 So we're going to talk about why we backslide into old habits of procrastination. Imagine I was to give you a formula to completely overcome this negative behavior, this unhelpful behavior that so many of us go through. Imagine I gave you a really great solution for that and you know you implement it, you find it's working, it's working really well and you've put those those patterns behind you. Well what would cause a relapse, what would cause you to regress in that and that's what we're going to jump into here in this video. So a question I received recently which kind of addresses this comes from Rosa and Rosa says, David, I want to know why I slip back into old habits and patterns of self-sabotage and procrastination. I've been applying the ideas you've talked about in terms of overcoming procrastination and they've been a lifesaver which is lovely to hear. I was able to overcome my fear and completely overcome the issue. It worked and continued to work for a few months, then something went wrong and I drifted back into old patterns and finally Rosa says, I've recently come out of this thankfully and I'm back on track but why did this regression happen? I want to know so I can avoid future backsliding into that old way of doing things. It caused me so much pain and frustration. So we're going to delve into this, we're going to workshop it here a little bit so I want you to invest a little bit of your time with me here but I promise I'm going to give you a really insightful way to think about this. So in my book on procrastination there is very practical step-by-step guides about how you schedule time, what your priority should be, what the root issues of procrastination are. It'll help you understand it deeply and it'll help you with the practical steps of what does it look like when I actually go about changing this. So you can put those things into practice but there's another aspect that I talk about in the book and here also and that is about our mindset, our mentality. In fact the first half of the book is almost convincing you that you have to realize mindset is everything with this. So we're going to have to get to work on finding a better mindset for this. Don't get me wrong, it's not all mindset, there's the actual application of the practical stuff but if we're applying the practical stuff, applying that does changes and we ignore the mindset stuff. What you're going to notice is this regression will keep happening, will keep reverting back to the old way because nothing fundamentally has changed in the level of mindset and that's what this is all about. So I'm going to kind of give you some takeaway tips at the end about how you can actually foster that mindset, cultivate it and keep it so that we don't go into these regressions, this backsliding into the old habits and it's so painful and so frustrating when we're in those old ways of being. So a little bit of theory here but it's going to make sense. I'm going to give you an example of why this mindset we're looking for here is so so massively important. So here we are and we will notice that with procrastination, many other issues too, it's we find ourselves in a mindset that is in a war with itself. In fact one part of the mind wants to do something and the other part wants to do something else. On an even deeper level we notice that there's things we feel about ourselves that we don't like and there's things that we want to improve upon and become and that'll become more obvious here. One of the things when we have an issue with procrastination is we are in this achievement mindset. I must become an achiever, I have to achieve, I have to achieve and this is in the part of the mind I refer to as the persona. I didn't come up with the term persona, it's more of a carol young thing but I think it's a very useful concept for this. So one part of this is really attached to being an achiever and of course in our shadow, which is the counterpart to that mind, it's well really secretly I feel like I'm an underachiever and I really despise that and hate that about myself so I'm going to try everything I possibly can to become this achiever. Okay so we're attached to the achiever and we're trying to get rid of the underachiever. Another one is in the typical mindset we'll see. Someone with procrastination will come along and they'll say I want to be productive, I want to be desperate, I desperately want to be productive so we're deeply attached to that and of course that's because in our shadow we really hate the idea that we're lazy. Another example, I just want to be ready, I don't feel ready, I need to get ready, I'm not ready yet. You'll find that a lot with procrastination as well because in the shadow part it's just I hate the fact that I'm not ready, I'm not ready and it really bothers me. Now if we look at these it's right and wrong, good and bad and it's two conflicting parts of the mind and they're at war with each other and one hand we feel this underachiever, lazy, not ready feeling and we're desperately trying to achieve the other thing and my whole theory is we're trying to escape this mindset entirely because there's an alternative and I'll show you that now in a moment but if you look deeply at what it means to be an achiever it's actually not helpful. We're trying to become something that is not even any more helpful than an underachiever, in fact it's an underachiever in disguise as I'll point out here. If we look at the fine print what does it really mean to be an achiever if we're in if we have this issue of procrastination? Well that really means I'm going to struggle, I'm going to sacrifice myself, my happiness, I'm going to force things, I have to force it and I have to get control of everything. That is not what it means to be an achiever. I hope this isn't totally new news to you but if it is this is very liberating information you're learning here. This is not what it means to be an achiever. Let's look at productive. What could possibly be wrong with wanting to be productive? Well the paradigm that we find ourselves in often is I need to be busy, I need to overwhelm myself and I need to be stressed and if I'm not those things I'm not going to be productive. That is nothing to do with productivity. To be ready what could possibly be wrong with being ready? Well ready means I have to be perfect, I have to be invulnerable, I have to be completely guarded and prepared so that nothing ever goes wrong. Of course that's