 They say that in order to solve any problem. We have to be able to define exactly what the problem is So I'm going to address a question of procrastination here and it involves Knowing what procrastination is. What's the definition because if we don't know what it is at the definition of procrastination And really by that I mean understand what it is. How are we ever going to overcome it? So stay with me in this video So I really think there's a lot to take from today's video and because it's going to involve an Approach to overcoming procrastination that is a little bit different and this comes from a question from Craig and Craig's question says I agree with you that procrastination is not about laziness However, I'm not doing the things I need to do. I break promises that I make to myself Why do I keep procrastinating like this? And that's Craig's question. So notice Craig is saying here in this. Why do I keep procrastinating like this? So Craig's definition of procrastination is okay. It's not about laziness. He agrees with me on that But he's saying look, I'm not doing the things I need to do. That's the first thing and yet He also says I keep breaking promises that I make Now let's take the first part. I'm not doing the things I need to do So is he procrastinating and ask yourself that question if you're not doing the things you're you you should do Does that mean that you're procrastinating now? I want to tell you here that procrastination is not about not doing things That is not what it means when to be procrastinating to suffer from procrastination It's not about not doing things, right? That is so so important for us to Understand here and hopefully you're already kind of curious as to well What is the actual definition and I'm going to give you the definition soon, right? Because if you can know exactly what the problem is or how to define the problem, you'll know exactly how to Overcome the issue. Okay. So first of all here Procrastination is not about not doing things. So you could be someone who is just not doing things and Not necessarily be procrastinating. So You could have a very successful day Not procrastinating whatsoever and also not get anything done My point here is You know, you could meet someone and sit on the beach or something and they're not getting things done But does that necessarily mean that they're procrastinating? Not really. Okay, maybe they're they're consciously and deliberately Okay, maybe they're not doing things because that's what they want to be experiencing at that point So that's not a good enough definition. So clearly here with with craig's issue We don't have a definition yet So the next thing he says is I Keep making promises to myself or I keep breaking these promises to myself now Procrastination is not about Breaking a promise to yourself. I could say, okay today. I'm going to do something and I could fail to do that Not follow through on it. Okay. I broke a promise to myself That's true, but am I procrastinating? No, that is not the definition of procrastination So we're kind of removing definitions right now. This brings us on here to the main point in this video Okay, it's not laziness craig agrees with me there It's not about not doing things and it's also not about breaking promises to yourself breaking a promise to yourself This is my Definition of procrastination and if you can accept that this is a definition you'd be willing to work with I think you can have profound Knock-on effects here for you. Okay. I think it'll really help you address this issue if you're struggling with this So here's my definition given what I've just said about craig's question Procrastination is about layering promises That are not honored Layering promises that are not honored. So yes craig said he was he's not getting things done and he breaks promises to himself It's not about breaking any one promise Procrastination is about repeatedly promising things Right and not honoring them repeatedly simultaneously. I'm sorry super sequentially. You could say or one after the other So this is what I mean by layering Promises that are not honored. So for instance, how do what does it look like when we're procrastinating? Well, it is I'm going to do this today At this time I don't do it at that time Okay, I broke a promise. I haven't procrastinated yet though. That's just a broken promise at that point However, if at that point I say oh, I better do it soon Now I've layered another promise on top of the earlier promise was which was not honored And now I'm starting to layer it. So second promise has been made will I show off right? No, I don't show up for that Oh, I'll make a new promise now. So I keep layering promises so Unless you're layering promises one after the other and for us we we talk about I keep delaying and pushing it off really we keep making These promises one after the other and there's nothing to stop us doing that in perpetuity, right? So the that is what it means to procrastinate now With that being said if your definition is just about what I'm not doing things or I I break a promise to myself That's not really it did the breaking the promise thing is closer to it like Rick said but it's more about Sequentially doing it repeatedly doing it Now what that means is if you want to overcome this issue And this is the the way you've noticed and showing up for you maybe like Craig What you have to do is start to learn I cannot