 The secret to success is to consistently do worthwhile things that lead you to your goals, right? But what's in the way? Primarily your emotions are in the way and the secret to consistently doing worthwhile tasks is to reform your emotions for those tasks. So that you don't procrastinate anymore, so that you don't resist them and avoid them and find the many, many possible excuses we have to not do them. Oh, because somebody else needs my help. Now, I'm not saying you don't help other people. Obviously you do and people do need your help and you do need to help them, but boundaries and planning and having time where you actually are taking actions towards worthwhile tasks, you can plan the time, but you might still be avoiding them and your brain is so subtly tricky. It is so genius at making you feel like something else is more important than whatever it is that you've planned to do, right? So here in this video I want to share with you a method to reform your emotions to any worthwhile task to essentially bring joy into any activity. So the secret starts with this framework called deliberate practice. Now, this was popularized by an author, a scientist named Anders Erickson. I think that's his name, correct me if I'm wrong below. And he studied, you know, I think he studied violinists, so, you know, elite musicians who are performing at the highest levels. And he saw that the ones who got the most benefit out of their practice because they practiced hours a day, but not every kind of practice is beneficial. Some people just kept playing the same passages wrong, you know, day after day, year after year. And some of them took a specific short passage and made sure they got it right. Just that might even just be like three seconds, something like that, or two seconds. And then they just made sure they got it right. And then they kept playing until there was a next passage that they're like, you know, I really could do this more skillfully. So then they practiced that next passage. Maybe it's a few seconds. Practice, get it right and practice it the right way. Again and again until it became muscle memory. Muscle memory. Muscle memory, what is that? That means you don't even think about it. It becomes instinctual to you. It just in that situation, when they're playing that passage, it just they naturally play it brilliantly because they practiced it so many times. And then they strung together those little passages, of course, into a brilliant masterpiece. And now they can play the entire thing very skillfully. So how do we implement their liberate practice into finding joy for any task? Well, essentially, the liberate practice, like I said, is creating muscle memory. And I'll give you another example where when I used to walk into the kitchen, it was very natural to open the snack drawer and get some junk food and eat that instead of something healthy. So I said, let me try the liberate practice and muscle memory to reform that habit. So what I did was I practiced walking, I walked into the kitchen, walked past the snack cabinet, opened the refrigerator, took out a carrot, you know, washed the carrot and took a bite. That's it. And then dried it up, put it back into the refrigerator, closed it, walked out of the refrigerator, walked out of the kitchen. So that entire exercise of getting the carrot, you know, watching it a little bit, taking a bite, drying it, and then putting it back, that took like what, two minutes, something like that. And so I did that two minute exercise two more times. So three times total, walked into the kitchen, got the carrot, took a bite, do it three times. And so my surprise, and maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. The next time that was like a day later or later, it was either later the afternoon or the day, the next day, when I walked into the kitchen to get a snack, I found myself being able to pause because I was like, wait, I, for, you know, months now I've been getting, getting some junk food, but okay, I suddenly actually don't need to open the snack drawer. I have a choice, choice moment here. And I realized, oh, I actually want to get something healthy. So I went to the refrigerator and got, so you see what happens is that what we, what we are essentially trying to do is to break our instinctual patterns that are not helpful or purposeful for our goals and the kind of life we want to live. If we can break those instinctual patterns and instead replace them with a helpful action, even if it's just three seconds or two minutes, whatever it may be, helpful action for just a very short amount of time, then we have a choice moment every time we come to that situation to be able to choose something better. So what I did, so I'm sorry, before I say about the joyful productivity thing, I want to give you one more example, which is from the research of Albert Bandura. He was a psychologist that was trying to help people reform habits. And he did this very radical study or laboratory research where he took a bunch of people who are scared of snakes. I don't know if any of you are scared of snakes. I think a lot of people are, but he took people who were certifiably scared of snakes. And he was able to transform them into handling snakes no problem. Now you might say, was that hypnosis? No, there was no hypnosis involved. It was, it was completely conscious. And here's how he did it. He got, he took, he had those fearful people first watch a television show where some people were handling snakes with calmness, even with fun, with interest, with curiosity. And, you know, they didn't have to handle any of the fearful people. They just had to watch a television show. And maybe at first they're like, Oh, but they kept watching that show maybe a few times until they're like, okay, watching the show. Like you practice. So the first step was helping them deliberately practice watching that show of the people handling the snakes without, without fear and with curiosity even with fun, with no problem. So now they've practiced watching that show several times and now they can watch a snake show with no problem. Great, wonderful. Now the next deliberate practice they did was to just be in the room where there are snakes in a glass container, just to be able to, to look at snakes there. Okay, just to be in the room. All right. And then they did that several times they walked in. Okay, I'm kind of scared right now there's snakes in the room. Okay, walk out, walked in. Okay, maybe this is not so bad walked out, walked in. Okay, I'm fine with hiding snakes in the glass container. It's no problem. Right. So progressive exposure, essentially. And then the next step, they practiced being in the room while someone else was handling the snakes. And now they're actually in the room watching someone handle the snakes. Just fine, no problem. You see, so they just kept practicing this deliberately until they were handling the snakes themselves. No problem. Wow, this is actually no big deal. And they practice it several times. Oh, it's no big deal. I can do this now. So essentially, that's what we can do with any task or activity that serves our purpose that we naturally resist or procrastinate about. So for you, maybe it's making videos, you get scared of making videos. Okay, well, then you need to watch someone like me make a video. I'm on Facebook. I'm actually making this on Facebook live right now. So I only get one take. I can make all