never ready and no one is ever ready if that's what ready means. So we're noticing here we feel stuck with procrastination and that's because we go back and forth between these two different states of mind persona shadow and achiever I'm an underachiever. I'm lazy, well I need to be productive. Well what does productive mean? I'm going to be busy, overwhelmed and stressed all the time. Is it any wonder we feel stuck? Neither of these are good options. Okay so this is an example of why we get stuck. Why learning about this stuff and finding an alternative mindset is so so vitally important to this whole issue of procrastination. Now what I want you to start to see you can you see those two pictures there it looks as if they're two different minds. I want you to start realizing and this is fundamentally important that these two minds these two split this split mind is actually one mindset because there's no real choice to be made it doesn't matter what you choose in that mindset you're going to experience you're going to be distressed you're going to be struggling you're going to feel stuck so actually while it looks it's like a split mind it's actually one mindset okay I just refer to it as the distressed mind and we want to get out of it as quickly as we possibly can and stay out of it. So let's look at what an alternative would look like and then what I call the alternative mindset we're looking for is a mindset in which I'm becoming very insightful I'm really understanding why this happens seeing things completely differently dropping these old attachments to being an achiever and all these things that didn't help me in the past and finding alternatives so what we do is we find we bring the whole paradigm of being an underachiever or an achiever and we bring on all the attachments that what it really means the fine print of it the whole concept of struggle sacrifice force control and we bring it to a new mindset and now we're making a real choice these are two separate mindsets that we're going to make a choice between what does it mean to be a true achiever it means I'm going to have fun with this I'm going to be creative this is going to be natural it's going to be effortless for me that's what it means to be a true achiever that mindset will bring you towards the achievement that you actually want as opposed to struggle sacrifice force and control right that's what I'm talking about let's look at the other one we're going to bring the entire concept of lazy productive which is only really means I'm going to be busy overwhelmed and stressed I'm going to bring that to a new interpretation of an existing concept I already have which is productive but to be truly productive means I'm going to do things that are doable I'm going to develop self trust so that when I say I do these small things I'm going to follow through and I'm going to really focus and develop in that self trust with myself I'm going to have unconditional rest or guilt free play in my calendar and my schedule that is truly productive right notice from the concepts of true achiever and true truly productive that we've looked at so far how often is your mindset in that kind of space okay or is it in the alternative the old one we want to get you out of that old one into this new one as quickly as we can not ready ready or I'm not ready I should be ready I should feel ready really all that means is to be perfect and vulnerable and guarded all the time and very defensive to be truly ready means to be open so rather than being ready I'm going to forget being ready I'm just going to become open this is an aspect of the insightful mind that I'm describing here what does truly open mean it means I'm going to learn from everything I do I'm going to experience new things I'm going to have a growth mindset and I'm going to love failure I'm going to learn that failure is a part that is success and I'm going to start embracing failure more and more and opens okay so those are a few of the that's a real distinction now you now you have two mindsets in which a real choice will be made if you started to choose fun creativity effort effortlessness things that are doable develop and self trust unconditional rest for yourself build free play see everything as an experience open to failure no such thing as mistakes that mindset is going to help you blast true procrastination issues if we don't train ourselves to be in this new mindset which is quite foreign to most of us right we hear you know the odd instagram post on it every now and then but then we're right back into our old mindset and if we dwell in that old mindset long enough those old habits are going to start coming back in no matter what the practical advice is it'll stay it'll start to make things worse for us so let's take a look here at something similar to that maybe two other attachments that will be in if we were in the distress mindset so again here well I want to be successful because I don't want to be a loser anymore okay so sounds good right success sounds better than to be a loser another one I need to become more powerful in my life as opposed to impotent or having or being powerless nobody wants to feel powerless well I want to be powerful until we start to look at the fine print of what these concepts really mean for most of us what what could possibly be wrong with being successful well if it means I'm better than or superior and that could be better than who I was yesterday superior to my old horrible loser self of last year right that's not going to help things okay we don't want to be throwing ourselves under the bus like that we want to be unconditionally supportive towards ourselves and of course also superior or better than other people who are those losers over there this is creating a sense of separation between us and other people and that's not going to be healthy for us another thing look at powerful what could possibly be wrong with being powerful powerful really quite often starts to mean I'm going to bully myself I'm going to control my behavior bravado I'm going to have an authoritarian attitude towards myself and maybe to other people right so if that's what powerful is it's not much better than powerless right in fact it really is powerless just in nicer clothes maybe so I want you to look at those two aspects this persona shadow we choose one and we're actually for strengthening the other and see it all as one mindset there is no real choice to be made when