The ONLY Way to Stop Procrastinating

Whatever behaviors we reinforce, we become. Don't find the answer to the problem, find the answer to the solution. If you're committed, you will find an answer. If you're interested, you'll find excuses and reasons why you can't. All right, so today we're talking about the only way to stop procrastinating. Are you ready to stop procrastinating? It is a topic that has come up this entire week, and I'm not sure why. Are you ready to stop procrastinating? That is the question so many people don't get what procrastination is all about. And are you a procrastinator? Because if you're a procrastinator, I'm giving you some things to think about and more importantly, some things to do to eliminate procrastination. So tell me where you're from, first and foremost. All right? Are you from the U.S. canada, Asia, Europe? Where are you from? Are you ready to stop procrastinating? What do you think the number one reason is for procrastination? Everybody procrastinates. Most people don't know why they procrastinate. And the first thing I love to do is really focus on the cause of procrastination. Right? So procrastination is a behavior. If it's a behavior, then we can stop behaviors or start behaviors. Right? And so why do you think you procrastinate? When I did this session a few weeks ago, I got so many comments from people that started to stop procrastinating. Started to stop procrastinating. I don't know if that makes sense. But when we procrastinate, do you think that it affects more than the thing that we are not doing that we want to do? And so think about this. If everything is happening in your brain, then the behavior of procrastination is caused by something that's happening in your brain. Right? And the question is, what is it? And I shared a few techniques a few weeks ago around procrastination. And when people understood what's causing them to procrastinate, they started to focus on eliminating the little things that triggered the reason they were procrastinating. So before we get into exactly what it is, I thought that was Julian Chambers. Hey there, young man. So before we get into, you know, the things to do about procrastination, I want to give you a frame, all right, to maybe use as something that will help you. When we procrastinate in two out of three cases, it's a protective mechanism. It protects us. So There is something called the law of secondary gains. Could somebody type that in the law of secondary gains? And I'm going to give you two other laws. But the law of secondary gains, all right, says this, that when we behave in a way like procrastination. Yes. We're not doing the thing that we say we want to do, need to do, or should do because we don't want to do it. We're doing it because somehow there's another gain that we are getting. Does that make sense? So let me give you an example. A secondary gain might be something like this. Let's say I don't take action on completing a project that I have. I don't take action on studying. I don't take action on something that I know I want to do or should do. So I get the first gain by not taking action because I get some kind of relief. Right? And the question is, relief from what? So what about this? What about thinking about procrastination like this? In this particular context, if I don't take action consistently, is it possible that I'm actually having a secondary gain? Like, I feel safe. I feel safe. Can you feel safe in your comfort zone? Can you feel safe in the event that you take action? Let's say your work is criticized if you take action and you fail. If you take action and you're embarrassed or ashamed or ridiculed or judged? So can you see that instead of being embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, judged, or failing or disappointing yourself again, it. It's easier not to take action because you don't want to deal with the embarrassment, shame, guilt, rejection, etc. Think about this. Are people afraid? Some people afraid of public speaking? Are people afraid of public speaking? Right. Well, some people are, some people are. But let's talk about the people who say they're afraid of public speaking. Maybe they want to speak in public, but in the event they do, if they get on a camera like this and they mess up and the wrong words come out, or they think that they don't look really great and people are going to embarrass them or make them feel ashamed or ridicule them or judge them, if they think those are possibilities, isn't it easier to say I don't want to publicly speak? So we don't publicly speak. That's the first gain. But the secondary gain is, is I avoid being embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, judged, disappointed, embarrassed, etc. Does that make sense? So sometimes procrastination is because of a secondary gain. So here's what I want you to do. Does this make sense? First and foremost, everything that I teach you always is based on the latest neuroscience, okay? And understanding how to get yourself to use your brain better. So the law of secondary gains is saying that when I procrastinating, I'm getting a greater benefit somewhere else as a result of the procrastination. Even though I may want the accolades, I may want the grades, I may want the money, I may want the business, I may want the new relationship, I may want the raise, the new job, I may want, you know, whatever it is, I feel safer not doing it. Does that make sense? So here is an antidote to. To that, okay? If you like this, hit the. Like the love, let me know. Leave me a comment. So here is the antidote of that. And I'll just use an example of a mental technique that I use. I like techniques, okay? When I catch myself procrastinating or, you know, feeling, I don't really feel like it. I really don't feel like doing it. But I really don't feel like taking action. I really don't feel like getting up. I really don't feel like opening up my computer. I really don't feel like doing one more repetition in the gym. I really don't feel like it. The law of little