if you find yourself constantly putting off work only to feel guilty when things pile up you force yourself to focus but can't seem to make any progress trust me you are not alone everyone procrastinates just part of Being Human so you're not Sol you're not Beyond saving you just don't have a proper protocol most people fail to overcome procrastination because they don't understand it they just want a quick fix but that's the problem we can't change our behaviors unless we understand them and that's why I created this video to share my five-step protocol that's been
incredibly effective for me in beating procrastination the moment it appears but for the protocol to work we need to ask ourselves why am I procrastinating right now procrastination is always a result of our mind's desire to escape from negative emotions whether it's boredom frustration tiredness annoyance or a fear of failure our mind uses every Jedi mind trick in the book to avoid those emotions but if we dig deeper we'll find these are symptoms of three underlying causes first is a lack of experience either we don't have the experience or knowledge to do the thing that
we need to or the instructions are unclear and we don't know how to get started summer before starting College I wanted to get my first job so I could have some extra money before moving out of my parents house every morning I told myself today I'm gonna find a job I'd pull up my laptop struggle for a few minutes start feeling overwhelmed and then just default to playing video games or hating with my friends or something I never got a job that summer I realize now that those emotions were just symptoms of the real problem
I had no clue how to find a job I had no experience with it I didn't even know what knowledge Gap stood between me and having a job lack of clarity causes confusion which leads to those negative emotions that cause procrastination second is level of effort effort goes both ways something that's too low effort makes us feel bored or gives us a false sense of security and something that's too high effort makes us feel overwhelmed if my professor assigns me of 50 page paper on like neurochemistry of cat brains or something I'd feel hopeless and
anxious about how many hours and how many hand cramps I'd suffer researching and writing that project I'd end up procrastinating on the other end of the spectrum let's say that I study for my exams by rereading my notes 20 times over I would feel so bored and annoyed having to do such a Mindless and passive task I would also just get distracted and procrastinate the emotions we feel from the different levels of effort are also sometimes attached to our ego maybe you're a perfectionist and the fear of failure causes you to procrastinate doing things unless
you're 100 certain you're going to succeed or maybe you feel threatened by difficult tasks because you don't want to be judged as being incompetent and the third type of procrastination I call a low energy State we all have a unique energy curve for when we're most focused and motivated to overcome procrastination and our energy curve is affected by the time of day and the surrounding environment so in college I had the freedom to choose my own class schedule I went to a big Public University right so there were multiple options for biology and chemistry classes
that I need to take you know and being the degenerate party animal that I was back then I decided that my first semester I was going to take only afternoon and evening classes you know so I could stay up all night play video games party and sleep in and stuff and most days I woke up around noon or even later and when I went to class I could barely Focus or even pay attention which didn't make any sense to me at all back then like how was I this tired from doing absolutely nothing all day
yeah I didn't do very well my first semester so the following semester I changed things up and I started waking up way earlier and studying in the morning and that changed everything for me I realized that my energy curve my willpower to overcome procrastination was way easier to tap into in the morning and I didn't feel that resistance of tiredness or laziness so figure out what your energy curve looks like as you can imagine trying to force ourselves overcome procrastination doesn't work if we aren't targeting the root cause some people can watch a David Goggins
video and motivate themselves into action but for most of us we need a better approach so here's the five-step protocol that's worked amazing for me step one is to identify the emotion you're experiencing don't react don't fight it just sit with it for a second what is this feeling is it fear is it overwhelm is it boredom is it anxiety or hopelessness it might be more than one of them or all of them simultaneously sometimes we get so worked up that we can't think clearly enough to identify our emotions in which case there's actually an
interesting physiological mechanism we can tap into that temporarily clears our mind so if the overwhelm or emotions are too intense fill up a large bowl with ice water and dunk your face in it cold shower also works this evokes something in US called the diving response when ice water hits our face our brain and body do like a hard factory reset if you've ever done this you know what I mean but our heart like skips a beat we hold our breath and whatever thoughts that were on our mind instantly vanish and then from this new
place of Peace we can revisit that emotion from a much calmer perspective there are other more effective long-term ways to strengthen our mind to detach from emotional states like meditation and exercise which I also highly encourage making a regular practice of step two is to deconstruct the emotion now that we've identified the emotion we need to break it apart and determine which of the three types of procrastination that we're dealing with is the procrastination coming from experience effort energy or some combination of the three think about your current situation you know your environment and the
