Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast - Why You’re Procrastinating + How To Finally Conquer the Habit

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

Have you been struggling, of late, to tick something - anything - off your to-do list? We’re right there with you - in the procrastination zone. A mental state we promise ourselves time and time again that we won’t slip back into. But, for many of us, changes to usual routines and motivations have been disrupted during the pandemic - with productivity taking a goal-busting nose-dive. Which is why, in this episode, rather than avoid the problem and hope it will go away, we’re tackling the issue of procrastination head-on – discussing the tools and techniques you can use to encourage yourself to be more productive and, ultimately, create more space for the good stuff. As you’ll learn, you’re not a procrastinator. You simply procrastinate - and we’re here to help you climb out of that habit so you can build more positive ones. Our guests this week are Dr Grace Lordan, associate professor in behavioural science at the London School of Economics and author of Think Big, and also Grace Beverley, founder of apparel brand TALA as well as workout app Shreddy, and author of Working Hard, Hardly Working. We discuss the most common triggers for procrastination, and how it can take different forms with different people. There’s also great points made about the counterproductive cult of busyness, and why comparing yourself to others in a similar professional space is a disaster for productivity – let alone happiness. Plus, there’s chat about finding your own hype man - or woman - why showing up for yourself in small increments is key and how to have respect for all those other elements of life the matter to you while still flourishing at work. Enjoy!   Join Grace Beverley on Instagram: @gracebeverley Join Dr Grace Lordan on Instagram: @g.lordan Join Roisin Dervish-O'Kane on Instagram: @roisin.dervishokane Join Women's Health UK on Instagram: @womenshealthuk   Like what you’re hearing? We'd love if you could rate and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, as it really helps other people find the show. Also, remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, so you’ll never miss an episode.   Got a goal in mind? Shoot us a message on Instagram putting ‘Going for Goal’ at the start of your message and our experts could be helping you achieve your health goal in an upcoming episode. Alternatively, you can email us: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If you've been struggling of late to tick something, anything of your to-do list, we're right there with you in the procrastination zone. It's a mental state we promise ourselves time and again that we won't slip back into. But for many, over the past year and a bit, the ability to get things done efficiently has taken a goal-busting nosedive. Which is why, in this episode, rather than, you know, avoiding the issue and hoping it will go away, we're tackling the problem of procrastination head on. We're enlisting the help of two guests who've both struggled with procrastination

and have used tools and techniques to encourage themselves to be more productive and ultimately create more space for the good stuff. And you can too. Because as you'll learn, you're not a procrastinator, you simply procrastinate. And we're here to help you climb out of that habit so you can build more positive ones. Hello, I'm Rochene Devichayne and this is Going for Goal, the weekly Women's Health podcast. On this show, we chat to our favourite celebrities and wellness heavyweights about what they do to feel and function at their best.

And on episodes like this one, we call on top experts to help you make good on the health goals that really matter to you. The first is Dr Grace Laudan, Associate Professor in Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics, and author of Think Big, Take Small Steps and Build the Future You Want. The second is Grace Beverley, founder of apparel brand Tala, workout app Shreddy, and as of April, published author of Working Harding Hardly Working, How to Achieve More, Stress Less and Feel Filled. We discussed the most common triggers for procrastination and how it can take different forms with different people. There's also some great points made about the counterproductive cult of busyness and why comparing yourself to others in a similar professional space is a disaster for productivity, let alone happiness.

There's also chat about the importance of finding your own hype man or woman, why showing up for yourself in small increments is key, and how to respect all those other elements of your life that mattered to you while still flourishing at work. Enjoy. Dr Grace Laudin and Grace Beverley, welcome both of you to going for goal. Thank you. I'm really pleased to be here. Thanks so much for having me, very excited. Yeah, it's great to have you on.

And we're talking today about procrastination. So I thought for context, maybe we should start with a little bit of truth telling. So hello, my name is Rocheen Devchekine and I'm a procrastinator. I procrastinate in the most mundane of ways. I don't really plan holidays or... pub sessions when everything opens or even go online shopping, I tend to nitpick and perfect a task that doesn't really need my attention to avoid doing work on the other, more challenging, more important project. And I often do it when I'm intimidated by that other big, scary project. So now, right,

it's your turn. Right, Grace Beverly, let's start with you. So I think my, sorry, I'll start with the, hi, I'm Grace Beverly. procrastinator. I think that my biggest technique of procrastination is actually admin. I think I write about this actually in the book because I think that admin, if you don't actually need to do it, you think it's boring, but it's actually so it's easy because you don't necessarily need to fully engage. And so I often procrastinate in doing things that I can kind of tick off. And then my to-do list looks like I've been really productive, but actually the things that I was meant to do, are no closer to being done. And when do you tend to do it?

What's the kind of feeling that tends to get you there? I would say it's mostly when I'm tired. Or when I don't have, strangely, I feel like when my day's quite not booked up. Because I think the reason I'm actually usually quite good at not procrastinating now, I've got better at setting work boundaries because I won't necessarily be as tired or kind of burnt out or whatever it might be is that I kind of look at my day and I think, wow, this is an unusually kind of free day, and therefore I allow that to kind of drag on. So I kind of procrastinate in the name of chill, but it's actually not, it would be better off

if I just got through those tasks. And then maybe I could even have, you know, some actual time off. Yeah. Yeah. I think I can relate to that one as well. Dr. Grace Lorden, what about you? So I'm Grace Lorden, and I will say I procrastinate rather than giving myself the label a procrastinator, because then I see it as a behavior that sits outside myself. But I mean, I use so many different procrastination tools. And most of them involve instant gratification. So I go and have dinner with my friends. I lounge out in front of the TV.

