Mastering the Mindset
Mastering the Mindset
Procrastination to Progress: 6 Steps
Are you finding yourself constantly putting off tasks and seeking instant gratification? Rest assured, you're not alone. Procrastination is a universal struggle, but it's time we stop viewing it as the enemy. Let's dive deep into the root causes behind this notorious productivity-killer. By acknowledging your procrastination and understanding its triggers, it's possible to trick your brain into finding gratification in action. I give you some practical, step-by-step guidance to help you break down overwhelming tasks into manageable parts.
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What's up everybody and thank you for listening to Mastering the Mindset. My name is Darius Dodge and I'm an actor, hip-hop artist and fitness and life coach, and I'm here to personally help you train and improve your mindset so that you can, one, become the best version of yourself mentally and, two, gain focus and motivation to be able to take action and achieve the success in life that you want and deserve. Before we get started, please like and subscribe to my channel and at the end of this episode, if you liked it, please share it with a friend or a loved one or someone who would benefit from hearing this message. I'm so glad you're here and I'm ready to go on this journey with you, and that journey begins now. Hey, you made it back for another episode. Thank you all for listening to me today. If you are on YouTube, go ahead and like and subscribe to the channel. If you're on a podcast platform, do me a favor and leave me a review. Also, please become a supporter of the podcast. You can be a monthly supporter. You get to choose the amount either three, five, eight or ten dollars. It will help me keep this podcast going and I thank you in the veins. It's truly appreciated and thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, let's get to it. It's going to be a straightforward one today.
Speaker 1:Today, let's talk about how to overcome procrastination. We all do it. Even when we know it's the exact opposite thing we should be doing at that moment, we still do it. So let's talk about it. I'm going to give you a step-by-step guide on how to get rid of it. I'm going to give you six steps. So why does procrastination procrastination I can't even say the word. Why does it exist? Why do we do it? Because it's literally the killer of productivity. It steals our time, and one of the main things that holds people back is the fact that they decide to procrastinate. And I say decide, even though it can be an unconscious decision, but it's a decision that we make. It's our decision. We could choose to do something else or we could choose to take action. There's nothing physically making it impossible for us to take that action. We decided to do it and to get the life we want, we got to decide not to procrastinate.
Speaker 1:If you want to finish that project you started, instead of procrastinating and spending a bunch of time on Instagram, you're going to decide to get your butt up and make it happen. Take the steps. If you want to lose weight, instead of getting up in the morning or coming home at the work and doing nothing, you're going to go to the gym. You're going to put in that work and work out. You're going to have to change up the way you eat. And again, we all do it.
Speaker 1:You ain't special. Everybody does it, no guilt. Don't shame yourself. You ain't the only one.
Speaker 1:We all procrastinate to some degree. It's just easy. It's easier to not do something than it is to do it. It's just human nature to take the easy route. And you may be the kind of person that say, hey, I don't do the easy route, but the fact that it has to be a conscious effort that tells you all you need to know about it. You naturally want to do it. You have to force yourself not to procrastinate, and procrastination it really is. It's a setup you set up as a human to naturally procrastinate. We delay tasks because it's easy not to do something. Or we do something that's easy, like scroll on social media. That's easy as hell, way easier than it is to go to the gym or working on that project or working on that business, right? So let's talk about how we can turn this thing around and be able to get a hold of it. Right, so let's talk about how we can turn this, turn this thing around and be able to get a hold of it.
Speaker 1:So first let's talk about procrastination itself, and the first thing I'm saying is procrastination really ain't the problem, it's the symptom. The cause of the procrastination is the problem. For example, let's say you have to write a PowerPoint presentation for work and you got to present it. And let's say you afraid of messing up in front of your boss and afraid of public speaking. That's the problem. That's the actual cause of the symptom you get, which is the procrastination. It ain't something you looking forward to doing.