the mistakes. I can, I can, you know, I can make mistakes, forget my train of thought, whatever. But I'm still here. And you notice I'm still okay. So I have lots of imperfect videos, right? Most of my videos are imperfect. Purposefully, because I want to show you all that I don't have to dress up. I don't have to do makeup. I don't have to have any special hair. I don't have, I mean, I'm grateful for a nice background, I guess, but you could use zoom to make your background nicer, whatever. It's like, I'm here to show you it's okay, you don't have to be scared of making videos. Same thing with writing. Some of you resist writing I have for most of my life. And if you know my story, I basically practiced progressive exposure to writing until I'm now able to write without writer's block. But that took a lot of practice. So what is it for you? Is it videos, making videos? Is it doing your taxes, doing bookkeeping? Is it reaching out to potential clients, potential referral sources? What is it that scares you? And do you realize that you can reform that by doing a deliberate practice of writing down specifically? Okay, let me practice. Step one is, you know, if I'm scared of sending out an email to a potential client, for example, then step one, I might practice, you know, opening up the email software and opening a blank message. Okay, that's it. And practicing doing that with calmness and with even curiosity and compassion. That's it. We're not sending anything yet. Right. And then practice that several times. And then you practice starting to write that message with calmness, with joy. If it's still scary for you, practice just the starting of the message with calmness and joy. Try that several times, three times. Really three times is all you need to practice to start kind of breaking some instinctual resistance and bad emotions about any task. Just three times. If you can practice more than three times in the same setting, sitting, that's great. Another example is how many of us, when we come to our computer, we automatically open up social media or we open up email to check the email. When we know it's probably more beneficial if we open up the computer and look at our calendar or prioritizer to-do list. So you can practice that. You can practice getting out of the room, coming back to your computer and before you open email or social media, you open up the calendar or you open up the to-do list and practice feeling joy and feeling gratitude for that moment. Okay, that was two minutes. Now go out of the room, come back to the computer, open, or now close the software before. Now open up the software again, practice joy and gratitude that you get to do something purposeful and then practice one more time. Now I'll give you my example of how I reformed my every single working session to practice more joy. So what I did was instead of coming to the computer and getting worked up right away and trying to do some project or solve some problems or whatever, the check email, whatever it may be, what I did was I practiced coming into the room, sitting down to the computer and doing my energy reboot for 30 seconds. And then opening up my calendar or my to-do list, just like I said before, and doing what's purposeful next for one minute, just for one minute, opening up the calendar. Okay, I'm supposed to be writing an article right now and then just start writing for one minute. Okay, and then stop. And then practicing this whole exercise again, walking out of the room, coming back, computer, energy reboot, opening up the calendar, looking at what I'm doing next, writing an article. Okay, and then practice writing for one minute in that state of more gratitude, more joy. So I did that three times. And not surprisingly, the next day when I came to work to be at the computer, I just instinctually had this mode of choice to go, oh wait, I can instead of checking email right now, I can go and open my calendar, see what I'm doing right now and do that thing. Well, first do my energy reboot, opening account, etc. So I hope that this is inspiring for you to realize that you are completely flexible. You can become anything you want to be. You can learn to enjoy any task that is purposeful and productive and helps you move towards your goals. You can learn to enjoy it. You don't have to discipline. I actually think of the word discipline in a positive light. I know a lot of you hate the word discipline because you have been brought up, trained, you deliberately practiced hating discipline or avoiding it or resisting it. And I actually, when I think of discipline, I think of joyful, deliberate practice, gentle practice. That's what I think of. And so with discipline, with joyful discipline, gentle discipline, self-discipline, not someone beating you, but you and not you beating yourself, but you gently practicing for three times, bringing joy to whatever bookkeeping, task, tax-doing, outreach, marketing, whatever it is that's not palatable to you, not fun for you, you can bring joy to that task. And that's what I invite you to do, looking at your to-do list, looking at your calendar. What do I procrastinate? What do I avoid? Well, let me practice bringing joy, just three minutes at a time. Imagining joy as you do that task and then try it again and then try it again. Just do it three times and see how that starts to change your emotional relationship to that task. And bit by bit, you can reform your relationship to any item on your to-do list. If you have a difficult time with technology, why do you have to frustrate yourself and like this, trying to figure out tech problems? No, you don't. You could do everything with joy. Everything can be done with gentle, calm joy. So if you have a tech problem, okay, practice. Oh, I have to figure out how to do this Facebook ads thing. Okay, instead of furrowed eyebrows and frustrating emotions and constricting whatever, I'll probably practice for one minute, approaching, opening up the Facebook ads manager and looking at these things and practicing breathing and joy. Okay, let me do it again. Close it, open it back up, breathe joy. Close it, open back up, breathe joy and just bit by bit. Okay, now I'm on to the next section of the Facebook ads manager. That's very confusing. Okay, close it, open it, open to that section, breathe joy, close it. You see what I mean? So with deliberate practice three times, you start to break the old emotional resistance towards something. And when you learn how to bring joy to every task like this, I now actually have a trigger point for myself. I've practiced this so much that I actually noticed throughout my day, I become aware quickly when I'm not in joy for a task. I'm like, I catch myself, wait, I'm not enjoying, I'm not enjoying this task right now. Let me stop, do my energy reboot and reform that relationship to that task. And like I said, if it's a difficult task, I might do the practice three times to start to relate to it in a more healthy and joyful way. I hope this is helpful. I'm George Cao, KAO, authentic business coach. And I love talking about this kind of stuff. How do we actually build and grow our business from a place of true heart connection to our spiritual path? And with continued practice, naturally comes success. I hope this is helpful. I'm always open to your comments. If you found this helpful, or if you have any questions, let me know below. And I will see you in the next video. Be well.