The Chris Cuomo Project - Walk and Talk: Procrastination

Episode Date: June 18, 2023

Chris Cuomo explores the reasons that people procrastinate and shares three ways to stop putting things off in his latest Walk and Talk. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, welcome to another Walk & Talk. I got a good one for you today. Procrastinate. You know, I'd wanted to do this video, but I kept putting it off. But I'm ching. Now that I got the old man joke out of the way. This is all of us. Okay. And if you're not among us, good for you. But you may be kidding yourself. Why do we procrastinate? First of all, this is as old a behavior as dirt. Okay? It comes from a Latin verb, pro, forward, crastinatus or something like that, crastinat, that deals with putting off until tomorrow. This belongs to tomorrow. So, you know, since the ancient days, people have been delaying. The question, of course, is why? The more important question for me is what to do about it.

Why? Because sometimes knowing why something is is overrated. Sometimes it's better just to not do it or to do it again or to whatever it is. Sometimes it's better to just try and work your way out of it than to dominate yourself with uh the reasons that you're doing it in the first place but to the extent that we care uh if you do the research you'll see that psychologists are divided on it really depends you know it can be self-regulation it can be uh dealing with uh your own behavior even if you know that there are negative consequences, not doing what it is, and you can get into your own feelings about yourself and punishing yourself. It can be a reflection of how you process in general. Executive function is a new space

that psychology is exploring about how people decide to do tasks and when and in what manner and what processes best to activate them. But I got three ways that you can deal with procrastination. And I totally do. If you ever had that situation where you're walking around the house and you keep walking past things that either need to be picked up or fixed or painted or changed or thrown out, looking at the garbage and you get angry because somebody else was supposed to take it out or whatever it is. I do this all the time. Walk past my car and see something I have to do, but I don't do it. Why? There are tons of reasons for why. Sometimes it's about the work and

the effort and the unknown going into it, insecurity about what happens if you try. And again, sometimes it's just about how you regulate your feelings and your behaviors. But I got three shortcuts for you. Now, I know I've said there is no easy, everything's hard. I know I got it. It's still going to be, you're still going to have to do it. So here are three things. First one I try is when it's procrastinating, do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Start it now. Do it now. Do it now. Start it now. Do it now. Do it now. Make a list. Write down what you need to do. Put big boxes to check them and put the first one on the list is making a list. Check it. It'll lead to something else. Doing one thing can lead as a

catalyst to doing something else. Happens all the time. It's very understood in behavioral, uh, cognitive behavioral theory. Uh, you know, patterns, momentum, uh, can be dynamic. So do it now. Tell yourself, do it now, do it now. Self-talk, self-talk, do it now, do it now. Uh, two, make a list, make. Make a list. Write down what you need to do. Two B, reward yourself. Tie it to rewards. I'm not going to eat breakfast until I blah, blah, blah. If I do this, I'm going to get this, do this, have this, watch this, whatever it is. Find your own personal reward structure that works. Three, do it with somebody else. Find somebody else. This has been a great secret to why it's worth the money to pay to go to a gym or pay for a trainer. That you've already spent the money. You're not going

to waste the money, are you? You already told her, him, it, they, whatever, that you're going to show up. You're not going to not show up, are you? Do it with somebody else. These are three good tricks. Now, to the extent that the why matters, I've done a good amount of research on it. Now, the frustrating thing about the research is it's non-dispositive. And again, this is a very old behavior. It happens. And sometimes it's good to not do. Sometimes it's good to sit. I remember when somebody was explaining to me in Iraq,

U.S. military rules of engagement and how they behave. And very often, when you are fired upon, the instinct is to run, right? Unless you're frozen. But there is something interesting about freezing. Now, it can mean different things depending on the context and the organism that we're talking about. But sometimes people freeze because, or whatever, things freeze one sometimes they're overwhelmed and it's shock okay that's different other times although you know there is a medical theory about shock that it's about the body protecting itself but the military as it was explained to me often stop and assess when fired upon as opposed to like running. Why? Because you don't know that

that instinctive move you're going to make is going to be the right one. And then I had this, uh, reintroduced to me in my self-defense training of how, what you do is you set up your posture as you get that instinct. My coach, Tony Blower had a great, uh, really great rationale for this where he was like, you know, overwhelmingly people who've been victims of attacks had a feeling that something wasn't right before it happened. Trust the feeling and prepare yourself for it. Get yourself into a defensive posture, start thinking out your options. And that's a period of assessment. Instead of just running or punching the guy in the face or whatever it is the situation demands of you in order to keep yourself safe, it's about thinking and assessing. So there is something to be said for inaction where, well, you know,

before I tackle the garden, let me really think about whether I want to box it or not. Let me do some research. Let me talk to the guys at the Home Depot, how much is involved, how much benefit really is there, and or what choices you're going to make. You know, there's something to planning, thinking, rethinking. Procrastination is something else. Procrastination is where you're putting it off for no good reason other than the delay or, you know, perceived fears or risks about doing it.

Or you're lazy. You know, it could be a lot of things. Not everything has to be an ism. Not everything has to be, you know, that you have a problem with it. Everybody likes to say how they're addicted to things and they have all these diagnoses and maybe they do, maybe they don't. But we can often get way too caught up in the problem instead of how to manage it and what to do with it. would know you would not have this walk and talk I know the irony of it being about procrastination but you would not have this walk and talk had I not said while I was out walking I already put it off once I did another one first and then I did this one why uh because

uh I wanted to kind of nail it and make it as tight as possible and as little about the explanation of the problem as possible. Because the real goal here is to have you get better, get to a better place, do better things. And that's why I'm keeping this one shorter, because I want you to try it. I guarantee there are things in your life. There's a book that you didn't start or you haven't finished. There's a goal. There's an activity.

There's a date. There's a meeting. There's a chore. Oh, that's a great word to look up, by the way. Look up the etymology of chore. Oh, it's a really good one. I love looking up where words come from. They teach you so chore. Oh, it's a really good one. I love looking up where words come from. They teach you so much. Oh, look, baby turkeys. If you're watching,

can you see the little baby turkeys following the mommy? It's so funny. The older I get, the more I'm into like watching animals with their babies. What's that about? Anyway, there's something that you're putting off that you could be doing or should be doing. And it's really important that to the extent that you want to motivate change, you think about how to do it and then you do it. My turkey's eyeballing me. It's nothing like the love of a mother, boy. I tell my kids all the time, I love you, but you got one mom. Even when they say, we only have one dad. Nobody loves you like your mother. Nobody will do for you like your mother. And that's why you got to worship them.

They're imperfect. We all are. worship them they're imperfect we all are but man in my experience my wife my sisters my mom my mother-in-law they don't even think about anything other than what's best for the kid the shit they take and and they, you know, like if I said a tenth of anything that these kids say to their mom, I'd get like a glass in my face. But when it comes to their kids, man,

they may put a metaphorical whooping on them, but they take stuff because they love them like nobody else. So there's something that you could do that you're not doing. Do it now. Start now. Start now, do it now.

Make a list of the things you're going to do. First thing on the list is making the list. I still haven't taken off these lights. How about that one? No, Christina likes them. That's why they're still there um make the list check off the list and that you made the list and you're on your way do it with somebody else team up on projects team up on projects my buddy let me help him with his garage when i was in the hole after i got shit canned and it was so

good to have a sense of achievement that I got it done I've been wanting to pull this weed for about a month and a half why don't I pull it right now because I decided I actually like the color but not everything's like that I planted these petunias today right there um you know I'm doing things I'm practicing it it's just It's just a lot easier to preach. All right, it's a short one, but get after it.