I spend my time just idly messing around on social media. So I think kind of I'm the most common type of person in what I actually look for is to busy myself with things that really give me kind of a happiness, a happiness hit. Or I think they're giving me a happiness that they probably are some of them. And I think I do that, you know, I haven't really kind of gotten to the bottom of it. I think I'm somebody who takes on too much so that you can actually feel overwhelmed at times. But then we can discuss this more later when I actually look at what I'm spending my time on.

Sometimes I look back at weeks and I've spent my time doing things that don't add value to me or to anybody else. So this kind of idea of busyness really drives my procrastination. Yes. And busyness, that's something that you talk about a lot in your book as well, Grace. And it's a bit icky, isn't it, talking about your bad habits, especially when we're talking about productivity and when productivity and success are so like lionised in our culture and necessarily so we need to be good at them to get done what we need to get done. Grace L, can you tell me a bit about what procrastination actually is?

Yeah, I mean, so I think the simplest thing for listeners is procrastination is irrationally putting off tasks that you need to do for a reason that you can't otherwise explain. And you can spend time ruminating over why that is. And some people link it to imposter syndrome, some people link it to fear of failure, some people link it to narratives to say that I'm not good enough. But I think really if any of your listeners

identify with putting things off, putting things off, putting things off that need to be done, then that they are procrastinators. I think when we were talking there, it showed you the real range of reasons that people can partake in this behaviour. Are there any more?

Are there other kind of types of feelings that can tip people into that behavior that we haven't discussed? I mean, I think sometimes a lack of self-belief can be something that actually holds people back. I think the second type of person, which I think are the majority of people probably who kind of engage in procrastination

will identify with, is really not linking what they're doing today to kind of some bigger goal in the future. So we can end up getting kind of caught up in lots of what I call busy tasks that aren't really helping us get to kind of our end goal or where we actually want to be. And really kind of taking a step back

and figuring that out is really important. And then I think the third type are people, and I'm one of those people who just like to be happy and have fun today. And then, you know, often some of the stuff that I have to do, and, you know, Grace B speaks about this in her book, which I'm really glad. You know, sometimes the stuff that you need to actually do

to get ahead isn't that pleasant. It doesn't mean that it should all be unpleasant, but kind of showing up for these things. things becomes very hard for someone like me who likes to be happy in the moment. And really figuring out how to balance costs and benefits in favour of getting you to show up for whatever it is you need to do, then becomes really important. I think kind of in that as well, I feel like when I procrastinate the most, or I actually, I feel like I'm probably more recovered on my procrastinating side. I feel like I'm a lot better at it now and not doing it rather than better at

procrastinating. And I think that is because of the boundaries that I've put in place. And I think in part when I became when I kind of got into a cycle of procrastinating whether that was kind of consistently for a week or whatever it might be I was still doing work and I was still you know as you say I was busy and in some ways it was kind of effective and I was moving towards certain directions but also I think part of it was just feeling almost kind of a micro burnout like it's not this long-term burnout but it's kind of just constant busyness very much leads to this you know you're just ticking things off for no reason. So I think actually, Grace L, I think that in a way, like, I think your procrastination actually does also have the benefit of, you know, that enjoyment. I think I often

procrastinate with things that I don't even enjoy in that way. I think I'm very much a kind of, I'll procrastinate with something else I dislike that's just slightly less effort, rather than being like, oh, I'll go and do something fun, or I'll go on a walk, or I'll go and see my friends. Mine's like, I'll procrastinate with making this Excel spreadsheet for something that doesn't need an Excel spreadsheet. And so I think there's perhaps rewards on your side as well that I haven't necessarily tapped into. And I feel like when I am procrastinating, I could perhaps procrastinate in a more enjoyable way if I were to go down that route. Absolutely. In behavioural science, one of the big advice for procrastinators is that you should couple the stuff that you don't like doing that you know

you have to do. And I think we need to kind of get into a little bit about that because Grace B talks about it as well in her book, the idea that sometimes we're actually doing things that don't need to be done in the first place. But once you've identified the things that actually need to be done, coupling them with things that are enjoyable, is a real way to kind of get that instant gratification. So it's on your mind, you know,

I'm going to reward myself with whatever it is at the end. So whether it's a dinner with friends, whether it's a massage, whether it's lounging out on Netflix, whatever the person is into, that coupling of benefit today to offset the fact that you're not going to see the benefit from, I mean, the Excel spreadsheet, does sound quite boring, so maybe we can think about something a bit more exciting,

but you're not going to see the benefit from kind of honing a skill or honing your craft maybe for two, three, four years. I think is really important for listeners. And, you know, one of the things that I worry a lot about is how we tell people today about the type of jobs that are actually good for them without really getting them to kind of think about what they'd actually be doing on a day-to-day basis. And the second thing that I actually worry about is that people choose jobs based on titles and based on lifestyles, rather than these kind of tasks or activities that they're going to be doing on a day-to-day basis. And if you take the task activity approach, when you're feeling like procrastinating,

you can just sit back and try to connect. What am I doing now that's going to serve me in a week in a month in a year? Like what is the point of this Excel spreadsheet? And if the answer is, look, it's pointless, then maybe you shouldn't, maybe you shouldn't be doing it. But that connection gets me over my hump sometimes. Like what is what is the point in me showing up for this boring, boring task today? And you know, I'm an academic, so I have about 30% boring tasks. And it is important that I show up for them.

