Still Procrastinating? Read This
If I’d known this it would have made life x10 easier
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It doesn’t matter how hard you try, or how motivated you are to do a particular thing you end up being lazy and constantly pushing stuff in the future - Does that ring a bell?
We all have been there!
From the high of - “I will become a millionaire“ after watching a YouTube video to lying on the couch and scrolling reels.
This phenomenon is called procrastination and I promise you it is ruining your life, keeping you away from your true potential.
The more you procrastinate, the farther you go from your dream life.
You already know all this…
But you still procrastinate, like you don’t have control over this behavior.
My goal today is to help you understand the root cause of why you are procrastinating and how you can eliminate it from your life so you can achieve your goals and true potential.
Let’s get into it.
WHY DO YOU PROCRASTINATE?
Here are 5 main reasons for procrastination (You won’t believe some of these reasons)
1. Lack of clarity
You procrastinate because you don’t know what you want!
Your goals are so abstract and unclear that it is almost impossible for your brain to know exactly which direction you should put in the work and invest your energy.
Now when I say clarity here I don’t mean setting a clear goal - what I mean is that you are not intrinsically clear about what you want out of your life!
You are influenced by social media, your social circles, and what your small world made you believe to be true.
Your decision-making is directed not because of what you think and want but the way you are conditioned to think.
I still remember when my primary school teacher called out kids in my classroom and asked them who they wanted to become!
Engineer, Doctor, and Lawyer were 90% of the answers.
Why did no one say - Marketer, Data analyst, artist?
One, no one knew these roles even existed
Two, even if some kids knew - anything outside the societal-defined role was laughed at.
I distinctly remember answering I wanted to become a pilot and the entire class laughed at me.
What I am saying is that what you think you want to become and who you want to be might not be what you want and maybe you are just influenced and conditioned to think a certain way!
And when your dream is fabricated by external influence it always leads to procrastination!
2. You are Distracted
The misery of the modern world is that - your brain is always agitated with external information and everyone speaking out their thoughts out loud.
It is easy to get influenced by a YouTuber, a creator, or a guru on the internet and completely lose the sense of who you are and what you believe to be true!
The problem with so much information is that you are always doubting your own decisions because you trust a random YouTuber with 1M subscribers more than yourself.
Every time you watch a video, you get a new idea and you are always shifting your goals.
We live in the world of marketers inducing FOMO in everything you consume and that leads to distraction.
If you are always distracted, you cannot be clear!
3. Fear of failure
I have been writing content and building my content agency for the last 4 years now and I still procrastinate on some of the greatest ideas I get for growth!
Why would I procrastinate on new experiments that I know might work well for my business?
I didn’t get an answer to this question for a long time but when I got the answer everything changed for me.
Well, I don’t want to procrastinate on it but my brain unconsciously made me procrastinate because we all fear failure!
What if this didn’t work?
What if I fail?
What if everything goes wrong?
This is just me overthinking these questions when in reality this is pointless because if I don’t execute new ideas - I am anyways not getting anything positive but the brain doesn’t understand this.
Ask yourself what you fear and if the fear logically even makes sense.
You need to be aware of your default negative patterns so you can eliminate the feelings that don’t mean anything and are just an impulsive reaction.
4. Unrealistic goal setting
If you have never made a single dollar on the Internet, forget about becoming a millionaire.
Watching a YouTube video and setting a goal of making millions of dollars by the end of this year is just stupid.
I like the ambition here but that is not how things work.
Your skill level is not enough for you to be able to make a million dollars right now - that means when you are setting such unrealistic goals, procrastination is the default response of your brain.
The difficulty of achieving a certain goal must meet your skill level for your brain to even be motivated to start the execution.
You don’t want your brain to give up even before starting.
You need the perfect balance of difficulty and skill level to enter what is defined as the ‘flow state’
5. Self-Sabotage
Self-sabotage is when someone deliberately hinders their own progress and success.
This sounds so stupid right?
