How to Stop Procrastinating

Are you a procrastination king or queen? If you have ever wanted to move past joking about all the things that you leave to the last minute, then this is the episode for you. We look at the mindset and actions you need to improve procrastination in both your personal and your work life.

Prefer to read? Here’s the blog version…

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Hi everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. This week we’re going to be talking about Procrastination.

And before we get started, doors to Wanderlover Business Academy are officially open. So if starting and scaling and really committing to your online business is something that you’ve been Procrastinating on this year and you really just want to take action, we’re going to show you step by step exactly how to set up and create your successful online business so that you have the freedom to travel the world, spend more time with family, and design your life the way you want to live it. We have so many members inside, we have so many success stories, and I think what’s really different about this program versus other online courses out there is the level of one-on-one attention you get from me. I know every single member’s names and businesses that they’ve started from the beginning. I’ve seen them hit so many milestones, and I’m really there not only cheering you on, but really working with you to get your business to the level that you want it to be and have the clarity at every single step.

So if this is something you’re interested in, go look at the link in the episode description and also if you wanna set up a discovery call to see if it’s the right program for you, just DM me or email me and we can get that set up right away. And if you are an online coach or creative or entrepreneur and procrastination, similar to not taking action on what you want to achieve with your business, if procrastination is something that has been haunting you and you just can’t seem to understand why you’re doing it, this episode is for you. And by the end of it, you are going to understand how you can stop once and for all. Stop procrastinating.

How To Stop Procrastinating

First of all, the official definition for Procrastination is to delay or postpone something. And most of us entrepreneurs are aware of how delaying or postponing something can be detrimental to our business growth. Let’s say you have a launch coming up, or let’s say you have a project due that you’ve set out for yourself. It is up to us to hold our business to those standards and get everything done in the timeframe we set out for it.

However, a lot of times it doesn’t happen like that, right? And that’s probably why you’re listening to this episode because there is this higher caliber of success and performance that you strive to achieve, but you’re just not at that level yet. And so there’s a gap. 

Find Your Way Of Working

I wanna first preface this gap by saying that ultimately there are different personality types and different ways of working. I’ve seen this all throughout life growing up, going to school, going to university in the workplace with my team. People work differently. There are people who are really good with hard deadlines to-do lists, having things planned out, spaced out.

And then there are other people who work really well a few weeks before a deadline or a few days before a deadline because they really need that pressure to get things going. So understanding what type of person you are fundamentally and working with that is going to lead you to a lot more success than trying to change the core of who it is that you are. Because chances are the reason you’ve developed into what works for you is because historically that’s worked for you. If it wasn’t working, let’s say you experienced something truly traumatic where it affected your life, you would probably be triggered to work differently. However, my guess is that you’re not in that position where something really traumatic is happening for you to completely change your ways.

Instantly, you’re probably at a point where you’re not getting the results that you want. And so the feeling of discomfort is starting to show your lack of consistency or your lack of performance is inspiring change because it’s bringing up feelings of discomfort or maybe low satisfaction with your outputs. 

Steps To Stop Procrastinating

1. Be Self Aware & Desire Change 

And that brings us to my first step in How to Stop Procrastinating, is to be self-aware and you must desire to change. You must not be okay with what is currently your status quo, and there must be a full commitment to doing what is necessary to stop Procrastinating.

This requires a huge amount of self-awareness because when you fall back into old habits, when you try to procrastinate again, it is completely up to you to snap yourself out of it. So the first step to be self-aware and you must desire to change, that’s going to already set you up for success. The next question to ask yourself is what feelings of discomfort am I trying to run away from? Or what feelings of maybe adrenaline or pressure do I need to feel in order to perform? So this is gonna look different for the type of person that you are, but we as humans are very motivated by our feelings, and I’ve said this before, your thoughts influence your feelings and your feelings influence your actions, right?

So whether it is an action or inaction or a lack of action, you need to be self-aware of the feeling that is triggering you to do something or you to not do something. Because let’s face it, if it was important to you, you would go out of your way, you would bend over backwards to get it done right? And you’ve probably experienced things like this in your life where you moved everything out of your schedule, you fully committed to get something done and If, you didn’t wanna do it If, you felt discomfort or If, you just weren’t committed and you were comfortable or whatever it is. You can probably relate to the fact that you can come up with any and all excuses as a reason to not do it.

So for example, if my clients were assigned a task and the next week they come back to me and they’re like, I didn’t do it, instead of asking, why didn’t you do it? We figure out the triggering emotion. A lot of times it’s fear, fear of being seen, fear of being judged, fear of failure, of doing something new. So we end up not even doing it because it’s this safety net of if I don’t do it, then I won’t need to confront those fears. A lot of times it’s subconscious and it’s been ingrained in us. It’s maybe even things from childhood that are surfacing now when we are taking risks or taking our business to the next level, and we really need to address that by being self-aware and doing the work to change it.

And then other weeks, when clients finish all of their tasks and go above and beyond and have such a successful week in a matter of 48 hours, I then ask them, what inspired you to take all that action? Right? It’s this duality of which voices are you going to listen to and what thoughts are you going to have? And a lot of times it’s really helpful to think out your worst case scenario, which is probably why you’re not acting on something versus your best. Sometimes a matter of 48 hours of fully honing down buckling down on your business can equate to $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 in just a few days.