So it does actually allow me to keep my job. Whether it's a pair of running shoes or a new car. You check how well something performs before you buy it. Why should investing be any different? At Fidelity, we get that performance matters most. With sound financial advice and quality investment products, we're here to help with accelerating your dreams. chat with your advisor or visit fidelity.ca.ca slash performance to learn more.

Commissions fees and expenses may apply. Read the funds or ETFs prospectus before investing. Funds and ETFs are not guaranteed. Their values change and past performance may not be repeated. And Grace, I want to get into your whole philosophy a little bit later on because you are a big advocate of the medium and the long-term goal, which I think shimes really nicely with this scenario. As you're kind of saying, it's important to think about what all that,

busyness is for in order for you to not reach that stage of burnout. Grace B, I want to bring it back onto your story now because as you shared in your new book, Working Hard or Hardly Working, your experience is almost a bit of a cautionary tale as far as lots of these topics are concerned. Can you tell us the moment that you realised in order to peel yourself back from, as you say, the brink of a kind of temporary burnout? What was the moment that you realized? What was the moment that you realize you needed to change the way you worked. I think there were a lot of moments before that kind of trigger kind of clamped down and said, okay, this isn't working at all.

And I think what surprised me most was that it's also been so early on in my career. And I think when I really started to look at that, I kind of thought, okay, this is probably less about how I'm working. Although there's part of that in there, it's more about the work culture and how we see work now that's kind of fed into what we're expecting the second we join the workforce, what we're expecting, you know, hard work to look like, what we're expecting rest to look like, self-care to look like. And so, you know, I'd come out of university, a year out of university and I'd started my first business four years before. So it had kind of, you know,

there's been a lot of work and it was very much still at the beginning of my career. But I think part of that was, you know, as I say, it was because I had no boundaries between work and home, not just in the way that I was working from home, not just in, you know, any other types of boundaries in terms of checking my emails or whatever, but because work culture now doesn't have these boundaries. There's no kind of separation. It's this kind of interconnectivity and this expected interconnectivity. I kind of say in the book that it adds up to the fact that, you know, any time we're not working, A, the opportunity cost is really high because there are so many opportunities to be working. You can be selling things on D-POP. You can be starting your own Etsy

business. You can be building IKEA furniture at someone else's house for money. And all of these kind of opportunities lead to the opportunity cost of not working going sky high suddenly. And also, just any time you're not working, whether it's after work when an email comes in, it kind of feels like the equivalent of being in the office and taking an app. And so I think I had internalized this so much that I just got to a point where I realized I was working all. all the time. I wasn't seeing my friends. This so-called work-life balance was nowhere to be found. And yet I thought I was kind of good at it. And I thought, and I was kind of just thinking, am I really lazy? Am I really entitled? Am I kind of not good at hard work? And that just

didn't make sense to me. And so I kind of, I just started to put boundaries in place. And I started to say, okay, this isn't working. Let me first put weekends in. Let me say that when I go home, I, you know, leave my work phone at work or, you know, obviously not everyone has a work phone or whatever it might be, but just putting these concrete boundaries in place. And the second I started to see those work a little bit, I realized it kind of two and two came together. And I just thought, okay, this is what it is. It's a misunderstanding and internalization of kind of constant work and like workholism and that glamorization of being a workaholic that I was like, okay, this needs to stop, this needs to be framed, I need to work out what works for me and put that into action.

Absolutely. And it's such a timely tale. coming out now because I think if people have struggled with work-life balance before and they definitely have, it's been accelerated to the most extreme degree now that so many people have been working from home. And as you say, those natural forced boundaries, office, home, commute, they've all gone. And then suddenly you have to be in control as an employee, probably in the same, well, we've probably experienced as kind of staff members and employees sort of some degree of what you probably have with running your own business. You know, when you do have to be in control

and you have to set those boundaries and stuff. And I've kind of felt that with people being from home. Yeah, there's suddenly this degree of responsibility that maybe you didn't have before. That's super interesting. How would you describe, so if you are, you're talking before how you felt under pressure from this workaholism culture,

where would you say that your response is at now? if you could sum it up in a few sentences. Well, I think probably the biggest problem for me about this workaholic kind of culture and this glamorisation of working all the time and this hustle culture, the worst part for that for me was the fact that I always have been

probably what you could class in a way as a workaholic and that was being rewarded then by these mechanisms, by this culture. And so that was not only glamourised, but it was one of my bad traits, and then that was kind of glorified in a way. That was kind of, yeah, this is a good thing, yeah. And so I was being rewarded for what I was doing that was wrong, or not wrong, but not effective.

And so that, you know, that really fed into something that just wasn't right. And I think that now that I've stepped away from that, I realize that I'm able to work alongside things that, you know, I think that working hard is really important. Diligence is really important. things like creating your own motivation habits, all of these things are really important. And I can now benefit from them whilst also not having internalised that just because you're a hard worker, that doesn't mean, you know, you need to be working all the time.

