Procrastination blog

Today we're going to talk about the dirty P word. God, that sounds awful. We're talking about procrastination. Hey, everyone, this is Sean Butner. This is start your week. Great. Start your week with a coach. I'm a certified high performance coach and we talk about habits and concepts that you can think about at the start of your week to. To help you perform, to help you self discover, to help you feel great. Are you ready to go? Okay. Today we're talking about how procrastination can be a diagnosis tool when we're burning out or there are a couple other areas. Right. So we know that procrastination comes in many shapes and sizes. You know, sometimes we're not clear on what we need to do next in a project or a relationship. And so we do absolutely everything else, convincing ourselves that we'll get to it later. Right. Or we feel exhausted. And so when we have the energy, we'll get to it. Or maybe it's just, I don't feel confident. I think I'm going to fail. I'm afraid that something bad is going to happen. So that maybe I'll just throw on a show on Netflix and then it turns into a three day lost bender. So there's a lot of different ways that procrastination shows up in people. And high performers know that that's a warning sign. It's blinking that says, hey, you need to address this. You need to figure out what's going on. Because, you know, when we're not performing, when we're not doing what we're supposed to do, we sometimes get frustrated with ourselves or with our teams. But it's essential to know why that happens. Because so many times, especially with high performer, you could be doing a lot and you just don't feel like you're doing enough or that, you know, you're focusing on your family or family time and friend time, and you're constantly thinking about work and you feel like you're slacking off. So the difference between being successful and happy and then being successful and miserable or not successful at all is how you figure this out and address it. So in my coaching practice, there's usually five things that prevent people from getting into action. Right. When you're procrastinating, it's sometimes a lack of clarity. Right. We're not sure what our next steps are. We're not sure what we're supposed to do. It takes a lot of energy to plan and to think about that. So we turn to distractions because it's way Easier than trying to do the work to figure out what's next. Sometimes it's a lack of spiritual, emotional, mental or physical energy. And so in those cases where we, we're feeling wiped in one of those areas, we usually seek comforts or we seek things to help us feel better and feel a little bit more energy, but we don't do the thing that we know we need to do. That actually might release a lot of the stress, a lot of the energy drain that's happening to us. Sometimes it's just the lack of confidence. Right. I had talked a little bit before, but we, we think we might fail. We think we might lose something that we love in doing the project, in taking on the thing and moving across the country. Whatever the big projects you have in your life, the big decisions that you have to make in your mind, you have to make in your life. And so we avoid acting on it to avoid pain. It's, I don't want to feel these uncomfortable feelings. I don't want to feel like I'm not measuring up or I don't want to feel like an imposter while I'm doing it. So we do everything else so we don't have to feel those uncomfortable feelings. It's also sometimes just a lack of focus. Sometimes you're such a high performer, you have a million great ideas, you have a boundless energy, and you're trying to do every single thing at the same time. And what happens there is you trick yourself. Like, I'm being productive, I'm advancing all these ideas, but you never focus in on the one thing and complete it so you can see the results. And so you kind of get into this fomo like you think you're going to miss out on things if you don't do everything at once. Or, you know, you never really get to, you know, gain traction. You know, you always feel like you're behind the ball. Last thing is, you know, sometimes people lack necessity. Like, if we don't have an immediate reason, a deadline, or somebody that we're role modeling for or somebody else that's going to benefit this in the near term, we say, we'll do it tomorrow. We say, oh, I can wait. We say, oh, you know what? I'll get to that. And before you know it, the whole year's done and you haven't done it. So, you know, we've all, I think, been there. So it's different for every person when procrastination shows up. But putting it in one of these buckets can really Help you figure out what do you need to do actively to get back into action, to get, you know, momentum, to get moving forward. So five tips at least things that you can do to help keep on top of all this is, you know, tip number one is to make sure you have your daily time to plan your number one work priority on your calendar. Right? This is going to be very calendar focused. So you need to make time to plan and to do the number one thing every day. And that'll help keep you from putting stuff off and from falling in this. And a lot of times the way to get around procrastination is just consistency. You might show up to write the dang book and you show up for an hour, you only get a page done, but you're a page closer to the end than you were if you were going to just, you know, do all the gardening before you wrote. So, you know, what's the number one work thing? How is that on your showing up in your day and your week? Number two is to have your daily healthy, restorative activities. So how are you moving your body? Are you walking outside? Are you doing weights, are you running? Are you doing something to activate the energy that you need to stay motivated, to stay on track, to feel buoyant, relaxed and, you know, going strong. That the third thing to do is to make sure you have daily fun social activities on your calendar that are not work related or not only work related, right? So how are you spending time with the kids? How are you spending time with your spouse? How are you spending time with your friends and extended family? And you know, is it just sending a note because the day is really crazy or is it spending some quality time? And when is that on your calendar, in your schedule? When do you have that time planned in the next session? Seven days? The next point, point number four is to make sure you have a weekly check in to see and check in on how successful you are each week in terms of your career, in terms of your health, in terms of your relationships and your terms of well being. Because as a certified high performance coach, we define success as being able to beat whatever normal in your life without burning out or destroying your health and relationships. So these four ideas of career, health, relationships and well being or just general feeling out there is a really good way to say, do I have enough of each of these in my life so I remain productive, so I remain in momentum so that I am not experiencing misery on the path to success. And that's something I help a lot of my one on one clients with so if you're interested in figuring out how can you get out of procrastination? How can you succeed without being miserable? There's a button below this video on the blog to qualify and apply for a one hour free strategy session where we'll go into your life a little bit and kind of diagnose and give you some strategies and a plan going forward to be more successful and to procrastinate less. So the fifth and final habit or thing to have on your calendar is to have a weekly reflection on how holistically you've been moving your life forward. And it's a little bit like that previous one, but it's more just open ended on what do you want out of your life and what's exciting you and what is getting you up out of bed and really pumped to go get after it. You know, just a little journaling exercise I guess. Last two are journaling exercises, but it's super important that we have this active reflection again. It's something that I help my one on one clients with, but at the end of the day it's really important to know how to diagnose when you're procrastinating what's going on. It's important to have things on the calendar planned to reflect, to rejuvenate, to work and advance your career, and to spend time building the positive relationships that you need. Because procrastination can be a tool to help you become even more successful, to prevent burnout, and to really help you succeed over the long term if you're willing to listen. So this is Sean Butner with start your week. Great. Start your week with the coach. So glad to have you here guys. And I'll see you next week. Take care.