Speaker 1:Like me and most men I can't speak for all men, so I'll say a lot of men, I procrastinate on Christmas shopping. Men generally don't enjoy shopping the same way women do. It's more of a chore for men. A to-do list, checkoff and yep, we know the longer that we wait, the harder it will be on us, because more folks will be out and about and in the way stores going to be packed, a lot of things might be sold out. And guess what? I know me, I still ain't going Christmas shopping yet and I won't go until the week of Christmas. I do it every year. The problem for me is we just don't enjoy shopping the same way women do. So when you find yourself procrastinating, ask yourself what is the root of this? What's causing me not to do the things I know I need to do right now? And a lot of times, yes, it's the actual work itself. It's easy not to do the work. It's easy not to want to do the work.
Speaker 1:You have a procrastinator on making a tough phone call. Maybe you had to break up with somebody. Maybe you had to tell somebody that whatever they've been doing ain't OK, no more the way they talk to you, the things y'all used to do together, your new boundaries. You have now those uncomfortable conversations you just need to have. Those are the reasons. Those are the actual problems Excuse me and the problems they create the procrastination.
Speaker 1:Procrastination also is a lot of times unconscious, because you could be procrastinating for hours, hell, even days, before you realize that you're even procrastinating. All of a sudden you look up and you realize, well damn, I ain't been doing what I know I need to do. It can be the laundry, a book report, grading papers, taking out the trash. The mind is going to want to avoid that discomfort of doing it. So the mind finds ways to delay it. The mind wants to just chill. I don't want to do anything. And the little voice starts to whisper to you and say I'll just do it later, I don't feel like doing this right now.
Speaker 1:And what it boils down to in a more sophisticated explanation, it's a struggle between our present selves, which wants that instant gratification, and our future selves, which value long term rewards, rewards that come from delayed gratification. Your future self knows we're putting in that work towards creating that business or towards going back to school for that degree. Your future self knows it's going to set your life up to be a better one than what you have right now. It knows that the delayed gratification is way more worth it. But your present self want to take a nap. Your present self want to play Candy Crush. Your present self want to watch Netflix. It wants that instant gratification.
Speaker 1:So how do we find a loophole? How do we give our brains, our present selves, what it wants, that instant gratification from taking action? How do we get there? And keep listening, we're gonna get there. I'm gonna give you a little hack to be able to get your present self to do this, but you have to be intentional. If you ain't intentional, you're gonna go the easy route. Almost every time, like I said, you might be the person who decided that the easy route ain't for you. Or maybe you got certain things you decided that you would never go the easy route on. If that's true, then you know that it's a decision that has to be intentional, because, if not, the alternative is your brain basically talking yourself out of doing the thing that it needs to do right now, even when you know you absolutely should be doing it right now.
Speaker 1:And researchers came up with a name for this, and I love this phrase or the name for whatever it is it's called temporal discounting. Temporal discounting, where the present self tends to undermine the future self's goals. Your present self underestimates your future self's goals. You undermine what it is you need to do in order to reach that goal you want to hit. And let me just read this definition to you verbatim. Temporal discounting refers to the phenomenon in which the subjective value of some reward loses its magnitude when the given reward is delayed. The phenomenon in which the subjective value of some reward loses its magnitude when the given reward is delayed. And this makes a lot of sense, but it's wordy and nobody finna be like, oh damn, you still ain't read that book yet. What happened? Oh yeah, man, the value of the reward of reading that book lost its magnitude, since me actually reading it would delay that reward, yeah, no.
Speaker 1:So anyway, let's dive in Six steps to overcome procrastination. So the first step is acknowledge it, recognize that you procrastinate. That is something that you do, and this might sound easy enough, but a lot of times procrastination can disguise itself. You can trick yourself into procrastinating and you think, oh, I'm just taking a break, or I'm waiting for the right move, I'm waiting for the motivation to hit me, or I'm not where I need to be financially, or I'm mentally tired right now. And sometimes it's really true. Sometimes it's not really procrastination, but again our brains want to take the easy route. A lot of times you're going to feel that resistance.
