24: How to stop procrastinating and finally take action

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Welcome to Creating the Path, a podcast to help you create success without burnout by shifting into your next level identity.
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I'm your host, Heather Grace Hansen, and I'm here to blend cosmic insights with practical Neuroscience to help you create the path to a life and business you love.
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Hello and welcome to episode 24 of the podcast.
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Today I wanna talk about three main reasons why you typically procrastinate and how to overcome those, and finally start taking action.
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So let's get right into it.
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So the three main reasons why.
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Most people typically procrastinate is number one fear, and that can be an any number of fears.
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Some of the typical ones are just like fear of the unknown, fear of success, just general like fear of failure or just fear of like, oh, it's gonna be too hard.
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Any kind of fear that can come up is.
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One of the biggest reasons why we typically procrastinate on things, and the second reason is confusion.
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Just if we sense any confusion of.
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Like, oh, I don't know how to get started, or, I don't know what I should be working on right now.
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That's like a quick reason for our brain to say like, okay, let's just not work on it right now then, because we don't even know what to do.
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And the third reason is it's just not a habit to do that new thing.
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So honestly, sometimes you might just forget to do it.
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You know, you might decide that like, oh, my new habit is that I'm going to, you know, do a little bit of exercise after I eat my morning breakfast.
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Not even that you're gonna go to the gym, but just that you're gonna, you know, maybe sit down and like do some pushups, situps, whatever.
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But it's not a habit, so you just forget to do it.
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Like, this happens to me so often where I'm like, you know, maybe I set a new habit to meditate and I'm just, it's not a habit for me to do that.
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So I literally just forget.
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And then I get to the end of the day and I'm like, oh, I didn't do my meditation.
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So those are the three main reasons, fear, confusion, and it's just not a habit yet.
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So let's talk about, we'll go through each of these three things one by one to talk about how we can overcome this so let's go through them.
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So let's first talk about how to overcome.
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Fears.
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Now, one thing that I've been doing recently that I have found very helpful is to do what I call fear journaling.
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And I actually didn't create that name, I heard about someone else doing this many years ago.
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And, I thought it was such a great thing and I didn't even do it regularly until recently.
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But now that I've been doing it, I am such a fan of it.
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So it's basically the way I start my fear journaling is I will just start it out by saying hi, fear.
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Like I'll talk to it as if it's like a separate person.
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I'll say like, hi, fear, like what are you afraid of today?
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Or I might say it like for something, if I'm working on something specific, like if I'm working towards a specific goal, I might say like.
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Hi, fear.
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What are you afraid of?
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About sitting down to write.
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Like if that's the thing.
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And then I will just do my very best to not use my conscious mind to come up with the answer that I think it is, and I will just do my best to really be.
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Quiet in my mind and like literally see what answer comes up.
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And sometimes interesting things will come up.
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And, uh, so then I will just start writing down the answers that I hear or that are coming up for me.
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And it might be multiple fears.
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Um, there might not just be one, so I just let it all come out.
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And then I, you know, I might ask follow up questions like depending on what comes up, I might like keep going layers deeper.
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And you know, whatever the first reply was, I might say like, oh, and what about that makes you afraid?
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And I might keep going, you know, with each reply saying like, and what about that makes you afraid?
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So like, you can get to like deeper and deeper fears that way.
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Or depending on what comes up, I might just.
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Sort of talk back to it and reassure the fear by saying, you know, like if fears come back, you know, around like, oh, I just don't, you know, I'm just worried about what people will think.
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Like what if it's not good enough?
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Things like that, you know, I might talk back in the moment and just reassure it and say.
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Oh yeah, I hear you.
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And that makes total sense.
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But I know that if that does happen, I'll be able to figure it out or I might say, here's how I would handle that.
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So I, I'm sort of in that moment reassuring my nervous system or my fear that yeah, I hear you, but if that happens, it's okay because I'm going to handle it.
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And sometimes honestly for me, that will be.
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All that I need to just kind of quiet that fear is just to like, 'cause there's two things that are happening.
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Bringing up the awareness of what you're actually afraid of, that in the moment sometimes can be enough just to help reduce the fear.
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Because when we're, when we have these like underlying fears and we're not even sure what we're afraid of, sometimes that alone.
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Can just make it more scary because we just have these like intangible fears that we don't even really know.
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We just know that there's things that we're afraid of and that there's like, but we're not, it's, there's no clarity around it.
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So bringing it up can sometimes can just make you realize oh yeah, it makes sense that I would have that fear, but it's actually not that big of a deal because I know how I would handle it if that actually happens.
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So the awareness alone can help reduce it.
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And then it allows you to just think through, oh yeah.
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So if that does happen, like, yeah, that sounds kind of scary, but like what would, what would I actually do?
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And then a lot of times it's honestly something that, you know, that you would be able to handle and maybe you wouldn't be happy if that thing happens.
