Transcription
Are you tired of putting things off until tomorrow, and then tomorrow's tomorrow, and tomorrow's tomorrow's tomorrow's tomorrow? Today, on this video, I'm going to show you how to beat procrastination. Go from excuse maker to action taker and get it done.
Now, I'm going to show you that no one has a procrastination problem. People think they have a procrastination problem, but I've never met a person in my life with a procrastination problem. Procrastination is never the problem. Procrastination is always the symptom of the problem. And in this video, I'm going to show you why you keep putting things off.
The reason people procrastinate, any of us, is because we are associating more pain than pleasure with the actual getting of this thing done. If I just change it and I start associating more pleasure than pain to this activity, I'll get the thing done.
Now, the interesting thing about it is regardless of the thing, it's like we think, "Well, I'm just procrastinating this thing because this is the thing that I don't like to do." No, you're procrastinating because of how you're using your mind or avoiding using your mind. But I'm going to show you how to use your mind in such a way that procrastination will never be something you have to deal with again. You'll just get it done, and you'll understand how to get it done in real time when you're tempted to procrastinate. Everybody ready? Shout, "I'm ready."
>> Ready.
Okay, here we go. So, this is how it works. This is you. And by the way, not only does this work in helping you not procrastinate, it'll also work in helping you help other people when you're communicating with them not to procrastinate. It'll help you help your spouse to stop procrastinating. It'll help you help your children stop procrastinating. It'll help you, if you're a teacher, help your students stop procrastinating if you understand this principle.
So, uh, this is you. These are the facts, and you observe the facts. Maybe you see them, maybe you hear them. And when you observe the facts, the very first thing you do is you put a frame around the facts. And that frame has a positive aspect and a negative aspect. Now, the positive and negative aspect of the facts have to be there in order for the fact to be there. What does that even mean? What it means is there's no such thing as a purely positive fact, and there's no such thing as a purely negative fact.
And so, what happens when we put this frame around the fact is that frame is in the form of a focus in our head. And that focus in our head, if we're focused on the positive aspect of the fact, it makes us happy and or it energizes us so that we can go and take that action. But if we focus on the negative aspect of the fact, it makes us sad or some negative emotion, so we avoid, uh, whatever that activity is.
Now, as soon as I create a frame around the fact and I start focusing on either the positive or the negative, the first thing I do is I start building a belief. And it doesn't matter if the belief is true. It's my belief. People think that they believe things because they're true. But here's the reality: People think things are true because they believe them. And if you can become self-aware enough to know that the things that you are believing are true, uh, you're believing they're true because you think them rather than believe you think they're true because you believe them, rather than thinking that you believe them because they're true. Just be aware of that. And it may be true, but the reason you believe it is because you think it's true. Are y'all tracking?
>> Okay.
And so, the first thing I do when I f-focus on the fact, I focus on the fact in my head, then I develop in my mind, I develop a belief. And that belief also has a positive and a negative. If I'm focus-focused on the positive aspect of the fact, that belief manifests in my life as faith, which faith without works is dead. What does that mean? That means if I really believe something, I'm going to do something about it. But if I'm focusing on the negative aspect of the fact, then it's going to manifest a belief called doubt.
Now, here's the thing most people don't understand. Faith and doubt are both belief. Most people think that faith is belief and doubt is the absence of belief. But doubt is not the absence of belief. Faith is belief in the outcome I desire. Doubt is belief in the outcome I don't desire. And so, it's not that, well, a person who has faith doesn't have doubt. Everybody who has faith has doubt. You doubt the opposite of the thing you have faith in. And everybody who has doubt has faith. They have faith in the thing that's opposite of what they're doubting. And that's just how life works.
And so, what we have to do is we have to be, we have to be aware and hyper-intentional about what aspect of the facts we focus on, because the aspect of the facts we focus on causes us to believe things that affect outcomes in our lives. I, I, I really hope this, I hope y'all are wrapping your minds around what I'm saying.
And so, what happens? People don't, that's why you have, you ever heard the phrase, "If your attitude is right, the facts don't matter"? This is why. If your attitude is right, what, what kind of attitude do I need to have? Well, I need to have, I don't, I don't, I don't know about you. You have the kind of attitude you want to have. I need to have the kind of attitude where I'm focused on the positive aspect of the facts as often as possible, unless focusing on the positive aspect of the fact is going to put my life or health or family or finances or something that's important to me in jeopardy.