Speaker 1:A good example for me is church. I go to church every Sunday morning. Well, I try to go to church every Sunday morning. I don't miss many, but Sunday mornings, those are the hardest days to get up. Boy the devil be working overtime, early Sunday morning. Those are the mornings when my brain get the loudest. I'm tired, I'm running late. I'm just catch it online. I'm so tired I'm being church, falling asleep. I got so much to get done by tomorrow. I need to stay home and get things done and my brain hits me with all that resistance when in reality, a Sunday morning ain't no different than any other morning. I get up early to get stuff done or have to go to a gig early in the morning.
Speaker 1:Same thing with procrastination A lot of times. If it was any old regular day where you had other things to do that you normally do on a regular day, your brain don't start hitting you with all that BS. That voice gets louder when it knows you have to do certain things. So acknowledge it, recognize it. If you find yourself consistently delaying things that don't give you instant gratification, the tasks you need to complete steps, the things you need to do in order to get that benefit, that's way down the road. If you notice that you normally put those things off, pretty good chance that you just are procrastinating. So just admit it you are, we all are, we all do it. So recognize it, acknowledge it, don't be in denial about it, don't lie about it, don't let it trick you. And once you do, then you can get to the next steps. So that's one Acknowledge it. Number two understand your triggers. And trigger feels kind of dramatic, but you know what I'm getting at.
Speaker 1:Understand what causes you to procrastinate. For some folks it might be the fear of failure. You want to start that business, you want to do that thing, take that class and out of your subconscious fear of failing or looking stupid and not being good at it or being judged, you start to procrastinate. Or maybe for you it's the actual lack of immediate gratification. You just want immediate gratification. That long, boring explanation of procrastination is going on in your brain and that's a big one.
Speaker 1:In the world we live in, our brains are trained to immediately get what we want. We don't have to get up and go to the movie theater, no more. Everybody's selling quick fad diets or 30 minute workouts are supposed to make you lose weight quick. So many things these days that are just so immediate and don't take time at all, and research shows that our attention spans are the lowest it's ever been. So the videos and clips and reels you see on social media that get the most views. They're all short. We only watch something on average on social media for like six seconds. Six seconds and that's only if it catches your attention. After the first two and a half seconds it's that instant gratification of knowing that if you just keep scrolling, the videos won't stop. We get instant gratification from fast food, microwave dinners, amazon Prime bring you stuff in two days. Remember how it used to be when you had to wait for packages for weeks? Hell, remember mailing letters? I can't tell you the last time I put a letter in the mail.
Speaker 1:Our brains are trained to get what we want right away. So is delayed gratification one of your triggers. Identify what they are and when you do, you can start to put a plan or make a plan for next time. So, ok, I'm procrastinating. Why am I doing it? Am I afraid of something? Is it because the thing I want won't happen for a long time? Is the action I need to take outside my comfort zone? Are the actions hard? Do I have to do a bunch of learning? Or the actions I need to take a lot of work and I just want to be comfortable and lazy right now?
Speaker 1:Are you triggered because you start thinking about all the things you got to do today and you start thinking about it all at once. That can cause paralysis by analysis. Right, have those plans prepared so after you recognize it, you can take the action whatever it is. Whatever that plan you have is Me, I count it down and I don't think about it, I just get my butt up. I go five, four, three, two, one and I just go Try it. But you got to commit to it. Give yourself that countdown and get your butt up. So that's number two Understand your triggers. What is causing this procrastination?
Speaker 1:The third thing is break down your task, take those steps and break it down into smaller, more manageable parts, and this is so important. It's a sneaky way to kind of trick your brain. A lot of times we procrastinate because we start thinking about everything. Our brains start thinking about all the things all at once, everything. Our brains start thinking about all the things all at once. You might think about selling your merchandise and you think about what the next 10 years of every single thing you got to do is going to look like, when in reality, all you have in front of you is the next hour. But you think about all that stuff in the future and it gets overwhelming or it feels like a lot Right and your brain again it wants to revert back to comfort, to easy comfort. Next thing you know you're on social media scrolling away, you get distracted by something and you don't take action. So break those tasks down. It'll help you stay away from paralysis by analysis and make it seem less of a huge thing to do.
