Bee: If you've ever found yourself sitting down on a Sunday, getting ready to plan out your week and looking back at the last week and just feeling really, really frustrated with yourself, like you're pissed off because yet again, you haven't yet got all of the tasks done that you've wanted to do. And there are tasks that have been moving with you week after week to the top of each to-do list. And for some reason, you just never seem to get time for them. And so you sit down on the Sunday, you plan out your new week, you time block in everything, you have everything planned out to a T, you're organized, and you're promising yourself it's going to be a better week. And yet again, the same pattern repeats. And when you understand that this is not coincidental, there is a very, very clever reason for this. Your entire perspective is going to shift, and how you approach it. Is going to shift as well because we cannot fix a subconscious problem with a conscious solution. And that is exactly what is happening here because you know exactly what you need to do to move your business forward. Like if you are listening to this podcast, you are someone that is clearly very driven. You are someone that is very hardworking. You are someone that is very ambitious and you are someone that goes all in. Like you are listening to this podcast because you want to understand yourself better, you want to take your business to the next level. You want this like a logical form of success. And so you're not someone that needs to be told what to do. And that's what makes this even more frustrating because you know all the logical stuff and you know what you should be doing. And yet, why aren't you doing it? And that's where you find yourself getting pissed off, feeling guilty, feeling ashamed. And What we are going to dig into today is exactly why it happens and why this isn't about a color-coded calendar or a productivity planner, but it's about going under the surface as to why it is repeating because this episode is all about procrastination. What procrastination really is, how we interrupt our procrastination, and how we start to move past it. So, first and foremost, let me tell you this: procrastination is not a case of just not being able to focus, not being able to concentrate. It's not a case of you being disciplined not being disciplined or you not being lazy. Procrastination is protection. It is protection from the outcome and what we see on the other side of the task. And so I really want for you by the end of this episode to be able to post a piece of content that's been sat on your drafts and feel excited to finish a launch without having to drag yourself through it or sit at a coffee shop so you get it done to be able to get through that to-do list with ease instead of finding yourself rearranging the kitchen cupboards because it just felt suddenly pressingly urgent. Because on the other side of this pattern is a version of you and your business that is able to move faster, feel lighter, and not be in this internal flight. And when you are someone that is determined to achieve big things, when you are not here to mess about, like you do not have time To be slamming the brakes on yourself. And one of the biggest skills as a business owner to be is to be in a constant state of momentum. And so that is exactly what we are going to dive into, making sure that we can remove that procrastination so that you are able to stay in a constant state of momentum and to not feel slowed down. Because I can guarantee if you look back at the tasks that you have been avoiding. You can go back over the last couple of weeks, the last couple of months, the last quarter, whatever it might be, and look at what you still haven't got done. I can guarantee that they are not just the boring and easy tasks. I can guarantee that they are probably the tasks that carry the most weight and stretch you the most. And so I really like the metaphor that your subconscious almost acts as like an overprotective parent standing at the schoolgate. And it has one job, and its one job is to keep you safe. It decides on what's safe based on what's familiar, not what you actually want. So when this overprotected parent is stood at the school gate and it sees someone unfamiliar or something happens that is out of the ordinary, it immediately grabs your hands and pulls you right back to comfort. So when you're going to do the task, it would take your business to the next level, when you're going to launch something or raise your price or Post a piece of content that feels out of your norm, your subconscious immediately clocks it as unfamiliar. And it's just like that parent grabbing your hand and pulling you back to safety. Because even though the frat could be absolutely harmless, the reality is that it doesn't know. And so it would much rather just protect you to be safe. And this can feel really conflicting because consciously we're like, but I I know I want to achieve this goal. I know I want to hit 15, 20k goals. 20k in my business. I know I want to add five more clients to my business. I know I want to start posting this content or seeing my visibility increase, but subconsciously there is something else on the other side because your brain doesn't know if you can handle it. And it will always show up in like very sneaky and justified ways of, you know, let's say you're going to launch something and all of a sudden your laptop just seems really slow and laggy. Or you decide that your engagement's lower, so it's not the right time. And so you say that you're going to post it next week or next month instead. So it seems very logical and justified. So your subconscious will show up in very, very sneaky ways, but under the surface, it's that it just doesn't feel safe to launch it, for example. And so when we can understand that actually, procrastination isn't just a ca isn't a character flaw, but actually it's exactly how your subconscious was designed to work. Your subconscious was designed to keep you safe. It was designed to make sure that you don't come into into any form of threat. And just understanding that is so important because it helps immediately remove so much guilt and shame away from yourself. Because the longer we stay in that pattern of beating ourselves up, giving ourselves a hard time, it doesn't actually help us get more done. It doesn't actually help us move through things. In fact, it just really puts the brakes on things and makes it so much harder to take that next step. So first and foremost, we have to understand that it is not a case of you procrastinate. It is not a case