If, if focusing on the positive aspect of the fact does not somehow put me in jeopardy, how could focusing on a positive aspect of the fact? Let's say, um, somebody's breaking into my house and I think, "Oh, they're just breaking into my house 'cause they want to come say hi, right?" I'm focused on, that's that's a, that's an erroneous belief that could cause me harm, right? And I'm focused on the positive aspect of the fact. Now, is it possible that somebody could be breaking into my house because they want to come say hi? I mean, that possibility exists, but what's the likelihood? Not likely. Are y'all tracking?
Okay. So, when I focus on the positive aspect of the fact and I manifest a belief called faith, or I focus on a negative aspect of the fact and manifest a belief called doubt, what happens is this belief travels down into my heart and it produces a feeling in my heart. Did you know that feelings are the fuel of action? Did you hear what I just said? Feelings are the fuel of action.
What does that even mean? That means human beings are singularly motivated. People do what they do for one reason and one reason only, and that is because we feel like it. See, I woke up this morning at 5:00 when my alarm went off. I actually woke up a little before my alarm went off, seven minutes before my alarm went off, but I'm getting up at 5 anyway. I'm certainly not going to get up seven minutes early. And when my alarm clock went off, I did not push snooze. Why didn't I push snooze? Because I knew I had a limited amount of time to work out and then take a shower and get dressed and get here so that I could go live today on YouTube. I had a limited amount of time. And, and, and so, but I could have gone back to bed and skipped working out. But then that takes my objective that I'm working on to be able to hit my driver 300 yards, right? It pushes it further and further into the future. Or maybe it pushes it so far into the future that I'll never get it done. So I'm getting up and I'm working out, and this body is going to serve me. It is not the boss. I'm the boss. And so I got up. And so, why did I get up? Because I felt like the feeling that I had that if I get up and go work out, I'm going to eventually be able to hit 300-yard drives, right? I'll be able to hit my drives 300 yards. But if I don't get up, I'll keep dribbling it out there, 200, 200, 200. Yeah, but I'm, you're 64. You shouldn't want to. Okay, you do what you're going to do when you're 64. By the time I'm 65, I'm going to be hitting my drive 300 yards. Okay?
So, I get a feeling in my heart. Now, the feeling in my heart is going to be determined by the focus in my head, whether it's causing me to manifest faith or doubt. If while I'm focused on the as-aspect of positive aspect of the fact, I manufacture a belief called faith, then that faith is going to cause me to have a feeling called anticipation. Anticipation is the, it's, it's the energy I get when the outcome I expect is desirable to me. Like, if we could master building internal anticipation intentionally, it would change our lives forever. And, and by the way, most people have almost no practice. Most of the anticipation that we get, someone outside of us creates it. Like Apple is very good at creating anticipation for the new iPhone. But what if you were as good at creating anticipation for getting in shape, or for creating wealth for your family, or for whatever, getting a promotion at your job? What if you could have, what if you could build intentionally build as much pro-uh, intentionality or, uh, anticipation intentionally for that as you allow businesses and corporations to build for you? Like when you wake up and you pick up your phone and you start looking at TikTok, or you start looking at Facebook, or you start looking at Instagram, or you start looking at YouTube. What if you could build anticipation for things that move the needle in your life, like they've built anticipation in you for things that don't move the needle in your life? Okay, y'all track it.
And so, so anticipation is like that feeling you get on Christmas Eve when you know what you're getting and you're a little kid and your parents send you to bed early and you can't, you can't sleep. Why can't you sleep? Because you're being energized by your expectation of a magnificent future in less than 12 hours, right? Anticipation energizes us.
But if we're focus-focused on a negative aspect of the fact, then the feeling in our heart that we're going to manifest doubt, and the feeling in our heart is not going to be anticipation. It's going to be anxiety. Anxiety is the thief of our dreams. This is why Jesus said, "Be anxious over nothing." He said, "Be careful for nothing." I mean, he said, he said, "Have no," he said, "Have no, take no thought for tomorrow." That means don't be anxious about tomorrow. Why did he say that? Here's what he's saying: Jesus is saying, "Stop wasting today's energy worrying about tomorrow's problem."
And every time you feel yourself having anxiety over something, by the way, anxiety, let me show you what anxiety feels like. Your hands sweat, your heart palpitates, your breathing gets shallow, your mind races, and you're so exhausted you can't do anything but sit down. That's what anxiety is. Anticipation is the energy I get when the outcome I expect is desirable to me. But, and, but anxiety is wasting present energy. What is it? Wasting my present energy on a future outcome that's undesirable to me.