Speaker 1:And when you break down these tasks, when you get to crossing them off your list, it's going to make you feel good, it's going to give you momentum because look at you, you getting stuff done, you putting in the work, and the more you check off those small tasks is going to lead up to you checking off that big task, that big step that you have to take. You need to get a business proposal ready. Well, sit down, think OK, that's a lot, a lot of things need to be thought out, to be taken into consideration, written out, researched, all that. And you break it into smaller parts. You say, ok, one step, research it, research other business proposals, that's one step, one task. Breaking down finances could be another step. Breaking down the operational side of it can be another step. Making a rough draft can be one step. Editing half the draft can be another step, and so on and so on.
Speaker 1:Clearly, I've never made a business proposal, but you get what I'm getting at. So it's still creating that proposal, but you're breaking it down and again, as you check them off, you feel some accomplishment along the way and that little dopamine you get from that task being completed is going to make you want to do more and you end up keeping it going. So make those tasks less intimidating, right? That's number three. Break those tasks down. Number four, which is my favorite one time management. Get better at it. And we say all the time, we all say this I don't have enough time, I'm too busy, I don't have the time for that, I'm way too busy to start this. But I guarantee if I followed you around all day, every minute, for the next week, I bet I'll be able to find several hours in your week, hours that you BS around and don't even realize you're doing it.
Speaker 1:Use time management techniques and I've done plenty of episodes on this, so I won't go too far in depth on it. But one of them is the Pomodoro technique 25 minutes on and five, five minutes off, and you repeat that until the task is done. That's literally what I'm doing right now, creating this episode. I set my timer for 25 minutes. I'll focus on nothing but this task. Once that timer goes off, I set my timer for five minutes and do nothing, and I repeat that until I'm done another one. The one I use every day is time blocking. That's when you say, ok, from 8 to 930, I'm doing this from 945 to 1045. I'm doing that from 1130 to one. I'm working on this and you plan your time that way. You ain't wasting time trying to figure out what step to take next.
Speaker 1:Another one is task batching. That's when you group similar tasks and do a bunch at one time. Like for me when I first started to get all my workout videos together, I would batch, record single muscle groups at a time. So first I would only work on back exercises, then next would be chest, I would do biceps next, then move on the legs, and so on and so on. Right, instead of going from one machine to the next and randomly recording muscle groups. Right. Then I edited them the same way edited all the back videos, then move on to biceps. Once that was done, the next one, and so on and so on. So you can task batch and you can also use a combination. I task batch and time block all the time I'm time blocking and using the pomodoro technique. Right now you can task batch and pomod. All the time I'm time blocking and using the Pomodoro technique. Right now you can task batch and Pomodoro technique. That's a good combination.
Speaker 1:The point is get better at time management. Don't just say, ok, let's go to work. No, give yourself some structure, because without that structure it's way easier to get distracted and once you get distracted you open the door for procrastination. These time management methods help you be more focused and protect you from paralysis by analysis and getting burnt out. So that's number four Be better at time management.
Speaker 1:Five get specific with your goals. When goals are too vague, then they get muddy with what we actually need to do and it's easy to procrastinate. For example, when you're making your to do list, instead of putting down writing report or write report, that can mean a lot of different things. Instead, say something like finish writing intro to report by 1030 am. That's specific. It's easy to know what exactly your task is and you have a time frame, a time frame that you want to get it done by. So, instead of saying work on business, say, create two email lists and write main page bio from noon to three. That's way less vague. You won't be wasting your time going back and forth with your brain on what it is you should be doing. So set specific and achievable goals. That's five. And step number six reward yourself. And this is a little hack I was talking about earlier.
Speaker 1:Your present self wants the instant gratification, so reward yourself. How can you do that? How can you give yourself immediate gratification? Well, as soon as you get something done, when you check off something from that list, when you get something completed, reward yourself. It could be a cup of coffee, it could be a piece of chocolate, it could be 10 minutes of scrolling online. It could be a cup of coffee, it could be a piece of chocolate, it could be 10 minutes of scrolling online. It could be you literally having a mini celebration with yourself. Hop yourself up. I do that all the time, every day. Every time I cross off my to do list, I'm like let's go, we getting it, baby.