of you not being disciplined enough or not being capable of moving through it. But what we do need to understand is actually why is our brain protecting us? Why are we procrastinating on these tasks? Because if we don't understand why we have this fear, we're going to keep playing out the same behavior loop because, again, it is exactly what feels safe for us. So if procrastination is protection, what specifically is it protecting you from? And often when I work with incredibly driven females, like incredibly hardworking females that are have crazy, crazy goals ahead of them. I often see it come down to one of four fears, okay? And I want you to see if you can really recognize yourself in these fears. So the first is the fear of visibility. So being fully seen also means being fully accessible and being seen in the highs and lows and being seen as who you are and not just a version of like how you want to be be perceived. And this is the one that often makes you film real five times and still not post it. Or to write a caption that feels incredible and to then post it through Chat GPT and suddenly completely change the tone. Because with every single part of that, you are stopping yourself being fully seen as who you are. Two is the fear of judgment. So if you've found your worth, if you've identified as a people pleaser. And you found your really tired to being liked, and you don't want anyone to ever disagree with you or to see you as selfish or to think that you only want to make money, for example. Then we again are constantly running every decision through that part of making sure we are perceived in a certain way. And so we downplay our own opinions, we hold ourselves back, but we play it smaller than we are. And we protect ourselves before anyone has even responded because we want to make sure that we are seen as somebody that is likable by everybody. And honestly, if you are being seen as likable by everybody, you're gonna have a really hard time building a business because not everybody is a client that is paying you. Number three is the fear of success. And I know you might hear me say this and say, B, that's ridiculous. Of course I wanna be successful, of course I wanna build my business. What do you mean I have a fear of success? This one is really, really sneaky. And it's going to show up in ways that you don't expect and you probably wouldn't even notice straight away. So for example, maybe you have your best month ever and then the month after feels like suspiciously quiet. Because more success means more eyes on you. It means more pressure. It means more responsibility. So maybe you've hit your highest month and then you've immediately gone, my god, how do I repeat this? How do I beat this? Can I handle this? Can I deliver this? So your subconscious quietly engineers to come down. So I had one client, for example, where she said, I've never been able to sign more than three clients a month. And actually, what it came down to is once she signed those three clients, she would immediately get overwhelmed. She would immediately pull back from her stories. She would stop selling. She would start questioning. She would start doubting herself. And so obviously, she then wouldn't sign up more clients. And it became this reinforcing cycle. And then the final one is the fear of finding out because right now, if you don't really go all in on the next launch, for example, you never need to find out if it could work or not. So you stay in this place of like almost ready, almost posting, almost launching. Or this could be again like us moving a launch deadline because things don't feel perfect. Because it feels safer to move the deadline of a launch than it is to actually post it and to not get the result that we want from it. So I had a client, for example, let's call her staff, who she came to me convinced that her issue was that she needed a better content strategy. And actually, what we found three months into working together was that her actual issue was that fear of success. Because every time her engagement started climbing, she'd go quiet for a week. Every time a launch did well, the next one would flop. And once we were able to actually recognize the belief at the very root, and not just the belief, but where this came from, because she had learned very, very early on that. when she was seen as doing really, really well at school, it actually just felt like this suffocating pressure to be able to constantly maintain and upkeep the same grade. So it felt safer for her to not hit the next income level in her business because if she hit that next income level, it immediately meant she had to work harder to match it. And so her subconscious from a very, very young age had learned that it was going to be safer to stay where she was so that she didn't have this overwhelming pressure on it. And once we could actually recognize how her subconscious was literally just doing its best to keep her safe, we were able to really reframe that belief into something that was more supportive and parent herself through that in a way that when she was younger, she wasn't able to. And the thing about these fears is you cannot fix what you can't name. So if you're listening to this and one of them felt a little bit close to home, that is probably yours. And this is where most people trip up: is awareness alone isn't going to be enough to change it. And If you've ever found yourself going to therapy, therapy can be a brilliant tool, but it is why people often go to therapy for years and they understand their patterns, they understand their behaviors, they know exactly why they do certain things. And this is me. I went to therapy for a year and I remember getting to the end of it and being like, now what? Like, okay, great. I understand the dysfunction. I understand where I where I messed up, but I don't feel any different. So what do I do now? And that is because awareness alone isn't going to be enough to change something that your subconscious thinks is safety. Just because we understand that we self-sabotage doesn't mean we're going to stop self-sabotaging, where as far as your subconscious is concerned, that self-sabotage is keeping you safe. And the thing as well is procrastination becomes very reinforcing. So let's think about posting a posting a launch. By you avoiding the deadline, you get the reinforcement that you don't get rejected. And so it becomes this reinforcing cycle where because you avoid any discomfort by procrastinating, it becomes a stronger cycle. So it's easier to not do the thing. And we keep repeating the pattern time and time