procrastination is a common problem that affects people of all ages it's the act of delaying activities that should be done in a timely manner and procrastination can have a negative impact on your life leading to missed deadlines poor performance even health conditions some of us do it more than others others do it so bad like this dude on Reddit who said he wrote the last page of his 12-page final essay via text to speech on the drive to class where I handed it in and if you ask Reddit guy why do you procrastinate he'll probably say things like I'm lazy I have poor time management I'm a perfectionist none of those are the real reason that's what we're talking about in today's video we're talking about the root the real hidden reason why you procrastinate the very first thing you have to realize procrastination is actually a protection mechanism protection mechanism what do you mean there's a part in your brain called the amygdala this is responsible for fight flights or freeze so if procrastination is not the real problem what is either could call it a bunch of things for Simplicity let's label it as anxiety anxiety I don't have an anxiety issue what are you talking about well stay with me here let's unpack see anytime you're about to do something that has a fear of looking stupid rejection or failure your amygdala in your brain the fight flight or freezes firing off like crazy let's take a simple example of applying for a job damn I need a new job you know I really need to make some more money but you know if I apply for this job then I have to interview and I might get rejected or I might look stupid or hell I might even get the job uh I'm not qualified for it and then they'll find out and fire me on the spot and I'll be back here on square one and you know it's all really a waste so why even bother at some level that's the subconscious mind firing off for you to protect you in that situation not applying or applying for a job has nothing to do with laziness so how do we fix this this is where things get really cool and once I learned this things took a lot less effort got a lot more fun [Music] let me ask you a bit of a rhetorical question what is the opposite of hot you would say it's cold what is the opposite of cold you would say it's hot but here's the thing when does hot start becoming cold 50 degrees 40 degrees 39 degrees 38 you can't really put a definite point on that it's a sliding scale that's because hot and cold in this example are the same thing on a spectrum temperature so if anxiety and fear is your roots what spectrum is that emotion on right you feel the procrastination come up your amygdala is firing off fight flight or freeze that's an emotion you're experiencing what is the opposite of that it's excitement excitement and anxiety are on the same Spectrum the same emotion just manifested differently in you you can be anxious about working out or you can be excited to transform your body you can be anxious about dating meeting someone or you can be excited to find someone that you Vibe with and you get to spend a lot of time with you can be anxious and fearful of work and procrastinate or you can be excited to crush a project anxiety is all about looking at the future and doing a negative visualization of all the things that could go wrong and so of course you procrastinate on that you don't want it to go wrong but excitement is looking at the future and seeing the possibilities that could go right and once you tap into that you're motivated [Music] here's a quick story to tie this point together for you I've been on YouTube now for over 10 years I remember when I was getting started I had a lot of fear around creating videos creating content and it was because I felt that I had to do things perfect I had to be perfect I had to say the perfect lines I had to recite it and then I'd post it and get like 200 views and I'm like what's the point and you know what happened as a result of that energy it was Flatline growth for like two three years and it was brutal it was a grind which side point very common term you hear entrepreneurs use oh I'm grinding so hard well just think about that word grind do you really want to be grinding like if you have a salt shaker what do you do to that you grind it down to the smallest possible kernel that's what you're doing to yourself when you're grinding I felt ground down but then I said if I'm gonna quit why don't I approach this with a totally different energy why don't I only make content that I'm like genuinely excited about things that I was curious on things that I could talk about with minimal prep and that just felt right from the core and after doing that in late 2019 early 2020 that's when we started to experience the hockey stick growth and I'm not saying that's a brag I'm not saying that to flex but we reached over a million subscribers because I was able to go from Force into power from anxiety about the content to genuine excitement and once you do that the procrastination dissipates and you're amp to do it remember procrastination is an anxiety symptom it's about looking at the future and seeing what could go wrong next time you need to catch yourself flip it get excited up into that in some way by focusing on what could go right how it could benefit you and others and so even though you don't have it yet you have to find a way to tap into that excitement and it will come [Music] now let's tackle the myth that procrastination is a lazy person's problem I procrastinate you know I'm just lazy I have no willpower no motivation that's not actually true because the people who struggle with procrastination the most if you read about this PhD students Engineers