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You know, let's say you're writing a book and then you know what happens if you write it and then you get some negative feedback, like, of course that's not gonna feel good, but.
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It's also not the end of the world because then you know, you can go back and make revisions and improve it.
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And that ultimately that would be a good thing for the book because it would prompt you to make it even better.
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So, you know, that's just one example of how bringing these fears to light can make them less scary and help you formulate a plan of like, yeah, okay, but what would I actually do if that actually happens?
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So, yeah, I have really been enjoying my fear journaling, and I feel like it's been really helpful for me.
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So that's the first thing I recommend for, for the fear.
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And the next thing you can do, and I will a lot of times do this in addition to the fear journaling, like I'll start with the fear journaling, and then what I'll do is whatever fears came up, I will, coach my unconscious mind using the rapid transformation method that I talked about in episode 22.
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So if you haven't listened to that episode, I highly recommend going back and listening to that, because I won't go through all the steps now since I went into it.
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In more depth in that episode.
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So go back and listen to that one.
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But yeah, I'll usually do that after the fear journaling.
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If sometimes, honestly, if the fears that come up in the journaling aren't that bad, and if I feel much better about it, just from reassuring myself during the journaling process, I might not even do this.
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But for some things that I feel like need a little bit more work, then I will afterwards go into the coaching my unconscious mind.
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So a lot of times I will use them together and it's been extremely effective for me.
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Like I'll, I'll do that, I'll do the self coaching and then I feel really good and I just get right into work on whatever I'm on, whatever I'm trying to work on.
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And sometimes with the fear journaling too, I will say with this whole process.
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Even if there's not some big project, you know, that I'm working on, that I feel like I'm resisting.
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A lot of times I have just been adding it into my daily coaching, which I almost think of as like my preemptive coaching, meaning that like I don't feel like there's necessarily an issue I need to work on, but I might just start, I might just start my day by, you know, doing my fear journaling and just say, saying hi, fear, what are you afraid of today?
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And just seeing what, if anything comes up, you know, usually like we'll all have something that could come up.
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But yeah, it's just been kind of interesting sometimes just to do it as sort of like a preemptive thing to just, to just be curious and think, yeah, what's going on in my mind today that I might need to work through.
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So sometimes I'll do it that way too, and.
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So let's talk about the second thing that sometimes can cause us to procrastinate, which is the confusion.
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So how do we overcome that?
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So the confusion of, you know, let's say there's a, a big project you wanna work on a big goal that you have, but you just don't know where to start.
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Or it just feels too big and you don't know what you should be working on that particular day.
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Like maybe it just feels overwhelming.
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It feels like there's so much to do.
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So our brains.
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Really love, clarity, uncertainty.
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So when faced with that sort of confusion and uncertainty, our brain will usually just tell us, okay, let's work on this later.
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'cause we don't know what to do, you know?
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So then we end up doing nothing but.
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When that happens, especially like if you can catch yourself in that moment of noticing that your brain is telling you like, let's not do this right now because we're too confused.
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That's when you can just in the moment.
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Just remind yourself that it's okay that I don't know what to do.
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Like this is actually part of the process is sitting down to figure that out.
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So let's just do that right now.
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Like you, you can literally just say that to your brain, like, let's just sit down right now, get it all planned out, and then we'll know what to do.
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Like just remind yourself that that actually is part of the process.
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So sometimes that can be enough to like just get yourself into action.
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It's just reminding yourself of that if you are still finding it hard to actually get started.
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It might be that you just need to take yourself through a round of the rapid transformation coaching, to work through the emotions of what, whatever it is, whether it's, you know, overwhelm, anxiety, um, is usually, you know, kind of what you would be feeling when you're feeling that confusion and resistance to like getting started working on it.
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So sometimes, yeah, if those feelings are pretty strong, you might just need to take yourself through a round of that coaching and.
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Then usually then you would be able to just get, you know, get right down to work and get planning and get that clarity and figure everything out.
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And then, so the third reason that we often procrastinate is simply that, you know, it's not a habit to work on the new goal, so we might even just forget so.
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You know, a simple way to just overcome that obviously is, you know, set yourself a reminder, especially in the beginning, you know, just until we get that to become a habit, we might just need a reminder, whether it's like a calendar reminder, a post-it on the bathroom mirror, whatever it is, you know, you can attach it to like another habit that you have, you know, maybe like a, a morning habit.
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So for example, like if you have a habit of, you know, always having your coffee in the morning, you know, maybe let's say one of your habits is to.
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Write more.
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Like if, you know, if your goal is to write a book, just, just as an example, it could be anything, but you know, maybe you decide to, when you have your morning coffee, that you'll sit down at your desk so that you can start writing at the same time, or, or you'll start writing.
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You know, as soon as you're done with your coffee, whatever it is, if you can attach your new habit to one of your already morning habits that you already have, that can be an easy way to get yourself in the habit of doing it every single day.