So I'm kind of, that's where I am. I'm still a bit on that side, but I'm also fine with being there because it's not that I need to perpetuate that further and further in order to legitimise what I'm doing. And there's not that sense of shame perhaps fuelling you. it really struck me when you were talking there about the, that you said you worried that maybe you were entitled and not diligent. And those are such, that's such a shameful feeling, isn't it? Yeah, well, I think that a lot of people are looking around now and they're seeing everyone posting at 4 a.m. in the office and,

or not in the office anymore, but working and saying, you know, while you're sleeping, I'm working or whatever it might be. And this kind of real, like, you're, you're either like this, you're either good at productivity or you're good at self-care. And I knew I was, I knew I was productive. I knew I was, you know, most of the time, or I was, I was, I was busy at least. I was a hard worker. I didn't mind putting in graft and this kind of like grit and the grind. And so I was kind of thinking, I was like, this is so confusing because I've always been a hard worker. And I've always been someone who's probably worked too hard as a kind of coping mechanism for stress or

for whatever else might be going on. And so that didn't add up to me. So I think that must be happening for more and more people. And then if that's happening at that level where I know that's probably one of my, you know, traits anyway, then for people who don't feel like that's something that works with their lives, it's not what they want. They don't want to be, you know, I want, I get a lot of kind of joy from that in my life as well. So I think there are various different things that it can kind of be even worse for other people too then. Did you feel also a sense of responsibility as someone who is working in the wellness space to kind of marry those two things together? I don't think I necessarily felt the responsibility because I wouldn't class kind of,

you know, there's very much well-being aspects in both of my businesses and then what I kind of do, but I wouldn't say that it was, I would, yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say that it was kind of squarely within that space, but I'd say that at the same time as having this glorification of the kind of hustle, there's the other side where everyone seems to be. an absolute self-care whiz. So everyone seems to be really good at, you know, sitting, sitting back and relaxing and doing a face mask and going to see their friends and having a healthy work-life balance. And those things are not often put together. And then when I'd read business books, it would kind of be like, this is how you work hard. This is how you put all of this into action. This is how you can be

the most productive person in the universe. And then the other ones I'd read were very self-development, very, how to enjoy your work, very all of this. And there was a lack of kind of synergy between the two, of treatment of the two together as the same thing, because obviously if you respect your rest and you respect your need for rest, then you can also respect your work. Absolutely. Grace Elle, I wanted to bring you in on that point. What evidence is there or why is kind of getting your procrastination and getting your healthy work habits under control? Why is that so important for our kind of whole health? Well, I mean, I think the first thing is, you know, when I heard Grace be talking about kind of her first career, if you like, it really made me sad because, you know,

there isn't any evidence that people who work the crazy hours that she's describing is actually good for firms. So it's a no brainer for listeners that it's not good for individuals. But then you wonder, do firms actually force their workers to be in that way because it's good for them? And it isn't. So kind of, I think, you know, this break that we've had because of COVID-19 should be, and I say should be because I'm worried that it won't end up being. So a break at the fact that we need to be on this treadmill working, you know, working these absolutely crazy, crazy hours. And I think, you know, some of the jobs that you might actually imagine people doing in society, the fact that they're working very, very long hours has nothing to do with the job,

but more about the social norm or the culture that grew around that job unnecessarily. And I think, you know, kind of what kind of Grace B raises in her book and what I try to do kind of in Think Big is to get people to really kind of come back from that and think about if I'm going to be a success at something, it doesn't need to be at the sacrifice of my self-care. It doesn't need to be at the sacrifice of my well-being. And actually, I think a more fundamental point is people who have high levels of well-being are actually more productive. So you have this circular relationship.

So sitting them apart from each other, you know, Graceby is right. You know, seeing them apart from each other doesn't make any sense. And I think, you know, we have kind of this younger generation at the moment who are kind of struggling in the labour force, to be honest with you, because, you know, growth has been poor in the UK and the US and in many other developed countries. and the response has been in some companies just to get them to work harder or say that they're not working hard enough

and that actually isn't the problem and I really think if we actually take a step back take timeouts and allow ourselves time to be creative and I don't know about the two of you but I'm my most creative actually when I am having a time out I have my best ideas and the times when my notice to the grindstone is executing on the process

and if I was honest with myself I could probably outsource some of that process so I think kind of for listening really thinking about it shouldn't be all or nothing. And on so many issues in society, we kind of rush to something is right and something is wrong. It shouldn't be all or nothing. And there's days when you're going to do some a lot.

And there's days when you're going to do less. And figuring out what's right for you, I think it's really, really important to this moment of time. My philosophy is really that there is no one self-help book that will work for everyone, right? We're all very, very different. And we should embrace our individual differences. but how you learn about yourself is experimenting with techniques that other people might suggest,

figuring out actually, yeah, that's a technique that worked for me or that one didn't. And now why didn't that work for me? Why doesn't that fit my personality? What is it about me that it didn't work for me, but it worked for the other person? And I think that level of self-awareness will not just allow you push back when people are trying to encroach on your time unnecessarily, which is so important. But I think that level of self-awareness will also allow you figure out what works for you to allow you create a career path.

And there is no one, there is no one goal in life. You know, we're going to have to constantly kind of think about these different goals, not just because of individuals we tend to get bored, so it's better for us, but also the job market is changing. So opportunities are changing. And really embracing that kind of learning about yourself and learning about the value that you can add to the world and how you can regenerate that as time moves on,

I think is really what's going to make people future ready. I find that particularly interesting because I don't know, I'm very, very excited to read it now. I think because also in terms of the process of writing the book, one of the most difficult things is thinking, who will this resonate with? Is this just a very small, you know, you can never write for everyone? But thinking kind of is this a very small section of society? Is this, you know, just the entrepreneurs.