entrepreneurs people who have a lot a lot of high stakes responsibilities and pressure being lazy is caring too little but you might procrastinate because of the opposite you care too much you know what another word for procrastinator is perfectionist sometimes people use this as like a badge of honor like oh I'm just I'm a perfectionist man you know I used to say the same thing and then I realized being a perfectionist is the laziest thing you can be once you realize this it'll set you free being a perfectionist gives you an easy out to not try to not do anything to do a little so you're not judged the way you get over procrastination and perfectionism which are kind of the same thing is by releasing control by letting go you can't control the outcome especially if you're making art you just can't it might be great it might suck it might get tons of praise it might go radio silent you might fail you might look amazing [Music] so what's the way around this one of my favorite little anecdote studies on this comes out of atomic habits it's the story about a photography Professor on the first day of class he splits his class into two groups the quantity group where they he said hey go take as many photos as possible if you submit a hundred you'll get an a 90 you'll get a B you know 70 is a c so on so forth but then you have the other side of the class these were the Quality Group he's like look don't care how many photos you submit you're only going to be graded on your best singular photo but it's got to be perfect light composition dialed exposure unlock which side of the class do you think had better results and received higher grades at the end of the semester it wasn't the Quality Group because they had so much pressure and control and they were perfectionist over their one little photo that they had to submit it was the Quality Group because they were messing around they were having fun they were just pumping out content and that actual quali quantity led to the Quality so if you're at the start of anything or you're procrastinating find a way to just get in that quantity Camp there's a lot of people watching who probably want to be doing something like this or content yes teenagers what they want to do when they grow up it has to do with content I want to be a podcaster I want to be a YouTuber I want to be a tick talker but the only way you're gonna get that quality that you want you see other people is if you allow yourself to kind of suck at the beginning and next experiment with the quantity [Music] there was an author who talked about writing daily people are like well how do you deal with writer's block or how do you deal with procrastination he says it's really easy I just commit to writing two crappy Pages a day that's it these Pages can totally suck sometimes they suck less sometimes they're great but two crappy Pages a day is my bare minimum and it was only in doing that with the quantity that they got better post College I struggled a lot with going to the gym in college I wanted to be a fitness model an underwear model believe it or not that was my like highest aspiration I'm like dang if I can pose in some calvins on a magazine cover I've made it and so I would go into the gym and do these like hour and a half two hour bodybuilding workouts just grueling seven days a week and so after college I got so burnt out working out I was like I I can't do that anymore because in my mind I was like it's two hours of Max effort or it's nothing so I had procrastination around working out and I was experimenting with that what we're talking about here lowering your quota and I said you know what what if I just go into gym and I make the bare minimum instead of two hours why don't I make it a 15 minute sauna I love Sonic zero resistance to it I can sit in there every single day I love it so what I did is first thing I would do I would go into the sauna I would sit there 15 10 minutes didn't matter and if I wanted to leave after I could nine times out of ten I would I found myself on the gym floor doing some weights I'm like I didn't get dressed up for nothing I might as well and go out I might as well go out there and lift some iron and it was in that way I was able to get over my perfectionism of it has to be two hours or Nothing by lowering the quota the point here is that understand your procrastination is causing the resistance and that's because of anxiety and it's normally anxiety around it has to be this big thing so by making it a smaller thing you're able to step into that quantity group instead of the big thing of quality also understand that when you have anxiety around something that's the root of your procrastination it's because you're seeing something go going wrong anxiety in the future and if you want to get rid of that flip it it's on the same Spectrum hot cold anxiety procrastination tap into the excitement and that's about looking at your future of what you're procrastinating on and seeing it go right tap into as much excitement as you can and watch your procrastination start to fade away if you want our help on this a link down below where you can speak to one of our coaches for free we have a 10-week program and week number four is all about this removing your procrastination getting out of your own way untapping your potentials so you're free to focus and move towards what you want now now that you know what procrastination is you're ready to be productive but not just any productivity hacks out there I'll link up this video right here it's the best productivity advice no one ever told you we're gonna Deep dive in there and how by doing less you can actually tap into doing more I'll see you there