Well, I thought the same but this is true. You will often notice patterns where you deliberately do things that lead to failure.
Well, humans are complex and sometimes weird.
Here are some of the reasons why you would hammer your own foot:
Low self-esteem
Childhood trauma
Fear of Success
Fear of the unknown
Worthiness issues
Negative self-talk
Self-hatred
You can only stop these negative patterns by knowing yourself better and who you are as a person!
Reflect on your childhood and be aware of why you act a certain way so you can put things into perspective and notice the repetitive negative patterns!
Now that you know some of the major reasons why you might be procrastinating, let’s discuss a step-by-step framework on how you can eliminate procrastination from your life.
STEP-1 (GET CLEAR)
Be transparent with yourself, sit down, and write what you even want out of your life. Paint the picture of your dream life and make it so clear that making it a reality becomes your life’s purpose.
When you sit down to right don’t accept your first thought to be the right answer.
You need to write more and more to get rid of all the external thoughts and you need to dive deep into your psyche to get the real answers. This will mean being vulnerable and real on the paper regardless of how bad it might be as per the definition of what the world believes.
Get raw and real with yourself:
If there is no external influence, what do you want to do?
If there is no concept of winning or losing, what would you work on?
If there are no constraints, what subjects would you study?
If money is no concept, what will you build?
You probably would read this but never sit down and reflect on your life and for that reason everything I am about to tell you after this is pointless.
So thanks for reading!
BUT If you intend to do this - Let’s keep going!
STEP-2 (SET A CLEAR GOAL)
You need to set a clear goal!
I want to become a writer
I want to start an online business
I want to get ripped
These are not clear at all - You need to be specific and you need to bind the goals you have with a timeframe.
What do you mean - I want to get ripped?
You could get ripped in 10 years - Is that your true goal?
Be very specific about your goals!
“Specificity derives tasks without a hint of procrastination“
Here are some examples:
I want to grow my Substack community of 10k people in the next 6 months.
I want to start an online writing coaching agency that makes me $50k/month in recurring revenue in the next 10 months.
I want to get ripped before the year ends.
Can you see the difference?
Reading these goals feels good because your brain knows exactly what it has to go for!
Ideally, you would want to make every goal even more clear and specific!
STEP-3 (MAKE A PLAN)
Once the goal is set, break that goal into small executable goals!
Once you have smaller goals, forget about the big goal and just do everything you can to reach the first small goal.
This is your master plan now!
If you just keep hitting the smaller goals, eventually you will hit the bigger goal as a result.
Without a plan your goal is pointless, it is a fantasy.
Ask yourself:
What can I do this month to get closer to my goal?
What can I do this week to get closer?
What can I do today?
and once you have the answers, just do the goddamn thing!
If you always focus on the big goal, you are always overwhelmed and your brain doesn’t like overwhelm and uncertainty.
Without clear smaller goals, you will always procrastinate because you won’t know that one thing you should work on today!
STEP-4 (1% BETTER)
Focus on getting 1% better and become input-oriented rather than always looking at the output produced from your inputs.
At the start, your inputs won’t generate the output you desire. It will take a lot more time than you think.
If you always focus on output you will be disheartened and you will procrastinate.
Do good honest work and if you want to measure your inputs, measure it in terms of how much you have improved as a person.
1% better over a year will completely change, who you are as a person.
With self-improvement, you bend the reality to give you what you desire - You leave no choice.
STEP-5 (LOVE THE PROCESS)
Above everything else, love the process.
If you are not excited about doing something in the macro, you just can’t do it for long enough.
you need to look at everything you do as a game, and focus on getting better at it - Else there is no fun.
Without fun, you will always procrastinate on the things you are supposed to do.
Change the frame of mind, and stop taking things too seriously.
The process will give you everything you ever wanted!
Cheers,
Zohvib
If you want to make money by writing (like I do) - I might be able to help. Reply to this email.
Excellent article brother. Much needed at this hour