Is this just the people who are kind of classic Taipei personalities? And that was for me something that I kind of kept coming back to time and time again, kind of thinking, you know, I need to me. make this resonate with more people within my generation because that was the aim. And I think that's so interesting as well because it's a level of self-awareness and it's a level of understanding that actually you can't just apply every single business or self-help book to yourself because you're not going to have, A, you're not going to be better at being yourself. You're going to be better at being someone else for probably a week and then it's not going to

stick. But then there are so many different elements to that that actually this kind of context collapse that you get by social media and you get by everything being thinned out to apply to everyone is exactly why we see something on social media and we go like, oh, that's a stupid technique or that wouldn't work for me. And then we instantly kind of disregard that, whereas that's the importance. And I think the problem, one of the problems with social media is this kind of homogenization or this kind of context collapse of like, this is only for, you know, it has to be for everyone. And therefore I have to take out all edges because it needs to fit all of these different people, but I think that is one of the things we can encourage the most,

is the critical thinking and the self-awareness. I don't mean we as we're encouraging this, but as a kind of society, we very much need to constantly encourage this within ourselves, too, to be more self-aware, to consume things better. Otherwise, we're just going to continue to be bombarded with things that don't work for us and will never work for us, rather than picky and choosing what does. As individuals, that when we're taking advice, that we try to open our minds to getting advice from people who aren't like us. So, you know, at the LSC, I've set up this thing called the inclusion initiative and the whole idea is actually

you'll make more money, you'll be more productive, you'll be happier if you actually open your mind to ideas from people who are very, very different from yourself and avoid confirmation bias. And that's why I think, you know, if you approach kind of choosing, how are you going to make yourself procrastinate less? How are you going to make yourself more productive?

By looking at insights that people have given, hopefully they've given lists rather than one particular solution because I'm always, there is no civil bullet, and practicing that. And that's where I think the utopia is. We've moved so far trying to kind of,

we always have two solutions, one on one side and one on the other. And I think the fact is that as individuals were just very different. And I think what comes across so strongly in both of your books is that it's so person-centered. And I think both books feel, both approaches feel very empowering

in the sense that it kind of puts you back in control and you choose those solutions that work for you. And Grace L, you talk about your, you take it back to your goal. So I want to move now on to tips and strategies. Let's get a whole list. Let's get a whole list going. Grace L, your book, Think Big, really hammers home the importance of having these medium and long-term goals that excite you. Is there anything in the idea that winning the war against procrastination starts when you're thinking about your goals? Or is there another place that we should start thinking about it? Well, I think the first thing you can do, is to really rebalance those costs and benefits. So really think about if I'm doing something today,

if I'm on a steep learning curve, if I'm trying to learn something that I know is going to give me a skill that will serve me in the future, it might be quite boring, it might be quite laborous now. How do I get myself to show up for myself? How can I actually make sure that I'm doing this on a day-to-day basis? And I think doing these things in small steps, small chunks. So it's not all or nothing. You're not honing a skill that's really, really hard. It's the only thing that you're doing in a week. you are embracing that balance. And I think self-belief is part of this as well. And, you know, I kind of say and think big,

if you don't yet believe in yourself that you can get to where you want to go or you can be something, find somebody who does believe in you because self-belief is transferable. So having somebody, a friend, a family member, your partner, say to you, you know, you're going to knock this out of the park.

Just keep doing it. Just keep on the road. Keep showing up for yourself in these small increments. And again, the small increments are so important because it doesn't mean that you're, your entire life is devoted to something that you're finding hard in the moment. And if you keep doing that, you eventually become that person. And you eventually then will have the self-belief that will allow you kind of continue moving forward and putting yourself out there.

I love that. So kind of find your own hype man. Absolutely. Absolutely. And if they're not in your network, you know, you need to kind of reconsider who's in your network. So I'm not talking, you know, don't dump your friends and family. But we definitely need people around us who are saying to us on a day-to-day basis, if you're somebody who's ambitious, and you haven't figured out your path yet. Having people around you,

firstly to give you advice and to open doors a little bit for you is really important. But also people to actually say, you know, you can do this. It didn't happen today. Today wasn't a good day. It's fine.

You know, tomorrow is a new day. And having that message, it's been shown in studies to work. It's even been shown in studies to show, but if you have people who have poor self-belief, if I write them a letter from a fictitious person who never existed and said, I was in your shoes once,

and actually I got through it and now I'm better from it, you know, three years later, kind of carry on, but that actually also helps motivate people, even though that person never existed in the moment. So that people can identify what you're going through. I really like the idea of kind of finding your hype man. And also I talk a bit about kind of finding your champions.

And I think the reason I talk about that is so that people can kind of bring creativity and uniqueness into their work. And I think that kind of what you're saying, it ties in so well. And that puts it so, it puts it so well, I think, particularly because instead of finding hype men or whatever it would be now, we find not necessarily competitors, but we find comparison.