So when we are motivated by the outcome of this really scary thing or this task that we are putting off, we need to hold ourselves accountable because we’re reaching for that best case scenario, not the worst, right? If, you let those fears or the self-doubt or all of those thoughts dictate your actions, you are praying for the worst case scenario. You’re praying for what you don’t want. So be self-aware, really pinpoint the feelings, the discomfort, the trigger feeling, and let’s work with your natural way of working so that we can change the outcome.

2. Make Your Environment Inspirational 

Step number two is to set yourself up for success environmentally. So wherever you’re working, whatever you are working on, we want to eliminate distractions. Remove anything that could turn your attention away, whether that is your phone, whether that is an app on your phone that you naturally gravitate to when you’re trying to procrastinate, whether that’s certain sites on your laptop. So personally, I have this Chrome extension called newsfeed eradicator, and it’s so helpful because I’m always on Facebook, I’m in both of my Facebook groups all the time, but I get so distracted by what’s going on with my friends and people I’m following’s lives on Facebook. And so this Chrome extension, it’s so simple, you install it and it just gets rid of your newsfeed and replaces it with a really wise quote. And simply not seeing the distractions makes it so much easier to get going and move forward with whatever it is I was working on. And so I want you to think about a recent time when you were going to do something, but then you got distracted and that distraction caused you to easily procrastinate because the option was there, right? It was in front of you and you’re like, let me just choose to not do it and do this instead.

Think about what you did when you made that choice, and what is it can you get rid of in that workflow in that moment so that it doesn’t happen again? So that step is relevant to your physical environment so that it is conducive for work and to be productive the next step. 

3. Make Tasks Manageable 

Number three is more of a mental thing. I want you to break down your tasks into bite-sized pieces, into small little things. You don’t even have to write them down, but if you’re someone who likes checklists and to-do lists, you can make them into click up tasks or just write down little check boxes that you can check off in your planner or whatever it is.

But break down your giant tasks into little incremental things that are so easy to check off. We want to be focusing on the step in front of us, not the whole staircase. So If, you are being overwhelmed by the amount and the scope of growth and accomplishment that you need to have within a certain timeframe. Instead, let’s break that down to in the next 20 minutes, what is the one thing that I can do that is just so easy? I want you to think about it as something so easy as like taking a sip of water, something that you can just so easily check off.

It can be simple like opening a specific app or opening a specific webpage or signing into a certain account or creating an account on a certain webpage. 

4. Set Off The First Domino

Because what you will find is a lot of times when you trigger that first domino, everything else falls into place. And that is step four. Sometimes like you’re like, you look back, how many times has it happened when you were like, that was actually really easy. Usually, at least for me, so many tasks that have taken me forever, I get done so fast to the point where I spend more time thinking about doing it than actually doing it myself.

And that’s just the type of person I am. But what we have found is statistically If, you just get that first domino tipped over whatever that first task may be. The rest of it will be a lot less daunting. So that was actually steps three and four. So step three is to break your tasks down into bite-sized pieces. And number four is to set off the first domino. So push over that first domino. For a lot of my clients, it means just opening up a specific webpage of whatever it is that they need to get done or opening up an app like Instagram or TikTok. 

5. Rewrite Procrastination Habits

And then the last step to stop yourself from Procrastinating with the self-awareness from step one, we want to instead switch the Procrastination action to after we’ve completed the first task slash domino so that it becomes a reward.

Let’s say when you procrastinate, you take a nap, we will now take a nap after that first step has been completed. So after we are able to check off that first box in that moment when you really wanna take a nap, we’re gonna train ourselves to say no. Instead, the nap is going to be a reward for doing something that we need to do. If we want different results, we need to take different actions. So If, you are inspired to do something different. To get different results. We’re gonna need to rewire your brain and retrain what it is that you are thinking about instead having the Procrastination action as a reward.

So in the future you’re like, Hey, I wanna do this more often. And you are working your way towards that best case scenario instead of your inaction and either staying in the same reality or continuously worrying about the worst case scenario. Sometimes the case of trying to achieve success or achieve a big goal is you truly don’t know what the bite-size pieces are.

So if starting a business, if creating a location, independent lifestyle is something that you know you desire, but you just don’t know what the steps are, I’m going to link the Business Academy in the episode description because the first action of committing to the future that you want to create for yourself, that first commitment, the investment that is going to be the first domino for you.

And every module is laid out for you so you know exactly what to work on. We’re all there to support you, to answer questions going through. And you can also read all of our success stories on the page itself. And we’re all going to be cheering for your life of time, freedom, location freedom, and financial freedom. Doors aren’t going to be open for much longer, so I wouldn’t wait if I were you, and we cannot wait to see you and welcome you inside. I hope this episode was really helpful, and trust me, you’re not the only person who procrastinates. It’s so common. But what is the most empowering thing is to be able to manage it and know that you are in control.

Have an amazing week, guys, and I will see you in the next episode.

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