actions. The law of little actions wins. So let me explain. When you have a project, when you have a goal, a vision, a desire, and you don't feel like it, okay? The I don't feel like it can be because of a secondary game. We've just established that. But when you become aware that you're procrastinating, it doesn't matter why you're procrastinating. Here is a little technique that I use. Ready? I do one little thing anyway. I do one little thing anyway. Why? Why not a big thing? Well, if I can get a little win a little behavior, do you think that maybe I start to interrupt the pattern of procrastination? So when I don't feel like going to the gym, I say, I'll do it later or I'll work out later tonight. I say, I get that, but I'm going to take a little action anyway. Does that make sense? So that's called I've given you two so far. Understanding the law of secondary gains, but also understanding the law of little actions. Now here's what happens is in our brain, when we procrastinate, we usually have a pattern, okay? Of procrastination. We don't just procrastinate once here and Then never again. We have a pattern of procrastination. And we usually procrastinate the things that could possibly cause us to be embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, judged, to fail, to be disappointed, to be rejected. Okay? We usually procrastinate those things, the things that we feel uncertain about, the things that we feel doubtful of. And so when we are aware that this is a pattern and we just say, okay, I got it, I'm going to reduce, as Cheryl just pointed out, Barber reduced to the ridiculous of the law of tiny, small little actions. Why? Because if I can recognize the pattern and accept it without judgment, blame, shame, guilt or justification, procrastination is a pattern. It's a protective mechanism, is one of the reasons. So when we can recognize a pattern and ever so slightly interrupt the pattern, interrupt the normal pattern, replace it with one little micro positivity behavior, positive behavior, one little action step towards that. What does that do in our brain? Well, number one is it's a slight detour. A slight detour, Just a slight detour from the normal pattern. And if I can have a slight detour from the normal pattern, I've interrupted the pattern of procrastination for that thing. But more importantly, I want you to think about this. Now. Here's the law of secondary gains coming into play again. Now, once you interrupt that pattern and once you do the ever so slight thing, what do you think that it does to your self worth, your self esteem, your self confidence, your self trust? What do you think it does? Does that mean that now you take inspired action, even if it's a little bit? Well, what do you think happens if you did that? One day, two days, five days, 10 days, 100 days? Now what do you start thinking about yourself? Do you think of yourself as you're a procrastinator or do you think of yourself as somebody who procrastinates? Sometimes. But I still take a little bit of action and anytime. Which self image do you want? Which self image is constructive, which self image is destructive? Which self image is positive? Which one is negative? Which one is going to help you move towards your goal? Which one keeps you stuck? Do you see how one small awareness, inner size, which is what I call it, right? One small inner size, one small reframe, one small behavior changes the entire spectrum. And there's one other part to this. When you take action, how do you feel? When you procrastinate, how do you feel positive or negative? Do you think you're reinforcing a negative pattern? If you keep procrastinating and do you think you reinforce a positive pattern when you take one little micro action even when you don't feel like it's? Well, one of them releases stress hormones when you don't take action because you know you're not taking action, but the other one releases dopamine. And if you tell yourself, if you tell others, if you share, then not only are you activating your reward center in your brain, dopamine, you actually start to get addicted to taking inspired positive action even when you don't feel like it. You. Here is something to consider when we are talking about procrastination. Just think of it as a behavior. And my job, your job, is to interrupt the behavior ever so slightly and then create and reinforce a new behavior. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? This is just Neuroscience 101, baby. Right? This is not complicated stuff. We're going to reduce it to the ridiculous, create a new pattern, reinforce the pattern. And isn't that like building a bicep muscle? If you start small, one pound, do three, four, you know, curls, you can eventually do more. So don't worry about doing everything. If you are procrastinating on a certain project or thing, do a little bit. All right, so that's. Those are two laws. Second frame for you. Okay. By the way, if you like this, sign up for my program that I've got. I've got a training that you can go through to go even deeper on the neuroscience. And my team will put up a link. I'll give you a link to sign up for the free training, and it'll blow your mind. And so we'll put it up on YouTube and LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram as well. In the bio, there's a free training so you can eliminate procrastination. And it's called eliminating procrastination. There we go. My team just told me, put an end to procrastination. So sign up for the free training and you can do it on demand, which will blow your mind. So then number two, this is called the law of bigger fears. The law of bigger fears states this. Do you agree that there is a way to frame things that are more painful if you give things certain meaning? So let me explain the law of bigger Fears. Let's say you're procrastinating on a project on anything. Doesn't make it. Can you put something that you're procrastinating in the chat right now? So put whatever it is that you're procrastinating. Okay. Right now, if you can. All