 So someone asked me in a comment on one of the my videos to talk about my own experiences From when I was really really struggling with procrastination And of course, there's all those feelings that come with that of unworthiness and shame and guilt and stress, right? So, you know, I'm someone who has made a lot of videos. I wrote a book about procrastination And I think one of the things that helps people kind of resonate with it is the fact that I Struggled personally with this issue To a huge degree I Would be what I would classify now is having a chronic problem with procrastination It was really one of the main issues the big problems I had in my life So I'm going to talk here about like what did that look like for me? What kind of problems was I running into with it? Because when we do have this issue when it's not resolved it does lead to problems. Okay So an example will be well, let me just start off from the very beginning this issue kind of showed up for me more so in secondary school or high school as it's known in America and in high school really Everything I did was done at the last minute Okay, everything. I don't think I ever did anything proactively ahead of time And this was the thing that persisted all the way through my my high school experience And of course, you know when you're a younger person you have people in your life that are kind of keeping you accountable to a certain degree So it doesn't become that big of an issue. Although it is. I mean, there's huge amounts of energy I expanded worrying about things in conflict with myself. I should be doing this, but I'm not doing it so my entire experience in in school really in Second-level school was really kind of mired by this entire issue, right? But really when I got into university is when it started to show up to be a really chronic issue so again every single Assignment I did was late or now I did manage to get them done But it was never to the standard that I wanted it to be it was always I was just me doing enough to get by really is what I was doing Often I did get in into trouble for not having it done. I get into I take short cuts I would I would again I would would be late. It will be so standard. It will be poor work Now somehow again, I managed to get through that, but you know, it was showing up this issue in my life It's not just like it's this one issue, right? I remember for instance a friend of mine I had a big issue with like following through with plans any plan I would make I Would invariably failed to follow through in it. I remember one day a friend of mine. He he said to me Look tomorrow. We're going to get up early. We're going to go in and we're going to do some work And he made me promise to him that we would do that and I was to meet him there the next day I know in that moment when I was having that conversation with my friend. I Was like, yep, I will do that. I will be there tomorrow and in the moment When I was making that promise I Was seeing what I wanted to be true Rather than what I knew would be true and that's kind of a typical thing in procrastination We say and we almost convince ourselves that what we want to be true is the truth But of course the next day came and I completely blew it off. I didn't do it and You know I did that little little things like that would keep happening again and again Again, everything was done so par for me I remember I even started to go for like interviews and stuff for jobs and things and Again, I would go there, but like preparation work for the interview. I would do late It would always be just do something but never actually doing my best for it so it would start to like really show up in my life and have a negative impact on Opportunities for me really good opportunities. I think I've probably missed dozens of really good opportunities in my past Because I was dealing with that said this issue. Okay, now. I'm not trying to scare you here I'm going to get to the point of the point is yes procrastination does have a negative impact in on our lives But when we overcome it Things just change instantly. Okay in your life And you don't really care like I don't really care about those missed opportunities now The real great thing for me is that it's it's an issue that is in the past and The personal growth that has come for me in actually putting that issue into my past Okay, moving forward and not having it as an issue anymore shows I guess that I'm growing as a person That's really what we're here to do is to grow as people not necessarily about any of the opportunities that we miss Are you growing as a person? It's the real key issue here so Problems with saying I was going to do things wouldn't do them missed opportunities everything was done subpar and But the real problem with all the years of procrastination that I had Was I didn't feel good about myself at all My self-esteem was rock bottom really. Okay, again, I would get things done But it was never really what I wanted to do or I was capable to do it But it was this constant pattern of saying I'm going to do things even just to myself and not doing them It has this terrible effect of undermining I had I was undermining myself every time I did that And of course the more you undermine yourself The the worse yourself esteem the lower your confidence becomes the lower yourself trust becomes So I had no trust to myself my confidence and self-esteem were rock bottom, but it's so interesting to look now and see well You know, it's what it's why when I look at videos about like how to build confidence, you know, and you do this and you do that Really that the whole key as far as I'm concerned and building my myself confidence and my self-esteem Was to stop undermining it. I didn't actually have to do anything. I just had to stop doing something and Isn't that kind of for relief, you know, oh if I just stopped doing that It automatically improves and of course it did, you know, my self-esteem and my confidence went went way up when I did resolve this