[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Suddar here aka the focus b. And on this show I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness, and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.
[00:36] Have you been procrastinating lately? I know this is something we all do from time to time, if not every single day. So let's look a little more in depth as what's going on here and what you can do to shift from procrastinating to actually taking action on the aspects and projects that matter most to you. So for this to make sense, let's look at one project or one area in your life that you've been procrastinating for the last few months. Think about it, see it in your mind and let's see what's going on. Most of the time, if not always when we procrastinate, it's because the pain of taking action feels greater than the pain of staying where you are. So often there's a fear in the background, fear of failure, fear of rejection, even fear of success. Or simply there's some emotions that it brings up that you don't want to have, whether it's boredom or anxiety or frustration. And all these emotions pile up and start building this block that creates your resistance to that task or that project. So let's say you've been putting off starting to exercise again. This could mean because the idea of starting causes you pain, frustration, maybe you're not even sure how you're going to start your fitness journey again. And all of this piles up and means that you don't actually take action and begin. So how can you shift things around? The two main drives for our motivation are always pain and pleasure. This is what drives all of our behavior most of the time, pretty much always, if you're procrastinating, it's because taking action causes pain in the form of different emotions. Like I said, boredom, anxiety, frustration. And there's some form of pleasure in not doing the action. Maybe it's a pleasure that doesn't contribute to your long term goals, but on the moment it feels easier to just sit on the sofa, watch TV, than get up and go to the gym. And that pleasure on the moment is holding you back. So to stop procrastinating or to change things around, you want to start to associate great pain with inaction and great pleasure with taking action. So how do you do this? Look at your project that you've been procrastinating or that area of your life and start to see all the consequences long term if you don't take action on it. Take a moment, close your eyes and imagine yourself a month from now, two months from now, six months from now, a year from now. If you don't progress in this area. What will happen? What does this mean? What are the consequences of you not taking action? And as you observe this, start to feel in your body what this feels like. Feel the pain, feel the frustration, feel the annoyance all pile up. So you build this huge pain towards inaction, and then let's build pleasure towards taking action. So start to see all the great things that will happen in your life as you start taking this action. Start to see the results this will bring. Start to see how this will shift your identity. Imagine how you'll feel about yourself and see what great pleasure you'll get from actually taking action. And the more you do this, the more you'll build up this inner momentum that'll actually make you want to start. And this is how we generally stop procrastinating and start taking action, is because the pain has become so big from staying where you are, from not progressing. And that has piled up, piled up, piled up and become so big that we suddenly must take action. But you don't have to wait till you reach that threshold. You don't have to wait till that huge point of frustration you can actually begin when you realize that long term, this doesn't serve you. And when you realize that the pleasure you will gain is so much greater. So it's just a way of rewiring our brain. And this is pretty much always why we procrastinate. It's linked to that pain that we feel on the moment, those uncomfortable emotions that come up, and some form of pleasure in staying where we are. And if we're able to transform this in our mind, to shift the way we look at the situation, then we're able to take action. Another important point here that can be useful is linked to cognitive reframing. So this is where you actively change the way you speak to yourself regarding that activity. So let's say it's something you're procrastinating because it's boring. Some paperwork that you need to do if in your mind, you keep saying, oh, this is boring. This is so annoying, the thought will lead to the emotion of boredom and frustration, which will then lead to you probably not taking action. Now, if you start to formulate it differently, wouldn't it be fantastic? As soon as I've done this, I can move forward. This will be really useful for this. And you start to change, literally the words you use. I know this sounds strange, but changing the words you use in your mind to describe that activity will change the emotions you feel and will make it so much more likely that you then take action. So these are the basic principles, using that pain and pleasure to serve you and to shift the way you think about this activity. Another important point is to realize that the more you procrastinate, the bigger the burden becomes. And you make it seem like a really big project or something really big. But it's not that big. It's just it builds up in our mind because the emotion gets bigger and bigger and bigger because of the guilt you feel or the shame or the annoyance or the frustration or the impatience. Because it all builds up because you've been procrastinating it for so long now. If you take action quickly, that won't build up in your mind, that won't take up so much proportion. And so then you won't have this huge feeling of burden. This is why if you develop the habit of being proactive and not procrastinating regularly, this won't happen. And the last point is, start noticing which tasks you procrastinate most and maybe they'll develop a little ritual every week to make sure you do them. And notice what tasks you use or projects you use as an excuse for your procrastination. It's really common, for example, to overtrain and do lots of training and learn loads of things instead of taking action. This is one of the main forms of procrastination. It's just, oh, I need to learn more, I need to understand more, I need to read a bit more about this. Just start. So many people ask me, how did you start a podcast? I just started. You just look up a couple of softwares and I even got my mic. A few months later I just began. And this is how you want to do a lot of things in your life. Just start minimum research, don't overlook into things. And you learn as you go ahead. You progress and change as you go ahead. And the second form of procrastination that's extremely common is planning. So overly planning everything, trying to make it all fit, look nice. I love planning, I love reviews. It's super useful. But if you're doing too much of this, notice it's a form of procrastination. Now, you might have other forms of procrastination. Maybe you use your phone as a way to escape other activities. Just start to look and notice. What are some things that you're using as a sort of crutch every time you're bored or frustrated or annoyed and you're not actually doing the work that needs to be done. And one last input that's kind of a tricky or really funny one, I think, is that we sometimes use some aspects of our work to procrastinate other aspects. This means that you might choose to do the easier ones, the less challenging ones, the social media posts, compared to actually reaching out to that person you really look up to and contacting them and taking that bold action and hiring a coach or doing that thing that's a little more challenging and out of your comfort zone. Writing that book, whatever it is. And so in those moments, it's really easy to not realize that you're procrastinating because it feels to you like you're making progress. You think, oh, I'm taking action on some important things in my work. But if you really look deep down, those are the things that will make the needle move forward. So brief Recap using Pain and Pleasure shift your perspective on the activity that you're procrastinating. Use cognitive reframing actively use different words to generate different emotions in you so that you're more likely to take action and start to notice. What activities do you procrastinate most on and what ways are you using to escape? What are your favorite ways of procrastinating? Are you over learning or planning or constantly going back to your phone? What are your escape ways? And if you start to develop that awareness and you start to shift your relationship with pain and pleasure, then you'll start to realize that you can actually take action and gain momentum and progress on these areas of your life that you've been procrastinating. Hope this is useful for you. Any questions, any comments? Feel free to put them in the comments chat.
[10:22] Lovely, lovely sharing this with you.
[10:25] I think it's a fascinating topic. Wishing you a wonderful day.
[10:33] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Bee show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.
[11:02] You our channel.