We find all of these different things constantly. And do you think that's kind of had a huge effect on things like self-confidence and leading to goals? Because there's constantly, rather than seeing only the people who have made it and then also people at your level, you're also constantly seeing people to an unprecedented degree that have made it on social media. That is what is rewarded.

on social media. So people, you know, as people would say, like myself in terms of like my business, or, you know, that's amplified more than someone who hasn't, who's set up three businesses really fantastically and then they didn't work for X, Y, Z reason. Do you think that that's kind of then really affected the way that people work for their goals because we're shown success so much more than we're shown failure now? I mean, it makes you less resilient. So I wrote in the book about an experience that I had in 2011 when I joined the LSC, and I had this person who I thought was a mentor. And we were kind of great friends. And he actually, I was meant to be going for promotion two years later. So as you do in a standard career track, you go and you have these meetings. And he said,

look, I don't even think you're going to get there in five years. And even then it's kind of touch and go. And what I don't write in the book actually, which also happened is that he pointed to someone else and said, you should be like him. That's the guy who you should be like. And I can honestly tell you that two things happened. I really trusted him. And I became kind of obsessed with this relative comparison with this one person who I was kind of saying, oh my God, he is better than me. And I couldn't see any of the ways where I was better than him. And it was all the spotlight was on him. And what happened to me is kind of known as kind of the downward pigmalian effect, in the sense that if people don't expect much from you, you live down to it. But I had,

honestly, Grace, I had kind of maybe six months where I wasn't productive, I was procrastinating, I was enjoying my instant gratification at times. And there was one evening where I basically said to myself, I don't think he's right. And I went and got to three different opinions from three other people who had nothing at all to do to him, who told me that he didn't happen to be right. And then once kind of two years went by, three years went by, I started studying what's known as the Keeping Up with the Jones's effect. And I think that's exactly what you're asking for. And it tells us quite clearly that relative comparisons like I did in 2011 are absolutely the worst thing that you can do, not just for

your productivity, your happiness and also your resilience. You make yourself miserable. So if I'm always looking at you or I'm looking at Rochene and I'm thinking, actually, they're doing so much better than me, I don't have a hope, then I'm not going to move forward. And what will make me move forward is this kind of idea of absolute progress and really reflecting backwards. What did I do for myself this week? How did I show up for myself? How did I move the dial? And embracing opportunities and embracing new network and networking. So in some ways, I'm embarrassed to kind of admit this on a podcast, but I'm hoping there's learning for people who are listening that, you know, it happened to me. And I can tell you that if you get caught up at relative comparisons, you'll not only make yourself miserable,

but you're less likely to achieve your goals. And so that must have just been amplified to an extraordinary extent now because it's not just the person who works next to you who gets the promotion instead of you. It's everyone on social media, especially because there's this lack of context and this lack of, you know,

what actually happened or behind the scenes or it's very selective. There's even more so than that. It's not just that person next to you. It's not just your friend from school who also looks like they're in the same career path doing whatever. It's just, it's only, seeing very selective areas and only seeing the, like, the success is rewarded. And where there's

failure, it's only kind of, I find failure on social media is only rewarded hugely after the fact, like hugely kind of when it's seen as then something that's vulnerable and that can be kind of, I mean, to talk about it, I think it's a bit skeptical in a way, but, you know, it can also be commoditized and people can say look vulnerable now and then they get rewarded for that too, but they wouldn't be like that in the moment. And so there's kind of this double-layered multiplier effect that just makes this seemingly just worse and worse. And most of us are in the distribution. So we're not the most vulnerable.

We're not having the worst time in the world. And we're not the most successful. Most of us are in the distribution. So not being able to kind of say, I had a crummy day, not being able to see that on social media in some ways. It's, you know, my day was so-so. How many likes would you get for that on, you know, on Twitter or on Instagram? Not many.

but for the majority of people, you know, having a kind of a day that's really normal, it's probably the type of day that we need for firstly our productivity and also our well-being. Yeah, more mundanity, more mundaneity. Embrace the boring. Embrace the boring. Is there a learning in there when we're to, I hate the expression of learning. Don't know why I just said that. Is there a lesson?

Yeah, you just say something. You're like, is it because I'm in front of a microphone and just sounds like Alan Partridge? Is there a learning? Or like David Brennan. Bloody hell. Anyway, is there a lesson in there that we were talking about in the sense that when, if you do know that social media is going to tip you into this comparison, that maybe if that is one of the ways that you procrastinate, that you need to kind of act that from your procrastination tool list and put it back in its box of, I don't know, things that you do to relax or thing that you do when you can with? time. I like the second part. So the idea that it's not all or nothing. So you restrict it. And I think, again, it's kind of almost like a journey of self-awareness. How does it affect you? So how

does it affect you when you're on social media? So, you know, there's some studies that actually talk about the kind of the reaction of the brain when we're on social media and this kind of these instant gratification hits that are followed with these kind of low moods. And I think there's one study that even compares it to cocaine, right? So you need to be reflective of, is that you? Do you identify with being on social media and perhaps being kind of entertained mildly and then being miserable later and then maybe you do have to cut it out for a while and maybe it's enough to go cold turkey and then come back in well well i think that what i find particularly interesting about that is because as you say it's not all or nothing and i think when i was when i was kind of i

i definitely don't have the kind of behavioral science background of it at all but i think in terms of my, when I was kind of thinking of my own experience with social media, I had to write myself a questionnaire. I literally had to write myself like, how does this make you feel? How does this make you feel when it goes like this? When you post something, does it affect you negatively if it's received X, Y and Z? But I think that's particularly interesting in the way that actually, as you kind of said earlier on, the self-awareness with that where we're actually able to take a step back and analyze, you know, you don't need to know why. You don't need to know why it makes you feel bad. You can also, like, there are some people I follow who motivate me hugely when I'm in the

