I'm incompetent or not good at this thing. Then we go to conscious competence. Conscious competence. Now let me ask you a question. When somebody practices a free throw 10,000 times, when somebody practices the Rubik's Cube in the right algorithm, 10,000 times, when somebody practices how to walk, when somebody practices math, when somebody practices a language, when somebody practices how to make money, when somebody practices money management skills, when somebody practices doing the right things in the right order at the right time, over and over and over and over again, is it possible that that's when it goes to being effortless versus effort more at the consciousness competent stage, to effortless, where you are just in flow, you can do magic. And people don't realize that you've invested 10,000 hours to do that so effortlessly or play the yo yo or sew, or knit or do whatever it is that you or act, that's a level of unconscious competence. Unconscious competence, okay, is the level of mastery when you are so good at something you're not even thinking about how you're doing it. So they practice consciously the right things, which then makes it unconscious competence. And that's when you look at somebody and you go, wow, how does she do that? So let me ask you a question. What have you deliberately practiced? Perfectly. See, because practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect. Practice makes perfect. Most people are practicing imperfectly. And so when we understand how the brain creates neural patterns, how they get reinforced, and how we move from conscious incompetence to conscious competence to unconscious competence with the right thought patterns, emotional patterns, belief patterns, habitual patterns, that line up with the vision and the goals that we have. That is when you can start to achieve success faster and easier than ever before. Does that make sense? Most people have never paid the price of mastery. Most people have never paid the price of mastery. And if you want to achieve the goals and dreams you have in your life, there has to be something, some level of competence, right? And if you think, think about this. And Tanya, you practice fear based thinking, effortlessly practicing procrastination, effortlessly practicing doing the wrong things over and over and over again. And what happens all of a sudden we are competent at the wrong things. So, you know, the three keys to eliminating procrastination is, is first understanding some of the triggers that are causing you to procrastinate and then having counter strategies to be able to do what you need to do in the right order at the right time. Right? So when we are focusing on conscious competence, we better find out what the competence behavior is. What are the right thoughts, what are the ways to manage our emotions, what are the ways to. To behave so that those are the patterns that we activate and then follow through on. As I mentioned, we start off with the vision and the goals. We activate the limbic system, the emotional center of our brain. Why we must and when our why we must is bigger than why we won't or why we can't or the obstacles. That's when we have a motive for action. That's when we activate the reward center instead of the fear center, our brain. Does this make sense? All right. Everything that I teach is around the neuroscience and neuropsychology of thoughts or emotions or behaviors which yield to results. Right? So if you want to do some free training, my, my team put up a link. I believe in the bio and in the chat, I will put a link in there. Just watch the free training. You'll learn how to win the game of procrastination once and for all and you'll be able to achieve success fast. So let me ask you a question. Many of you know, I do this show every Tuesday morning on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on my fan page. And I like to. I see a lot of the same people every week, which is great. Who wants to make a commitment. Okay. To leveling up your knowledge and skills for next week. So if you want to make a commitment to leveling up your knowledge and skills for next week, watch the video training that I have for free. Okay. Which the link is being put in there and then commit to one change for seven days. One change to Set for seven days something that you have been procrastinating doing. I don't care if it's around your relationship, your children, your husband, your wife, your finances, whatever it is. Commit to one change. Watch the video. Commit to one change. Alright, and then next week let's continue the dialogue on that. Let's see who's doing it. And this is one of the ways that I can coach you for free. Many of you are in our exceptional life coaching program or in one of our winning the game of money or fear procrastination or weight loss programs. That's great. But this is a way for us to, you know, continue a little bit of free training and coaching. So you know, this is how I do that. So I like to help as many people as I can. If you want to go deeper into my work, you know the drill of how to find, find out if you. How many of you have, you know, one of my New York Times best selling books. Whether you know it's the answer, having it all or inner size. But let's just have some fun here. Come back next week. Watch the training this week, today, tomorrow, it's free. There's a link as I mentioned in the chat, and one change for seven days. Do you think you can give yourself one command? One command. Follow through for seven days. I don't care if it's, I'm going to drink one glass of water more than I do right now for seven days. I don't care if it's, I'm going to walk for 60 seconds every day for seven days. I don't care if it's, I'm going to go to sleep, you know, 30 minutes earlier, you know, for seven days. You know, one commitment. Can you follow through with one? One commitment without allowing, okay, your negative self talk to control you? One change. If you're committed to one change, say John, I'm committed to one change. Watch the training, I'll teach you some techniques there. And there you go. We'll have a little bit of fun. If you enjoyed this, would you mind sharing it? I try to give as much value as I can in 30 minutes. One of the ways that people know about my work is people like you share it and let's have some fun. So Shelly, I want you to be specific. It's not enough to say I will change the way I eat for seven days. Make it a micro change, an easy change to follow through to completion. Most people are great at setting goals. Hey Sean, most people are freaking great at setting goals. But they're terrible of following through to commitment and to completion. You have to be a finisher, not a goal setter. Would you agree with that? Be a finisher. And it doesn't matter. If you train your brain that you can commit to one thing and follow through for one week, that means you build, okay, that muscle in your brain that's called a neuromuscle of self commitment. I commit, I follow through. All right? And again, make the commitment so low that you cannot not do it. Make the commitment so low that you cannot not do it. Does that make sense? Because when, when you follow through, do you think maybe you're going to build self confidence? Do you think maybe you're going to build self esteem? Do you think you might build self trust that I can tell myself what I'm going to do and I'm going to trust myself to do it to completion. If you don't have self worth, self image, self esteem, self confidence, self trust, you won't be able to achieve your goals and dreams. And I want to help you achieve your goals and dreams faster and easier than ever before. Starts with micro commitments and then we can expand. Please share this. Watch the free training. Make one commitment. I will see you back here next week, 9 o' clock Pacific time, which is 12 o' clock New York time for another 30 minutes and follow my stuff on all the social media channels. Have an epic, awesome day. Appreciate you. Thanks for being here. And until next week. Let's go do this. Let's do this. Be a goal achiever, not just a goal setter. All right, bye. Hey, this is John and if you like that video, watch the next video because it is packed with things that you can do right now to achieve success way faster than ever before.