See, most people mislabel anxiety as fear. And if they, if they didn't get the diagnosis right, they can't find a cure. They mislabel anxiety as fear. They say, "Well, I have a fear of failure." There's no such thing. I have a fear of success. There's no such thing as that. I have a fear of rejection. There's no such thing. You say, "Oh, no. Yes, there is. I have it." No, you don't.
See, fear is caution over a real and present danger. So, last night, I went to my house to check out the progress that these contractors are making because I just got back in town yesterday. And when I came out of my house and came out to get in my car, I'm looking around and I had a little bit of hyper-awareness, fear. Why? Because my son-in-law had just filmed a bobcat outside his house, and I didn't have my gun on me. Oh, I probably shouldn't have said that on YouTube. And, and I, I thought about it, like, "What if a bobcat? I mean, it's so dark back there. A bobcat could see me, but I can't see him, right?" And then I saw a bobcat. I got, came in here one morning. I walked out my office. There's a bobcat at the door of one of those offices right down the street, right down in the parking lot. And so, so I, I came outside. I don't have my gun. Okay. So, so I had fear, but it was really anxiety because there was no bobcat there.
Now, if I hit my ball too close to an alligator and I go up and I didn't see the alligator because I'm so focused on golf, I didn't see the big green monster-like alligator, and all of a sudden I notice I'm right. That's not anxiety. That's fear. Why? Because there's a real and present danger. Fear is caution over a real and present danger. Anxiety is caution over a future imagined danger. So, I'm imagining a danger in the future so vividly that it causes a physical reaction in my body. Now, that's anxiety. Are y'all tracking?
Okay, cool. So, when I focus on the ne-positive aspect of the fact builds faith, feeling of anticipation. Negative aspect of the fact builds doubt, anxiety. And what, which feeling I have is going to determine. So the focus in my head creates a feeling in my heart, and the feeling in my heart produces a function in my hands. What's the function in my hands? Well, it depends. If I have anxiety, the function in my hands is, I mean, I'm sorry. If I have anticipation, the function in my hand is called power. I now have the power to act. This is how you overcome procrastination. You, instead of envisioning it not working, you envision it working. And if you can't envision it working, like if you're, "But I tried to envision it working, I couldn't do it." Sit down and write out every positive thing that's going to happen in your life when it happens, and then read it out loud. And I know this works because the, I'm telling myself a different story. And I realize that when I have anxiety, the reason I'm having it is because I'm seeing something negative in my mind's eye. But if I write something down intentionally and I read it out loud, I'm saying something positive in my ears. And doubt is created in the eyes, and faith is created in the ears. That's why it says David encouraged himself in the Lord. Are y'all tracking?
And so, when I have anticipation, I have power to act. I'm not procrastinating anymore. When I have anxiety, the function in my hand is called powerlessness. I, I don't have the power to take action. And that powerlessness causes me to say, "I'll do it later," when I have more power and I have more anticipation and I have more faith because I'm going to be focused on a positive aspect of the fact. And I don't even know that I'm doing that. All of those things I am doing unconsciously. But what if I start doing all of these things consciously?
If, well, here's what happens. If I'm a writer, I'll never have writer's block again. Because writer's block is actually expecting the book not to sell. If you knew you're going to sell a million copies next week, you get the book done yesterday. Well, I'm procrastinating. I'm procrastinating doing my sales presentation. You're not. I have a procrastination problem when it comes to my sales. No, you don't. What you have is an expectation problem, and you're expecting people not to buy, and you desire them to buy. So, one of the things that I did to free myself from that is I stopped desiring people to buy. And I just became aware, if I talk to enough people and I do a presentation in front of enough people, some of them will buy. And so, I now don't have to hope somebody buys. I know someone will, because the law of averages makes it so. Even if I have a terrible presentation, if I do enough presentations, somebody's going to buy. I know. I've seen plenty of pre-terrible presentations that made sales. Yes.
And so, all I'm saying is stop putting off your future until tomorrow, because the reality is there's no such thing as tomorrow. It's always today. And so, to overcome procrastination, I become hyper-intentional about my focus. And then for me, it becomes now o'clock. And I go from excuse maker to action taker, and I get it done now. Thanks for watching.