issue so in College, I kind of realized, okay, this is a problem I think I had actually suffered with it so much that I got to the point where I was like I Think it was more the self-confidence issue and the self-esteem issue that prompted me To try and change this issue, okay Now, of course, I did like what everybody else does and I start to look to self-help videos and self-help books and Some of them, you know, I would read those those books and it was like It was all kind of on the discipline model, right you have to develop discipline you have to do this And I remember I would like try and make these drastic changes. I would try and become an early riser That was a thing I was obsessed on for a while Of course, that didn't work because really all I was doing was more control over my own behavior Which if you know anything about my approach is is not really what it's all about And the other thing was, you know, I would try to implement this change to become an early riser and then of course I was going to be this great productive guy and I'd wake up late and then I had this other issue of procrastin or of perfectionism And I was like, well, I screwed up. What's the point now for the day that is ruined So I would go into this self-defeating kind of talk and well tomorrow I'll try again, I guess, but that day was a write-off So it was really this massive perfectionism thing that I had So I kind of had to give up on this whole idea of early rising, okay, because that was getting me nowhere But these self-help books were not helping me either, okay, this self-discipline thing You see my whole problem was I was very ambitious and I actually wanted to do well The discipline or the desire to do well was not missing in me Okay. In fact, it was this self-bullying stuff that I have been doing for all these years That was the real problem and I didn't need to be told to be more disciplined. I didn't need the tough love approach Okay, now I think Maybe some people need the tough love approach Maybe I think if at all and if at all people need the tough love It's maybe when they're younger and they need to be Really just given some some boundary issues about things but with behavior what's acceptable and what isn't But at a certain point, you know, we all are on the same page that yeah, discipline is important Yeah, but like reading the self-help book that was telling me that was not telling me anything I didn't already know in fact. It was actually making me feel worse about myself So that wasn't working and So I really I had got to the point where I was like, okay, look I'm struggling here. I've been struggling for a long long time with this issue I really want to find out what the issue is Now I remember the first thing I came across somebody said That the whole problem of procrastination Is that you believe you have to do things Now at the time that idea went into my mind and I found it really really kind of opened my mind a bit now it didn't change the the behavior at that point for me But it had put a little seed in there It was it was this kind of different approach that I hadn't heard before It was it was it was kind of pointing to this inner critic or this bully that was really really driving the behavior And the have to terms that it uses to intimidate us into behavior So I don't have to do things. I don't have to do anything was this kind of idea this philosophy that was was beginning to be a new philosophy for me So that was the philosophy part was kind of changing for me a little bit and then Neil Fiore's book and now what happened the He he introduced this concept I remember reading that book and I was almost at the point where I was going to give up I was like I'm fed up with these self-help books now. Nothing is working here But his his book was like you have things entirely upside down and back ways if you have a problem with procrastination your whole issue is that you're focusing on productivity and discipline and achievement and you're actually secretly resisting or Pushing away or not liking or judging the need to relax and have fun without an experience of guilt Now when I heard that it was like Okay, what does that look like on a practical level? So I started to implement a lot of the things Neil Fiore talks about scheduling in guilt-free play And now the issue was starting to actually clear up or I was actually starting to see real progress with this. I was actually enjoying myself more. I was feeling more valued as a person because work and achievement and The various projects that I had to work on were no longer the sole focus of my life, which they had been Even though I wasn't doing very well on them and I was struggling with them so much Now there was more balance with actually, you know what the priority here is for me to relax and Experience the the enjoyable parts of life without it being tainted by feelings of guilt So that was really working and another thing then I started to write it out myself I started journal on it and I started to write down little insights. I was having about the whole thing I started to do a lot of research on procrastination I was studying psychology. So I figured I may as well study something that's I'm kind of experiencing so Then I started to develop this thing about Developing trust with myself and this was all about okay I have a tendency here I've noticed all throughout my my life that I keep making elaborate promises to myself And maybe I'm not following through on many of those and maybe most of those sometimes all of those promises I was breaking So then the tendency became okay If I can develop more trust in myself, I really feel much more secure in myself So I really start to watch okay. Where am I making promises? And I started to realize I'm making way too many promises even just to myself So that I started to make very very few promises to myself And all promises I made from that point on that period on were very very small promises Okay, because I had been undermining myself for such