right mood and make me feel like just absolutely awful when I'm not there. And therefore, it can't just, we can't look at it in this kind of two-dimensional way and say, you can't do this, you can't follow this person, you can't read these articles. Because we're not two-dimensional. We're not only ever on this one mood level. Fluid. And being able to kind of use that in the right way and have this self-awareness of when it is good and when it is bad, I think for me has been the most important thing and has been the way where, you know, rather than all of these articles that say like, oh, well, we should all just quit social media and do this, that and the other, that's not helping within the landscape. That's not saying, okay, well, the reality is we're using it this

much. So how can we use it better? And how can we, you know, I do very much support probably getting our screen time down or mine especially. But within that, actually, it's not so much about that. It's about the techniques. It's about the way we use it, the way we consume it and how we and how that affects us that we can kind of operate alongside if we have an awareness about it, rather than just being like, no, don't do this, no, don't do this. And I think that's where I found a lot of the kind of literature on it sort of misses out talking to especially younger generations because it just, it's instructional rather than kind of working alongside the existing facts. Exactly. And you've got to be led from your mood where you're at and where you're coming to it from. So what do you do, Grace L? How, what tips or what strategies have kind of helped you wrestle back a bit of control with your procrastinating instincts? So one that I do, this actually kind of quirky, is this idea of the compromise effect. So I really do believe that there isn't all or nothing.

And I think very often when we look at people, if you give them that alternative, they'll end up in the defaults and actually do nothing. So the compromise effect kind of tells us that if we're planning for a day as work and it's really important to us, that we shouldn't necessarily be looking to see this is on my to-do list and I'm going to do it. But you could break it into kind of a low output level, a medium output level and a high output level. And the compromise effect actually tells you kind of two things. So firstly it's beneficial because a lot of people will end up doing the medium productivity level because they'll underestimate how hard it is actually to do the task. But the second is this kind of just getting started idea.

somebody who really feels, oh, I'm exhausted today, I can't come to the table. If you get into the low productivity mode, you're much more likely to hit your flow and work and end up being immersed in it and end up enjoying it rather than it being something that's difficult. So, anytime I have something big, I'll have this kind of low, medium high. And my personality is that I'll usually end up at the medium level, kind of finishing the day. And I think that's because I'm a bad planner. I underestimate what I can do at my time and I've come to live with that about myself. But I think that just showing up for yourself is really important for narratives. Because one of the things that actually gets us procrastinating more is the ideas that we hold about

ourselves in our head. So the biggest influence for you are these conversations that you'll end up having and kind of the words that you listen to about yourself. And if we don't show up on a particular day, the narrative that people end up telling themselves is, oh, I don't show up for myself. I'm a quitter. I'm not somebody who finishes things. I'm a low productivity person. And just getting that medium level output, you know, can be enough to kind of push you to the level where you actually take off and really understand yourself and the way that you're planning. Yeah. So maybe we shouldn't say I'm a procrastinator taking us right back to the start. Right back to the start. I like to say I procrastinate and I kind of see that, you know,

it's to do with these behaviours that are outside myself that aren't necessarily part of myself. So, you know, if I met somebody who was 18 who wanted to be a surgeon, they would say, I'm going to be a surgeon and I would say, you know, get the skills that will allow you to say that you're, you know, that you're a surgeon one day, it's exactly the same thing. Engage in the behaviours that will allow you to say, I'm not a procrastinator. And it's those behaviours are really what's important. And we've touched on a few of them, you know, the compromise effect is one, making sure that you bundle things that are, that you find hard to do with things that you find a bit easier to do as a second one. Finding somebody who gives you self-belief to stop that narrative about

self-belief is another one. Not driving your choices by, I want to be something or I want to, you know, buy something, but driving your choices for work on, these are the activities that I want to do day to day. Kind of really focusing on that will allow you when you're having a bad day, quite frankly, sit back and say, I'm doing this activity. It has meaning to me and this is why it has meaning to me. And really kind of taking a step back from how we approach work, I guess, essentially, to set yourself up for success. Yeah, got it. And Grace B, what about you? What are some of your strategies? And also, what I'd be interested to know is how have these or what strategies that you do that allow you to limit your procrastination, but also enhance those or leave more time for rest.

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I, being in work now and especially so from my side, being a business owner or self-employed or whatever it might be, there's always an endless amount of work. And I think that's true for the majority of people's jobs. And I think it's particularly true when you always then either have your taxes to deal with or whatever it might be that's not actually the same as the work work. And so from that, I think I've really developed a realization that if I'm going to have time off, which I need to have, it needs to be from, like, productivity is not just about being more productive so that I can then be more productive later too. Sometimes it's about being more productive in that time so that I can then have time off. And I think the most important part of that was really understanding

how much time off I need, where my boundaries need to be within work and implementing them. And then by having those strict boundaries, for example, by knowing that I am taking my weekend, I have to get some things, you know, I have to get things done by X, Y, Z time. I have to do this, I have to do that. And the same way is if I, you know, want to, if I decided, for example, in the summer, I wanted to finish at four on Fridays or whatever. I don't see it happening, but it's a lovely idea. Then if I decided I wanted to do that, the benefit of getting that done,

the kind of delayed gratification of that is so much more enjoyable. And obviously it's not something that, you know, we're very much more and more wired to this instant gratification now. but actually being able to just set yourself examples, like sometimes just force yourself to work a certain way for a week. And then if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But I think really learning in the same way as when you're trying to get into fitness or when you're trying to always go for a daily walk or whatever it might be,

just saying, okay, well, I'll do it for this week. If it doesn't work this week, then fine. And actually just proving to yourself that you can do it sometimes. And so for me, it was all about just setting those in place, trying it, adapting and moving on or continuing to do that. And of course there'll be times where you kind of fail or you don't manage to do that or you actually are just really procrastinating. But I find now, as I said, kind of the times where I'm procrastinating now are times where I haven't respected my rest or times where it's just been too busy, times where it hasn't been productive, not in a kind of, oh, you're really bad at being productive. You're not a hard worker way.