right. Put something in the chat of what you're procrastinating right now. Let me share with you the law of bigger fears. So we talked about the law of little actions, we talked about the law of secondary gains. But let's take a look at anything that you are procrastinating right now. I want you to write out okay, and you don't have to do it right now. But if you ask yourself what am I gaining, how am I gaining by procrastinating? So I feel safe, I feel secure, I don't have to expend energy, etc. Also next to that, I want you to write down what is the cost of procrastinating? What's the cost of procrastinating like this? On your self worth and self esteem, on your income, on your relationship, on your self image, of how you see yourself, on your self trust. So if and when I procrastinating, the cost to me is more than just the completion of the goal. But the cost to me is loss of self respect. The cost to me is I reinforce a pattern of procrastination. The cost to me is I repeat patterns that I reinforce. The cost to me. What is the cost to you of procrastinating? And here's what we can do. If you make the cost to you bigger than the reward you're getting for not doing it. Let me repeat that. If you make the cost of not doing the bigger fear, the bigger cost greater than the cost, or I'm sorry, that the, that the reward you're getting, then now we have what's called, is a contrast frame. Not doing this gives me, you know, this, which we know we get. But not doing this also costs me this and reinforces this. So now you say not doing it, I get these rewards. But here is what the cost is of staying in my job, Michelle. Here's what the real cost is. On my income, my self worth, my self esteem, my children, my spouse, my significant other. And if you believe and agree with me that whatever behaviors we reinforce, we become. Whatever behaviors we reinforce, we become. Why? Because of something called automaticity in the brain. Once we reinforce a pattern, the pattern then moves into a subconscious automated sequence so there's no thought involved in repeating the pattern because it's easy and it doesn't require any very little energy. So when we're talking about the law of bigger fears, the law of bigger costs, now we can use a contrast frame and our brain is great at avoiding the bigger pain. Did you hear what I just said? Your brain, my brain is great at avoiding the bigger of the two pains. And since we do more to avoid pain than we do to gain pleasure, if we're procrastinating because we're gaining some kind of safety and pleasure, our brain will move away from the greater of the two. And the greater the two is moving away from the bigger cost. Does that make sense? That is just a contrast frame. So we've talked about the law of little actions, We've talked about contrast frames. We've talked about the law of bigger fears and costs. We've talked about the law of secondary gains. Is this helpful? If you like this, I mentioned there's a free on demand training. You can watch and my team will put links for you to be able to do that. And now I'm going to share with you another thing that is just a little different frame for you to think about your brain. I want you to imagine for just a moment that somebody gives you a hundred billion dollar computer, okay? Would you like a hundred billion dollar computer? Somebody gives you 100 billion dollar computer. And this computer is the best computer in the world. Answering questions. And whatever question you ask it, it'll help you find the answers. And if you ask it the right empowering questions, it'll give you empowering answers. And if you ask it the disempowering questions, it'll give you disempowering answers. That makes sense. Pretty simple concept, right? Well, whoops, I just dropped part of my brain. So what do you think your brain and my brain does? What do you think your brain and my brain does? And I just asked you a question. So guess what you have to do? You have to think about my question, don't you? I just asked you another question, didn't I? And if I asked you what is your favorite color? Your brain's processing your favorite color. If I ask you what you think about the ocean, your brain is activating your memory bank and giving yourself a reference of, you know, what you think about the ocean. Or do you prefer writing in a pen or paper? Or do you prefer typing on your computer? All right. Are you a man or a woman? Do you like the mountains or the ocean? Or both? So your brain and my brain operates by answering questions all the time. And we are asking questions and then in advance, okay, of almost anything. We are predicting answers, right? So here's something to think about. Why not get really good at asking questions? I have a series of questions I ask myself all the time. Why am I procrastinating? What is it that I'm avoiding. What is it that I'm gaining? And I want to teach you a question to an answer. I'm going to give you a question to an answer. That's a really great question to an answer. Let me explain. Say you ask yourself a question and you say to yourself, I don't know. Say, I don't know. Have you ever done that? Am I the only one that sometimes when I ask a question, I go, I don't know. Then I ask myself, I understand, but if I did know, what could it be? So I want to go layer by layer by layer to ask better questions. The better questions I ask, the more my brain will look to solve the answer, won't it? Right. So I ask really good questions of my brain. And if I ask myself, why am I procrastinating? I don't know. Say, well, if I did know, what would it be? I don't know. Well, could I go on to Google and find out why I procrastinate? Yes. Am I willing to? Sure. When? Right now? Right. If I go down another path, if I don't know, is it possible that somebody else knows the answer to this? Is there a book that the answer is in? Is there a YouTube video? Is there an Instagram post? Is there something on Pinterest? Is there something somewhere online that I can find an answer to my question if I keep saying I don't