Procrastination Happens, But Successful Creators Don’t Stay Stuck In It For Long

Procrastination is natural. But successful creators do not stay stuck. Every creator struggles with managing time, distractions, and motivation. If you're feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or exhausted, then this episode is for you. Welcome to Creators of Crush, the show that helps you move from Crush to Crushing It. As a creator, I'm your coach and host, Sean Butman. In this episode of Creators that Crush, we will discuss why creators get caught in procrastination and how successful creators overcome it. Why do creators procrastinate? In my experience as a coach, for professionals, for creators, in my own personal experience, I think there are four main reasons that cause procrastination, right? And procrastination being defined as putting off work you know you need to do. The first thing that I think is specific to creators is a misplaced focus on volume, meaning I must release on this particular schedule because somebody else said so. And so Now I'm doing five YouTube or five Instagram posts a day with video and all things, and it's crushing me. Right? And so, so if you buy into the idea that volume makes your creative business go, then you're going to get into these last minute rushes and burnout, okay? The second thing is lack of accountability. So many people, so many creators are solopreneurs, and they often lack deadlines or external pressure, which makes it easy to push off projects or to delay, right? And so one of the symptoms of procrastination is I will do this tomorrow. If you ever thought of that, then you understand what's going on. The third step is that they're just unclear on the next steps, right? So there's too many choices, which means they experience decision fatigue. So without a clear process, a clear path forward, a clear plan, your creative energy gets scattered, right? You don't know what to focus on and what to move forward to make meaningful progress. And so distraction wins. And then finally, creators face exhaustion. Creators don't have enough to give because of poor energy management, which leads to motivation dips. And this could be poor physical management, right? This could be poor emotional management. And so you're worked up or depressed or whatever, and you can't do the work that you need to do. So how do you beat procrastination like a pro? First thing is to prioritize value over volume. And so this focuses on meaningful content that adds a lot of value versus arbitrary schedules. And in the last episode of Creators of the Crush, we talked about how deadlines are absolutely imperative for your productivity. But deadlines are there to prevent perfectionism, not quality. So if you Are posting every day on one of the social medias and you're helping your audience. That's great. If you only write one book in your lifetime, that's also great, right? And the focus on how do you impart transformation or inspire people out in the world should be the number one focus. And however that comes in, productive output is just how the cards fall. So prioritize adding the most amount of value you can over focusing on volume, right? That will keep you motivated in your work. So the second thing to think about is to build accountability through connection. So engage with your community, with your team, with your audience. For built in accountability, for example, it's much easier to put off creating a presentation for an event if it's only you doing it right. You're like, I need to create this before I invite people in or I need to. There's nobody signed up for my webinar, so why would I spend the three days to make the presentation? If you commit to doing a live webinar and you put up your opt in page and you have 10 people on the list to attend that event, you will kick your butt into action to serve those people. This is something time and time again I've seen with clients. I had one client who put up a sticker chart for exercise in their kitchen because having that external motivation and pressure from his little kids and family to do the running and do the weight that day so he could get a star and make his kids proud was way more motivating than just, hey, I need to work out today. Talking to himself. So building accountability through connection and that particular client, it was a fun thing for the family every day to see if dad had the stickers on the chart or not and to have dad explain what happened if he didn't. That's how you can build accountability through connection and you can make it fun. So I encourage you to do that too. The third point is to gain clarity, to avoid overwhelm. So you need to clearly define your audience, your purpose, the value you add, your next steps. And when those are clear, motivation flows. The transition that this show made from the meaningful revolution to creators that crush came from clarity work that I did working with a podcast coach. So I'm a coach. I believe in coaching. I had done the old podcast for two and a half years and wasn't having the progress that I wanted by the important metrics for me in connecting and helping people and audience engagement and whatnot. And so my coach laid out clearly like, we need to work on this. You need to work on this, you need to work on this, and then we can pay attention to these metrics that are important to you. And