But in a, there is no way to be put this productive after you've got two hours sleep or whatever it might be. And so really adapting that to realizing that actually the benefits in the long term, of working less was so much better, enabled me to step back and kind of say, okay, well, in the short term, I need to do the worst task first, or I need to time block, or I need to kind of, what I do is I spit my time, my to-do list up into three sections into quickticks, which take under 10 minutes, into tasks, which take under half an hour or under 45 minutes, and into projects which take a lot longer than that. And then I can slot those into different things, and it doesn't necessarily leave space for procrastination. And that,

taught me really quickly what works, what doesn't work, and then I was able to kind of go from there. So sometimes I find it's often about almost babying yourself to try something and then either it doesn't work and you move on. It was one of those self-help that isn't helpful type things or it's something that you do find really works. And as, as Grace as well said, the importance of habits in that cannot be underestimated because you're never going to wake up at 5 a.m. or whatever time you wake up, I don't wake up at 5am. I think that kind of entrepreneur always do that is not true at all or realistic. But I think if you do, for example, you're not going to leave out of bed motivated at that time, the majority of the time.

You're not going to be motivated when you want to get something done that you hate. And so just getting those habits and what I also refer to in the book as rituals kind of in place is the most important thing for you to then have kind of governing factors in your routine for when things that come in that you couldn't anticipate or you have to adapt. And so for me, that's just kind of force that procrastination out of me. And now I know if I'm procrastinating, I probably actually need a rest. And it's probably, you know, I've worked on it for that long

that I feel like it's usually, okay, you need to step back. One thing that Grace mentioned there, which is really important, is this role of anticipation. So you've mentioned it with respect to things that you do in the future. And, you know, if we plan a holiday, there's kind of three moments where we get happiness out of that holiday, anticipating it, going on the holiday and the memories of the holiday. And there's some studies that show us that the actual anticipation of the holiday,

is work more than the holiday itself sometimes as a motivator. But I think the flip side, which we haven't spoken so much about, is one reason that people might procrastinate is fear of failure. And to realize that when we think about failure, the anticipation of failure is a life experience in itself, that you're putting yourself through. So you feel the negative emotions, you feel the mental health decreases,

you feel the well-being decreases. But one thing that listeners can think about is that when we anticipate failure, we always anticipate it being way worse than it actually will be. As humans, we underestimate our ability to bounce back and really having faith in your ability to bounce back because sometimes we procrastinate to not put ourselves out there

and that's absolutely the worst thing with respect to moving forward. So if you have a dream and you know that to do something, you know, maybe you need to public speak, maybe you need to, you know, write an article, maybe there's something that you need to do that you've never done before and you have this comfort blanket. The anticipation is apps of failure and it not working out

is much worse. And one that I think that I talk about in the book, which I think will help people who do fear failure is the spotlight effect. So as humans, we're really imagined that people are looking at us all the time. So if I mess up or if I fluff up, people are looking at me and they'll basically kind of be saying, oh, Grace is an idiot. Things didn't work out for Grace.

Look at her. She's not very good. But there's a lot of research by a guy called Thomas Gillivich just shows us that actually while we're thinking that, everyone else is thinking about themselves. They're worried about themselves and I'm worried about their own failure. So when you do fail, there's kind of two types of people who are the majority, the ones who don't notice you. and then the minority who actually care about you.

So for procrastination, if you are somebody with a fear of failure, really kind of leverage the idea that putting yourself forward is never going to be as bad as you think it would be. And secondly, even if you do fail, no one's going to, no one's going to remember. I love that. No one really cares. No one will ever care as much as you. I get in a lot of trouble talking about this in companies because people say folk are going to start doing really bad things now, you know, if they think no one's actually looking at them.

And I don't believe that that's not what I'm actually advocating for today. I'm just advocating for put yourself out there. You know, you're the one who'll form the memories around not anyone else. And embrace failure as learning. I mean, I really think that is, that's where we need to get to. That if I don't do well in something, there was learning in that. Absolutely. Oh, I've so enjoyed chatting to you both about this.

Dr. Grace Laudden and Grace Beverley. Thank you so much for coming on going for goal. You've been listening to behavioural scientist Dr. Grace Laudan and entrepreneur Grace Beverly on the weekly Women's Health podcast, going for goal. Now, I hope you're planning to take some of their brilliant advice on board. And if you're only going to take one thing away, please let it be Grace Beverly's message. They're being excellent at work and being excellent at taking care of yourself are really not mutually exclusive. Remember, if you've got a different goal in mind and want to know

how to achieve it, let us know. And we could be helping you get there in an upcoming episode. As ever, if you want to comment on anything that we've raised in this episode, get in touch. All the details of how to do so are in the show notes. That's all from going for goal this week. We'll be back next Tuesday. Bye.