Speaker 1:So I'm talking about the way I celebrate my workouts is I have a smoothie. I love the protein smoothies. I make frozen strawberries and bananas with protein and almond milk. Good, so good. That's my reward for finishing my workout. So how do you reward yourself? And when you do, your brain is going to release dopamine. It's going to feel good and you're going to want more. We crave dopamine, that's a fact. That feel good feeling, we crave that. And since you want more, that means you're going to do more.
Speaker 1:Reward yourself when you accomplish those tasks Could be a break, some kind of treat, a guilty pleasure that you can feel not so guilty about since you had a productive day. It could be a lot of things. Reward yourself. So that's it the six different steps to getting over your procrastination. So that's it the six different steps to getting over your procrastination. One acknowledge it to understand what they are. Three break down those tasks for use time management strategies. Five get specific with those tasks and goals and don't be vague. And six reward yourself and that's it. Straightforward and something to follow. And again, we all do it. It's not impossible to get over this. Once you understand the root of it, you know what your triggers are, you use strategic steps to get past it, you will see a difference. But it takes time, it takes effort, it takes attention and it takes intention. So that's what I got for you today.
Speaker 1:Thank you all again for being here. Please go ahead and become a monthly supporter Again. You can choose the amount. It can be three, five, eight or ten dollars. Greatly appreciate it. Let's go ahead and ride out today. Today the song is going to be. I'm going to give you another unreleased song. I've put it on here before but it's been a while. The song is called Opening Night For all my theater folks. You will appreciate this. Anybody can appreciate it, but you know it's kind of my interpretation of what it means to be going through the rehearsal process and the show process and what that does to an actor. Anyway, thank you for being here again and let's ride out.
Speaker 1:Yes, look, I decided to take a leap of faith and I never landed. I'm fly as a bird, I'm high as ever and highly favored, but it wasn't my time to shine. So I waited my turn, sat back and observed, yeah, and I got to work. And before I sign on your dotted line, put some respect on my check. Yeah, cause I know my worth. I don't want much, only what I deserve. I ride that beat like I ride in a hearse. I buy the bag of beat Boy. I come with this heat you might need to earn. I let it burn and as long as my family proud, I'm sitting here laughing Just like my daddy, cause we go grind, you know we go work Long as he proud of. That's all that matter. But all your chitchatting was not my concern. Never no negative words from her. She probably insulted me cause she got curved. You probably thought he was finished and done. You started to doubt me. I promise. It made me go hard as ever.
Speaker 1:Open the night. I gotta buy me an opening fit man. I hope I don't splurge. I'm reaching heights. I know eventually I gotta fall. I hope it don't hurt. Hoping I don't stay down on with me. Dog, you know what you right Ain't seen her in a while. She know what's on site. She know that I'm busy. As soon as I finally get that day off, she get the whole night Almost time.
Speaker 1:This is the night Clearing my mind. I'm finna get right. Yes, yes, hoping. I shine. They shit is the best. I got this weight on my chest. I'm pushing it off me, promise you, that's not a flex. Yes, yes, damn. But you gotta be so analytic. All you gotta say is you don't get it out here acting like a critic. Yes, I'm done trying to prove to y'all that I've been gifted. Half of y'all ain't know I existed. Now my name be selling tickets. Yes, I'm thankful to myself. I stay committed and I'm sorry if I've been distant. I hope you don't get it twisted. I don't have hate in my spirit, I only hate flying spirit.
Speaker 1:Open the night we've been sipping. I hope I'm still coherent. Yes, standing ovation, a big celebration. Pick up your libation. I'm making a toast. I put in hours and hours perfecting my craft To make sure I give you the most. I make it look easy, but trust and believe me, if you tried to beat settle, I want to do better. A whole, nother level. I'm talking about growth. It's open at night and not enough space to type the way I feel in this post. Think about friends and all the partners. I miss them places that I couldn't go. Sorry, but I gotta miss it. I'll be there in spirit. Damn, I feel like a ghost. I hit the stage and I float. Thank you.