a long period of time And because there were small doable achievable promises this trust in myself started to develop And Another thing I started to do was to realize okay There is this thing about momentum if I can get going if I can convince my nervous system to cooperate and move forward with me Then I'll really be getting places with this whole issue I'll really be actually enjoying my life more and actually moving forward on my goals and I started to develop this thing about um Developing a kind of an hour never attitude Which was much more about look if I make a promise and I don't follow through and itself trust is just so important to me That if that happens, I I have to just step away and regain some perspective on things Okay, so anytime I did break a promise I would say okay. This is essentially important here. What just happened Let me step away now from this. I'm not I'm not going to torture myself with indecision or procrastination for the rest of the day I'm actually just proactively stepping away from this now And I'll try again tomorrow and I'm going to reflection what happened with that that I take on too big of a task that I That I over promised something to myself was I not giving myself something I needed outside of that work area or that goal and really from that point on Occasionally I would slip back into procrastination. So I really realized at that point I really do need to keep these ideas or this new philosophy or these new approaches to personal productivity really front and center in my mind in my consciousness So I would write a little story for myself or I would write a short thing that I could keep just looking at now It wasn't like law of attraction or try to manifest anything It was really just to keep my mind focused on a new philosophy because it was an entirely different philosophy To the philosophy of personal productivity. I have been carrying for years So I needed to kind of train myself out of that and I found that once I started to do that And it was very quick thing a couple of minutes a day I would just look at these ideas about what's the best way to stay productive Without, you know, this self-discipline stuff. It's much more of a compassion based approach It's it is ambitious. You know, there's there's the I definitely want to achieve things part of it, but also balanced out with a self-compassion So I started to to really integrate that story into my lifestyle And I focused on it and I focused on it more and more Not trying to convince myself of anything but just gradually letting those ideas integrate into into myself And really I just started to notice I haven't procrastinated for a long time. In fact I can't remember the last time I procrastinated All my work was simple I became super consistent with things There was no more drama. There was no more stress. There were no more late night deadlines It just became so easy and the thing was I was having fun now in my life. I was actually Making time for things away from this goal focused stuff Which I hadn't really been doing up until that point Sure, I was doing the things that were enjoyable or fun But they were always tainted by feelings of guilt and unwordiness before or low self-esteem That was all gone now so really A part of it for me was I I wrote the book afterwards when I finished in in university and it was I had to just talk to so I was I was now practicing psychotherapy And I was realizing so many people you see I hadn't heard many therapists talking about the issue of procrastination up to that point And I was like, you know, that was something that really bothered me in my life. That was a real real problem for me In fact, it was a huge problem for me. There was so much pain that I went through because of that. Now, it wasn't maybe The type of pain you could point to as a kind of dramatic experience, but it was the The struggle and conflict I had had had been drawn out over so many years If you added up all that pain, it's like a huge huge painful problem in my life So I said, you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna focus on this issue because I'm gonna tell people that it's not about self-discipline Essentially, it's really much more about balance and self-compassion and develop and self-trust with yourself It's not about pushing yourself. In fact, it's the opposite of that it's about developing an understanding of My ability to push myself so hard that I come to a my nervous system just says no I'm not doing it and we can become very resistant to doing it so I can honestly say now that I have no issues with procrastination at all. It's such a huge relief. I have no Regrets about any of the missed opportunities or the problems. I was creating for myself Because of that issue It's because I know the issue is gone. I When I say the issue is gone It's not like I'm this great person that has overcome something very simply the only thing that changed Is I understand the issue now? That's it. That's all we really need to do with this issue is understand What it is and what's driving it? So if you want to check out here's my little sales pitch at the end here, I guess My book is available on my my my website for this and I also have a course on it too I would say probably half the people that come to me for therapy I guess a lot of them resonate with the same problems I was having and Really the work I do with a lot of those people who have this the same issue that I had is basically just showing them a different way to relate to themselves That's going to allow them to be productive And it's so surprising to them that it's not the old way It's not some kind of a a guilt thing or there's something wrong with me or I need to try harder It's it's just different to that. That's it So those resources are there if you want them and I think I'll leave it there for today But I hope that answers that question that that person asked me And as always, thank you so much for watching and I will see you again in the next video. Take care