Episode description

Welcome back friend! Today I want to talk to you about creating leverage with your thinking in terms of getting yourself into action. 

On a recent coaching call my client who does flowers for weddings, she shared with me that there was a particular task that only she could do that needed to happen every week when there was a wedding. During wedding season that could mean doing this task every single week for multiple weeks on end. It wasn’t something that could be outsourced, only she could do it. 

She always intended doing the task on the Tuesday before the wedding but often found herself waiting until the last minute which meant she was doing that task either on Wednesday or Thursday nights sometime around 11pm or midnight. 

She wanted to figure out why she kept procrastinating that one task even though she didn’t want to.

There are a couple of things going on: 

1. She’s in the habit of procrastinating that task. So for her to create a different habit, like doing that task on Tuesday rather than later in the week at midnight, meant that she needed to expect some resistance. Anytime you change a habit, you shift your momentum which also means it can take a lot of energy. 
2. Her thinking: I asked her what she was thinking when it came down to doing that task on Tuesday, “I don’t really want to do it. I can do it later.”

Instead here is what I recommend:

1. Remind yourself of the tradeoff in the moment. For this example here, when my client sees that task on her calendar for Tuesday and it comes to Tuesday and she wants to procrastinate, I told her to remind herself in the moment of the trade off. If she didn’t do it on Tuesday, it most likely meant she would be doing it later that week around midnight. We are wired to move away from pain or towards pleasure. In moments of procrastination we can often find a sense of relief that will provide us that pleasure. But in this case my client will use the reminder of “pain” to override her desire for pleasure, i.e. procrastination. 
2. Create an empowering thought ahead of time. Knowing that her default brain will think “I don’t really want to do it. I can do it later.” What can you think instead? Maybe something like “I know I’m going to want to procrastinate and that’s normal. I’m committed to following through. I can do this.”

Other examples might be:

• Working out. Maybe you have it on your calendar for the morning but the morning comes and you want to either skip or push it to later? What is the cost of doing so? What is the trade off?
• If you have a fitness goal and maybe you’re following a plan for eating. How can you remind yourself in the moment of when you want to veer off plan, your long term goals, your why?

For this week, I ask you to think of something you continually push off that is part of your daily/weekly routine, and how can you bring awareness in the moment the trade off? How can you decide ahead of time a thought that inspires action vs procrastination. Share with me on Instagram @attentionaudit how you can leverage your thoughts to push through

That’s all for this week my friends, take care!