we're in that mindset we will feel stuck and we will not make progress certainly not long term so what we want to do again is just bring that entire paradigm of successful loser to which it really just means better than a superior we want to bring it to well what is true success true success is emotional mastery I could focus on that equality starting in my past self is good enough my present self is good enough my future self is no better it's going to be me and unconditionally unconditional positive regard for yourself and authenticity that's true success okay take take the power of impotent powerful all want to be powerful until we realize actually this means I'm going to be bullying myself we bring it to the truth self empowerment and what is self empowerment self empowerment means to become self aware to become centered much more self compassion for yourself that is truly empowering because compassion is very very powerful it's a very misunderstood concept there's a great deal of power in compassion self compassion so that is a genuine choice we have to make there so if we're talking about a solution here for this question we had and for anyone who's watching this video the reason we find ourselves regressing you with this even if you find something that works for a while is that this old mindset that we're trained in persona shadow good bad right wrong all those different things it is quite strong we're conditioned to be in it and our main job is to spend a little time every day training ourselves to think differently about our relationship to ourselves and our relationship to personal productivity if procrastination is an issue where you're refining your goals you're struggling with them so we need daily reminders about this new mindset now what I'm telling people is not really like a law of attraction store for affirmations or anything like that right this is simply focusing on a new philosophy focusing on a new ethos for your life okay so we need exposure to this cognitive frame of mind that we're going to be in if we're going to be in it right let me ask you this to make my point I've just spent some time there describing that new mindset right can you remember the concepts that were in it just I've just spent some time but I've gone back and looking at it again can you remember the concepts that were in that new mindset can you remember the new definitions already or maybe they've already started to leave your mind at this point that's because we are not used to thinking in those terms in that sort of a mindset so maybe that'll help make the point for some people who have forgotten it already okay it's true for me it's true for everybody else being in this new mindset requires some focus and attention on a daily basis and that's really what the first half of the whole book is about but so what what I would suggest on a practical level is okay do the practical things that are in the book we talk about setting boundaries guilt free play for yourself what happens when I don't follow through putting in consequences but in terms of the mindset stuff I talk about okay read my book read Neil Fiore's book write a mission statement or a story for yourself about your new ethos in terms of personal productivity and start to just look over it on a daily basis okay maybe you can make changes to it you can edit it but you want to have every day goes by you're checking in and you're thinking okay I just need to focus my mind in on a new mindset or a new approach that will help me overcome this a little example of it is shown here imagine you know you wake up and you're telling yourself I need to be successful I need to be powerful right old school affirmations those concepts are dangerous if it's in the wrong mind they're not going to be helpful so I would set off to write a new story based on these new definitions of those concepts it might look something like this I'm already successful productivity is simple for me it turns out that if I prioritize my rest and phone everything seems easy I feel happier to work now I don't need to make massive progress I know now that any movement forward is a massive success it's easy for me now I have so much free time and work seems like a privilege I have clear boundaries with my work I either do it or I stick to my boundaries I can't lose I'm empowered with my choices indecision is a thing of the past and I have so much energy and clarity now in my days now I wrote that in like two minutes but the point is you can write something like that in your own words something that speaks to you and it's just something that you check in with as like an ethos a new philosophy or a mission statement for yourself in terms of your mentality we're trying to get into this old this new mentality and one of the best things you can do to help that is look at your old mentality and come to terms with the fact that you know what the way I've been thinking about personal productivity up until now has not worked it hasn't worked for me okay now there's no you don't need to believe the new mindset I'm trying to tell you about that it's going to be helpful you look at the old mindset and look at how useful it's been so therefore you can discard that and come to this new mindset whenever you're going to make it be with a huge degree of open-mindedness and ability to give it a go once you have goals so you're not trying to manifest anything you're not trying to convince yourself you're just trying to let these new ideas seep in and let them have an influence on you because exposure to these ideas is very very important really because the old school mentality of personal productivity is everywhere right and it's very very easy to backslide into that so there's a few tips guys if you take away points and I would say keep working on your mindset with this doesn't take a lot of time just daily brief check-ins trying to cultivate this new mindset and then you can go into obviously the the practical planning stuff that I talk about in my course and my video and in my book and all those other practical steps that we talk about but if you do that I promise you you'll be much less likely to backslide into old habits so give the power of your mind some respect and realize that yeah it's going to be a power of it is to kind of reframe my thinking on this so I hope that really helps answer that person's question and um thanks for joining me here as always and I'll see you in the next video bye for now