again. And this is where we have to be able to recognize that pattern in order for us to be able to spot why we are doing it. the protection and what we are gaining from it in order for us to start building out that new pathway. And again, like we said, this is not a knowledge problem. You already know what to post, you already know how to launch, you already know what you need to do next in your business, but it doesn't feel safe in your body to actually do it. So it's almost like a l a smoke alarm that's too sensitive. It can't tell the difference between an actual fire and someone making toast. And someone making toast feels like a genuine threat to your survival. And so it sounds the alarm. And you don't know if it is sounding the alarm because someone's making toast or because there's a big old fire. And so the actual fix is going underneath the pattern to find the very, very root cause. Like I told you with my client, where she learned from a young age that getting good grades meant more pressure. And therefore success meant more pressure. When we can understand the very root cause, that is when we can then start to re root and rewire the belief. And that is a lot of what we do when we work together. So bringing it all together, I want you to remember: procrastination isn't laziness. It is protection. It is your subconscious pulling you back from something it's decided is unsafe. And underneath almost every instance of it is one of four fears: visibility, judgment, success, or finding out what happens. And if we do not know why our brain is protecting us, we are going to have to keep protecting us. And awareness alone won't shift it because this lives in your nervous system, this lives under the surface. This isn't a logical thing, and that is why the Google Calendar, the productivity planner hasn't worked before. Because it isn't about willpower, it's about the belief that is underneath the surface. So from listening to this episode, I want you to go and look at the one task that you've kept moving from your to-do list every single week. And I want you to ask yourself, what is on the other side of this task if you were to complete it? Where would that leave you? What would it take you closer to? What feels uncomfortable about it? Can you recognise one of the fears showing up in this? Can we start to dig under the surface of that belief? And if you're actually ready to go to the route and start rewiring these beliefs, DM me the word rewire and we can send I will send you over the details on exactly how we do this work together. But please, if you've enjoyed the episode, make sure you subscribe and I will see you in the next one.
Bethany Wallis: spent years building my business the hard way, thinking that it had to look like 12 hour long days, no days off, and that was the only way it would work. And yes, my business grew, but I completely burnt out along the process, and it didn't matter what I achieved, how successful I was, it still didn't feel like enough. I expanded my fitness business, I expanded to a team, I invested thousands and thousands into mentorships, into content, into strategy. and yet I still completely burn out. i got to the point where my whole body was fighting against me and i just couldn't ignore it anymore And it wasn't until I stopped focusing on just the external and I started focusing on the internal and doing the inside work that I once thought was so fluffy that everything really changed for me. My business became more aligned, it became easier to show up every day, my relationships became more fulfilling. And that is exactly why the built from within podcast works because every business owner deserves to know that the strategy only works. when the person behind it does. I'm Bea, a mindset and NLP coach. and the silent partner behind your business that helps you grow without burning out. This is your space to do the work that changes everything. Welcome to Built From Within. That's everything in today's episode of Built From Within. Thank you so much for being here today. It would mean the world if before you go, you give the podcast a follow, you subscribe. And if this episode resonated, and I really, really hope it did, please send it to another woman that needs to hear it. Because doing this work can honestly completely change your whole life and we need to spread this message. You can find me on Instagram at it's me Wallace where I share more of this on a daily basis. And if you're ready to go deeper, DM me the word unlock. and let's talk about what working together on a closer proximity looks like. I will see you in the next episode of Built From Within.
Bethany Wallis: spent years building my business the hard way, thinking that it had to look like 12 hour long days, no days off, and that was the only way it would work. And yes, my business grew, but I completely burnt out along the process, and it didn't matter what I achieved, how successful I was, it still didn't feel like enough. I expanded my fitness business, I expanded to a team, I invested thousands and thousands into mentorships, into content, into strategy. and yet I still completely burn out. i got to the point where my whole body was fighting against me and i just couldn't ignore it anymore And it wasn't until I stopped focusing on just the external and I started focusing on the internal and doing the inside work that I once thought was so fluffy that everything really changed for me. My business became more aligned, it became easier to show up every day, my relationships became more fulfilling. And that is exactly why the built from within podcast works because every business owner deserves to know that the strategy only works. when the person behind it does. I'm Bea, a mindset and NLP coach. and the silent partner behind your business that helps you grow without burning out. This is your space to do the work that changes everything. Welcome to Built From Within. That's everything in today's episode of Built From Within. Thank you so much for being here today. It would mean the world if before you go, you give the podcast a follow, you subscribe. And if this episode resonated, and I really, really hope it did, please send it to another woman that needs to hear it. Because doing this work can honestly completely change your whole life and we need to spread this message. You can find me on Instagram at it's me Wallace where I share more of this on a daily basis. And if you're ready to go deeper, DM me the word unlock. and let's talk about what working together on a closer proximity looks like. I will see you in the next episode of Built From Within.