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So, yeah, just setting a simple reminder for yourself and attaching it to another goal.
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That's one way.
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And then again, I keep coming back, you know, to the rapid transformation method, of coaching the unconscious mind because that's so key to all of this, because the reason, you know, the reason we're procrastinating on things is all related to the unconscious mind because, as I mentioned in.
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Episode 22, where I went through that method.
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You know, one of the reasons why we get stuck in these old habits and it make, and it's hard to create new habits is simply because our brain is designed to create habits.
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And so until we train ourselves to create new habits using this method, it will always just.
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Be stuck in the old habits.
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So we really have to like intentionally train our brain to shift out of those old habits and into the new ones.
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So for something like procrastination, you can go through the full, coaching method that I explained in episode 22.
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Or you can also do sort of a partial version of it.
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And this will make more sense if you've already listened to that episode.
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But so for procrastination, you can just start by asking yourself.
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How do I want to feel when I sit down to start writing, if that's the example we're using.
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But it could be doing anything, like whatever it is you wanna be doing, just ask yourself, you know, it could be, how do I wanna feel about getting up earlier to do a workout before work or, you know, whatever your thing is, right?
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And then, uh, if we're doing the method, then you'll build up that emotion in your body.
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And once you are feeling that way in your body, then you'll imagine the next time you're in that situation.
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So you'll imagine the next time you sit down to write, or the next morning when your alarm goes off early so you can work out, you'll think about that next situation while you're feeling that positive feeling.
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And so this will attach that positive feeling to your new habit, basically.
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So using the method that way will train yourself to actually feel good and excited to do your new habit.
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And then also, so the other thing I would recommend doing too is if you've listened to last week's episode number 23, I went through another exercise that I do, which is to shift your identity into the person who already does the thing every day that you wanna be doing.
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So it's basically like becoming that person before you do it, you know, because most of the time we think that.
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We have to start doing the thing and then we'll believe that we're the person who does that thing every day.
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But it's actually the opposite.
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Once our brain believes that we are the person who sits down to write every day, or believes that we are the person who gets up early to do a workout before work, that's when it becomes just an automatic habit is when your brain believes that you are the person who just does this every day.
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And I just wanna say one thing about, when you're creating an identity of believing that you're someone who does something every day, also don't.
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Allow yourself to get tripped up by the everyday part.
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It's okay if you wanna say it that way and think of it that way, but then don't let yourself fall into the trap of if you miss one day, because let's say you're sick and you're just in bed all day, don't let yourself then get sucked into the trap of thinking, oh crap, I failed.
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Like, yeah, I'm the, I said I'm the person that does this every day, but I, but I missed a day.
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No, because even with this identity shifting, if you are telling yourself that you do this every day, if you miss a day, you can say to yourself, oh, that's fine.
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Like, I'll just start again tomorrow.
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Don't fall into that trap of, letting yourself get off track just because you missed a day or even two or three.
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Like just get right back into it and it's, and it's not a big deal.
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It's more about stacking the number of days that you do it rather than.
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Making sure you have like an unbroken chain of doing it every day.
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So I just wanna add that caveat.
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But let's recap.
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So those are the three main things.
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So the three reasons we typically procrastinate is the fear, the confusion, and just the fact that it's not a habit yet to do the new thing.
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And we talked about the fear, you can do the fear journaling, you know, you can reassure your fear.
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By telling it exactly how you will handle things, if that fear does actually happen, and then you can coach yourself through the feelings that are coming up from those fears.
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And for the confusion we talked about.
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You know how our brain loves clarity and certainty, so that's why it will just want us to avoid doing those tasks when we are not sure where to get started or what to be doing.
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And so you can just remind your brain in that moment that it's okay that I don't know what to do.
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That's actually part of the process.
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Like, let's, let's just get this first part outta the way and let's figure out what we need to do.
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And then we talked about, you know, how to actually make this a new habit.
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And, you know, simplest thing, you can set reminders for yourself in the beginning, attach it to another habit, and then you can actually, you know, coach yourself through the rapid transformation method.
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Coach your unconscious mind to make it become a habit and do the identity coaching too.
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The identity shifting coaching that I talked about in episode 23, so that your brain learns that you are the person who does this new thing every day.
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That you are the person who works on this project consistently.
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And if you do even just one or all of these things like.
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I guarantee you I have started doing these things and it's amazing how I have gotten so much work done on and actually just achieved big goals that I had been working on for years, and I found it so much easier to just finally just accomplish these goals that I had been working on when I started doing these things to overcome that procrastination.
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So try this out.
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Let me know how it works out and yeah, I'll end it there, but keep me posted.
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I'm so excited for you to try some of this and actually make progress on your goals this year.
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Alright, I'll see you next week.
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I hope you enjoyed this episode of Creating the Path as much as I did.
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Make sure to hit that subscribe button and come back next Thursday for more.
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I can't wait.