How to beat procrastination and set yourself up for success

How do I overcome procrastination?

Procrastination is the stealer of dreams, it’s the snatcher of hope, it’s the thief of time, the thief of joy Click To Tweet

• You have goals you want to achieve, these brilliant things you want to do and want to be, but you can’t get started, you can’t follow through. What’s going on? All these ‘stops’ after a few attempts.

     Here’s what going on

• My goal is to write a book – The idea of writing a book is so intimidating, so daunting (even though I’ve written one already) so I think I’d much rather do these other things instead because it’s easier. Our mind thinks this is easier – that’s [the book is] stress
• So you do easier things like “faff” on social media or reply to emails – whatever it might be, but not the things that are going to get us to where we want to be

      Here’s how you beat procrastination

• Take that great big mountain and slice it up into little bite-sized molehills and lay a trail of molehills – and that’s it!

To beat procrastination, take your one big task and make it tiny activities Click To Tweet

• When I wrote my first book I said to myself I have to write a chapter a day, I procrastinated when I set that as a target. So I made it smaller, to just 500 words a day that’s it, that’s just over half an A4 page. That’s how I got started. My everyday minimum was 500 words.
• If you want to do exercise, instead of saying I want to run 5kms, make it smaller, say 200 metres. You will say ‘that’s ridiculous, I’m not going to lose any weight, I’m not going to get in the shape I want if I only run 200 metres a day’
• By setting the bar really, really small you are setting yourself up for success instead of stress.

When an activity is associated with stress you are more likely to not do it and increase the chance of procrastinating Click To Tweet

• When you set it up for success you are creating this new loop for success. You do it – dopamine rush – you do it- dopamine rush!
• Soon enough you anticipate success and the and the anticipation of the activity is associated with joy, not stress.
• This is how we are addicted to social media, the anticipation of how many likes we have – when you click on your facebook and you see it, you don’t feel good afterward it’s the before feeling that pulls you to it – that’s the addiction. After you have looked you just say oh whatever – it’s unfulfilling
• Dopamine is associated with motivation, it makes you move and do something
• You are hacking your brain to associate the small activity that leads towards your goal with success – the part before the activity
• If your goal is to make £50k in the next few months, you start making those 2-3 calls a day, you’ll get a high from achieving that goal and you’ll feel like doing more