layer promises like that So if you notice that okay, you break a promise and you don't show up when you say you will that's actually fine as long as You don't then make another promise to do what you said you're going to do Very close to this promise. So for instance the next day you might say, okay, I can do it tomorrow I'll revisit this tomorrow, but for the rest of the day, there's no more promises been made here And this is one of the major boundaries that I encourage clients to to put in with themselves When procrastination is an issue So procrastination is about layering promises or layer promises that are not honored to ourselves And once you realize that's the issue you start to realize, okay, if I break a promise I get one opportunity a day You could say to yourself to keep a promise about a certain thing that I do now If I show up and I honor that I can do more of the same, but as soon as I Fail to honor a promise I make I have to step away from it Especially if I have a chronic issue of procrastination Right, this is the boundary we put in place Because really what we're trying to do is we're trying to break that habit That's the habit now we do it for all understandable reasons It's usually because we're feeling very overwhelmed and we're feeling anxious about it And this is just one of the mechanisms in the way it plays out for us But What that will do that that keep promise after promise broken promise after broken promise is it just erodes Your self-confidence and your self-esteem And your self-trust So you get to the point where you don't trust yourself anymore like and you're saying to yourself, yeah I'm gonna do that later But you don't even believe it really or certainly not fully You're kind of maybe 50 50 on well, maybe I'll do it. I kind of hope I do it I would like to do it But you don't know if you'll do it or not So what we want to do is get out of this whole productivity push yourself thing. This is all about self-trust This is about making promises and only continuing If you honor a promise as soon as you feel to honor a promise Maybe you learn why maybe you took on too much. Maybe you didn't give yourself enough rest Maybe you committed to too big a chunk of work things like this But regardless of that if you fail to honor a promise you make for yourself The the first thing that you need to get into the practice to do it is I think I'm going to step away from this now before I Maybe diminish my self-esteem anymore Right now because if you do put in that boundary or that that consequence you could call it for failing to honor a promise The next day when you come back You're going to come to this next new day now with a very different attitude It's going to be about I think I should be a little bit more careful than I was yesterday About promising something to myself and I need to make sure that I make it because if I don't I'm going to step away from this entirely Now you do that repeatedly again and again and you become Someone who there's no question mark about will I do it or want I do it? You become way more conscious in terms of your decision making and choices that you make you make conscious deliberate choices and That's how you get there. Okay, so it's not about pushing yourself for developing self-discipline ready that stuff It's not about doing more kind of like what you were mentioning in your question there Chris This is about developing self-trust and honoring promises that you make to yourself And if you don't you step away as a way to kind of reinforce Okay, it's really that's a big deal that that happened there So I'm need to step back and reflect on what happened and evaluate my my strategy moving forward So I want you to remember this definition It's not about not doing things It's not about breaking a promise. It's about layered promises that are not honored right keep one after the other If you notice that pattern, that's the procrastination. That's what it looks like now that you know What it's like you realize that your issue of procrastination is about Not having a situation play out where you break a promise and then immediately make a new one Okay, I think I've explained that pretty well there. I hope I have at least But that's that's something that I've not really heard too many people talk about if anybody actually about how you actually One of the ways in which you can overcome procrastination So I really want you to just keep an eye out for that in your own behavior if you've noticed that's the pattern for you and get to work having an attention of I get one chance To make a promise to myself and if I failed to follow through with that I'm going to step away now if I do show up and do it I can I can I've earned the right to make yet another subsequent promise to myself, but only if I show up and honor the commitment Guys, I hope that's helpful and Craig. I hope that was useful for you too and As always thanks for being with me here If you want to you can check out my my book on procrastination. It's called procrastination decoded goes into this in a lot more detail And also is it there's a course on my website too, which adds a video course It's about four hours long, but it'll show you everything that I really talk about with procrastination And it'll show you a systematic way to overcome the issue once and for all so that's there a few if you're interested So thanks again guys, and I'll see you again very soon. Bye for now