responsibilities you have planned for the week as guiding prompts to determine why did that negative emotion appear now did you just get off a 10 hour work shift this might be an energy type of procrastination are all your friends dming you to play valorent your brain is probably calculating a high level of effort to continue studying do you have the skills and knowledge to film a YouTube video you probably hit an experience Gap that's manifesting as overwhelmed because you don't know the next steps to take what emotional consequence is your mind trying to escape these
are some examples of questions to think about when deconstructing an emotion and once you've deconstructed the emotion move on to step number three create a clear plan of action that's so simple you'd be stupid not to do it emphasis on clear and stupid this is going to be a little different for each type of procrastination But ultimately the idea is the same make the action plan so easy and the next steps so clear it's a no-brainer for you to get started for example for that ambiguous task of getting a job do a brain dump of
all the many tasks that are part of that big task lay out everything you know to uncover those experience caps and then build a plan around it I probably need a resume right so how do I do that I'll watch YouTube video about how to write a resume I'll get AI to draft a resume template for me what do I do from there now I'll brainstorm all my work experiences and School Achievements next I'll have to find jobs to apply for so I'll research local job centers I'll ask my school counselor you know so on
so on and at any point I run into an experience cap I'll look it up or I'll ask someone for the effort type procrastination break apart the task into bite-sized actions a 50-page paper can be broken apart into read an article summarize the article write one paragraph if it's still too hard make it simpler and make it stupider write one sentence write one word if I'm feeling low energy from exhaustion then how can I create an action plan to tackle this tomorrow don't try to force studying right now just go take a hot shower get
to bed early set an alarm for like 6 a.m and then try again with a fresh cup of coffee and a clear plan the whole idea of Step number three comes from Brian Tracy's eat the Frog when faced with a daunting task whether it's due to experience effort or energy get your mind off of the negative emotions by focusing on a single action you can take this step is definitely the most challenging and requires practice there's an art to prioritization and goal setting and it gets much more complicated than I'm letting on right now but
check out this video up here if you're interested afterwards step 4 begin your action plan even if it's not perfect it's important to know that too much planning and researching is itself a form of procrastination it's perfectionism so once you've got a plan that's at least somewhat coherent you know maybe 60 complete don't think too hard don't allow that perfectionist tendency to override go dunk your face in ice water again if you have to and just get started it doesn't matter how perfect your plan is if you don't use it the hardest step is the
step from Stillness once you start working momentum will carry you over procrastination there's this popular quote that I love by author Brad stolberg mood follows action so just get working even if of emotions aren't completely gone because the good feeling of making progress will eventually catch up finally step 5 which is an often forgotten step is to celebrate your ability to overcome procrastination be your personal cheerleader and praise yourself for doing something despite those negative emotions you felt Fred Bryant who's done research on the psychology of enjoyment and motivations talked about the importance of savoring
and acknowledging our wins no matter how small they are there's an intimate relationship between our brain and achievement achievement releases dopamine and other endorphins in our body remember that procrastination presents as negative emotions so by celebrating our wins every step of the way we're conditioning our brain to enjoy the feeling of overcoming resistance to feel good for taking action and this in turn will make it easier for us to continue doing so in the future but also keep in mind that there is an important Nuance between the idea of Celebration and reward a celebration is
an experience it's that internal Euphoria we feel for accomplishing something like Steph Curry doing a shimmy after draining a three-pointer or dapping up your boys after acing an exam a reward is something external like treating yourself to a new pair of shoes or playing video games for five straight hours focus on celebrations rewards can be useful but be careful not to use them too often because then your brain will start to associate Joy with that reward and not some actual accomplishment and that is my five-step protocol now I want to make a disclaimer that this
protocol is an effective tool for overcoming the immediate battle against procrastination however there is no actual cure for procrastination just because we beat procrastination today doesn't mean we've conquered it forever and never have to worry about it again procrastination is a Non-Stop Balancing Act we have to be attuned with our emotional state at all times every minute our subconscious brain performs a mental calculation to assess the emotional damage of the current tasks the long-term solution comes from doing internal work on ourselves and reflecting on our core values people who seem to effortlessly dive into hard
work are the ones who've identified their values and internalized so deeply that taking action isn't even an option it's a duty so honestly ask yourself what do I want for myself what does that person value and how does that person spend their time once you've clarified that version of yourself take full responsibility to become that person actually let's take this a step further take personal and public responsibility for your goals by sharing them in the comments below why exactly do you want to be procrastination what do you think that's going to do for you that
way we can work together to reorganize our lives and eliminate procrastination now if you still feel like your life is out of control I'd highly recommend checking out this video over here it's my full guide for dopamine detoxing that I use to help take back control of my life