know? So the answer is, of course the answer is there. It's 2021, the middle of 2021. Of course the answers are here. The answer here for how to lose weight and keep it off. The answer here on how to double your income in the next 12 months. The answers are here for how to leave a job that you hate and get a new one that you love. The answer is here for how to start a business. The answers here are for how to put a rocket ship on Mars. The answer is here for how to be spiritually connected. The answers are here. So is it possible that maybe we haven't learned to be great question askers? And if it's possible that this bio computer always finds the answer based on the questions that we're asking? So if you ask yourself, you know, why can't I ever achieve this? Your brain's going to go, let me show you why, you know, why is this so hard? Well, I'll show you why, you know, how come I can't figure it out? Those are shitty questions. Ask questions whereby the answer means you're moving forward. Did you hear that? Ask questions whereby the answer you give yourself, moves you forward. So you're never stuck finding the answer to the problem. You find the answer to the solution. Did you hear that? Don't find the answer to the problem or the obstacle. Find the answer to the solution. What has to happen in order for me to take action? Whose help do I need to take action? What do I need to learn? What do I need to start? What should I stop? Questions. Questions are so powerful. When you learn how to ask better questions, you have trillions, okay? Trillions of neural connections and patterns and experiences in your memory center of your brain. So if you ask a shitty disempowering question, you are going to get and reinforce a shitty disempowering answer. So the power of questions is the power to open up your world. And here's a frame that I'd like to ask you. Do you believe that if you are committed. Not interested. But if you are committed to achieve any goal. Health, wealth relations, career, business, travel, money, public speaking, whatever, any. Write a book. Do you agree that if you're committed you can find an answer? And if you're not, chances are you'll find excuses? If you're committed, you will find an answer. If you're interested, you'll find excuses and reasons why you can't. So why not just say I'm committed to stopping procrastination. I'm committed to finding an answer. I'm committed to solving this. I'm committed to upgrading my knowledge. I'm committed to upgrading my skills. I'm committed to changing my beliefs. I. I'm committed to letting go of disempowering habits. I'm committed to do whatever it takes, honestly, ethically, professionally, I'm committed. I'm a committed person to achieve goals, not a committed person to have goals. I'm a goal achiever, not a goal setter. Of course we do both. Right? Is this worthwhile? Listen, the most important asset, the most powerful asset you have is your time. So first and foremost, thank you for investing some of your time with me. I do this every Tuesday morning, usually at 9 o'. Clock. Today was a little bit later. And if you like this, share it with your friends. If you want to go deeper on the neuroscience of procrastination and the three core subconscious patterns that hold you back, sign up for the free training. My team will put it in on Instagram, up in the bio and eliminate procrastination. And in the chat on all the other platforms that I am streaming on Tuesday morning. So I want you to understand procrastination is not your enemy. Ignorance is. Procrastination is not your enemy. Ignorance is. Can anybody tell me what ignorance means? Can anybody tell me what ignorance means? Some people get angry with me when I say you're ignorant. Tell me what ignorant means. Lack of knowledge. That's right. Ignorant just means not knowing. So in the absence of knowing, we default to our highest level of training, knowledge and skill. So now that you know, you don't know because you've heard me talk about it. Now you have awareness. Do you know how you will know? Is when you apply what I just shared with you and you have the visceral experience that reinforces a neural pattern of just knowledge with behavior. Knowledge with behavior equals experience. Reading a book gives you awareness, it doesn't give you knowledge. The knowledge comes from the application and getting the feedback loops of all of the sentence, all of the senses integrated into a pattern. And then if you reinforce what you know with what you do, you end up with results. So I hope you've enjoyed this. I usually do 30 minutes. We're right on the money. You, if you like this, hit the share button. If you want to go deeper, hop onto the free training. I'm giving you access to on demand and go deeper into procrastination. Once you eliminate procrastination. Let me ask you a question. If you stop procrastinating for just one month, what would you accomplish? Right? So if you're committed to stopping procrastination, hop onto the free training and then let me know. What will you stop? What will you achieve? What's one thing you'll achieve? You'll achieve more of your goals, right? But which goals will you achieve? Your health goals will you achieve? Get close to your financial goals? What about your relationship goals? What about your career or business goals? Right? So what will you accomplish? Right, so if you want to be a goal achiever, then you have to do the things that goal achievers do. All right? Does that make sense? I hope it does. Let me give you a high five. High five. High five. Share this with your friends, please keep coming back, I'll keep educating you, teaching you, let you go deeper. Maybe one day you'll be part of, you know, one of our programs where I can help you even more. I do lots and lots of free stuff and we have an amazing community of goal achievers that help each other achieve their goals. So thank you, I appreciate you. Share this please and come back for more. Alright? Have a great day. Bye 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.