so far, so good. The metrics that I'm using to measure the show and the impact it has in my business are continuing to grow, and they're growing at a much quicker rate than the old show was. This was all work. Getting clear on who is the target audience, which is creators, and what is the value of this show. And it's to help them crush in their creative career, to help them perform. It's helped me be more excited for a lot of the project work that happens around the creative work. So I have to record this episode, produce it, but then I need to promote it, I need to reach out to people, I need to do all the posts on social media and all the editing of it and whatnot. And it's more fun knowing that the show has a much clearer value proposition and that I'm helping people more. Fourth thing you need to do to overcome procrastination as a creator is to create the energy that you need. One of my mentors often says, the power plant doesn't have energy, it generates it. And so we have the agency and ability to manifest the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual energy. We need every day to feel connected to our lives, to feel joyful in what we're doing, and to do our best work. And creating the energy that you need, when you need it, is all about doing your best work. Because if you're doing your best work, you're going to want to act today and not delay things that are important to your creative business. Part of it could be making sure you're taking care of your body and just doing the ABCs of sleep, exercise, nutrition, movement, the basics to make sure that your body is strong. But it's also protecting your emotional energy. So it's maybe not engaging in all the crazy news that gets you worked up. And that's something that got me last week. I had a day where I was just grumpy because of the world. You get caught in the news that's made to make you emotionally worked up, and it prevents you from doing the things that are meaningful and the things that help you serve. So it's getting in the way of my mission, of this podcast, of my business, of who I want to be out in the world, which is someone that's helpful and not just angry about stuff. So putting boundaries around things that you know will emotionally trigger you. So you have the emotional capacity to show up and do the work will help you not procrastinate. And also going back to that social connection, hiring a coach was some social pressure for me to do things that I might skip just because of my personality, like reaching out because I'm controverted. And that takes a lot of emotional energy. So having to work through that hiring a coach helped me challenge what I was doing in with the podcast in a way that got me thinking about it differently. Which was a different type of mental energy than before. Right? It was comfortable before. Now I'm feeling challenged. I'm trying to learn stuff. I'm trying to change things in meaningful ways that turn the dial on the things I'm measuring for the podcast. So I needed to create a different type of approach that was intellectually stimulating. That's what I mean by create the energy that you need. Seek out mentors, do the things that help you feel joyful and energized and energetic, and prevent things that are sapping your energy. So let's go over the key takeaways from this episode. Successful creators don't get stuck in procrastination. They shift their focus from volume and getting the right volume to getting the right value. They seek out and connect with others for accountability through coaches, through community, through family and friends. They gain clarity to reduce overwhelm. So getting clear on who they're talking to, what the next steps are. They do the journaling and the work to get clear on what to do. They manage their energy strategically to maintain motivation and to not get caught in distraction. I have two things for you at the end of this First, I have a free five day course called Creators that Crush in five Days. There are five to ten minute exercises every day to help you improve your clarity, your energy and your productivity. Things that we talked about in today's episode. You can go to creators that crush.com or go into the show notes below. If you're driving or doing something where you can't look at the notes and go right there and yeah, sign up for this free course in your inbox. Every day you'll get a short email with a big idea and something to try that day to help you crush it even more as a creator. So I'm really excited for it. I really love this course and I think you will too. So check it out. If you are looking for a little bit more of accountability or a way to optimize your performance as a creator, you can also sign up for a free creator strategy session where for one hour we go into your life, what you're struggling with, what your hopes and dreams are. And we build you a strategic plan with high performance habits in order for you to level up your creative career to help you feel more confident, more joy, more present in the work so that you can do your best work. People love this strategy session. I can't wait to talk with you. It's a way for me to also interact with you. Absolutely love it. People love it. Check it out in the show notes below. You can sign up for that too. Okay. Thanks for tuning into Creators that Crush. We'll see you next time. I'm Sean Butner signing off.