The Mindset Mentor - How to Stop Procrastinating & Develop Willpower

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial and if you have not yet done so hit that subscribe button since you never miss another episode. Today we're gonna be talking about how to stop procrastinating. One of the main things that I get asked from people is I have a problem with procrastinating how can can I get better at it? How can I get past it? Because I realize that this procrastination is holding me back. And so today I'm going to give you the three keys that I have to get past your procrastination. And before we dive into procrastination specifically, I want to tell you this, and you've heard me talk about it a lot lately, which is discipline. The key to getting past, one of the keys to getting past procrastination is to have discipline.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Discipline is something that you're not born with. It's something that you train into yourself. Just like you're not born with massive muscles, you have to go to the gym and train yourself to actually get the muscles that you want. Discipline is like taking yourself to the mental gym and training your mind to grow so that you can have the discipline that you need to do to get whatever it is that you need out of this world. So there's two parts to that as we're diving into it. The procrastination part number one is get past the procrastination of starting something, which is really hard for a lot of people. And then the second part is

Starting point is 00:01:25 finishing, which is actually the harder part for most people. So we're going to talk about starting and how to have the discipline to start the thing that you need to finally start to create the life that you want or whatever it is you truly want. And then we're going to talk about the discipline to actually finish the things that you need to finish. And so the three keys are this, the first key, and probably the biggest key that I have for you around procrastination in general is this, do not negotiate with your mind. Your mind, I always tell people are the best salesperson in the world. In the entire world is you talking yourself out of why you don't need to do something. The best salesperson in the world is you when your alarm goes off in the morning, even though you consciously, fully awake, set that alarm clock, knowing that you needed to wake up at that time. But it's you hearing that alarm clock

Starting point is 00:02:16 and negotiating with yourself as to why you need to stay in bed later. That's the best salesperson in the world. And so the first key to developing the disciplines you need to have the procrastination to get past your procrastination is this. You cannot, absolutely not negotiate with your mind. If you're not a disciplined person, the main reason why is because you have let your mind win most of your life. And now it's not, it's time to not allow that to happen anymore. It's time to not negotiate. You know, like for instance, how often have you been sitting on the couch doing nothing, knowing you need to get up and go do something, but you're really good at talking yourself into why you can do it another time, why you can do it later on

Starting point is 00:03:00 today, why you can do it tomorrow. Here's the thing that you need to know about being inactive. If you're inactive at the point of thinking, it will cause more inaction. If you're sitting on the couch, it's really hard to get off of the couch and go do whatever it is that you absolutely need to get done, right? Action creates more action. And so what's the key to getting off the couch when it's comfortable or getting out of your bed when it's cold outside or doing something that you need to do? The key is immediate action. There's a, in the easiest way that I find to do it,

Starting point is 00:03:36 Mel Robbins wrote a book about the five second rule. I've always done it as three seconds. You count down three, two, one. You gotta take action when you get to that one. It's just like a rocket ship taken off. You just got to take action. So if I'm sitting on the couch, I'm on Instagram, I'm not doing anything, but I know that there's something that I need to be doing. I will go three, two, one, and I will just force myself to get up. And I don't force myself to get

Starting point is 00:03:59 up and go take that action, whatever it is that needs to be done. I just force myself to physically get my body up and moving. And if I don't feel like, and believe me, there's a lot of times I don't feel like doing anything, but I force myself. I don't negotiate with my mind. So if I don't feel like doing something, I have to move in some sort of way. And here's what you can do. You can do jumping jacks, do 50 jumping jacks and see how much your state changes through those 50 jumping jacks. Go on a run. Do 20, 30, 40 pushups, whatever it is for you. You have to create action in your body and then you'll feel like taking more action.

Starting point is 00:04:35 Because the hardest way to take action is to start from absolutely nothing. Inaction creates more inaction. Motion and action creates more inaction. Motion, inaction creates more motion, inaction. So it's not about going from couch to getting the thing done that you have to get done. It's about going from the couch to some form of movement that gets your heart rate going, that gets your body moving into the right direction so that now you can go do the thing that you need to do. So say I'm sitting on the couch, I'm eating some bonbons, eating some ice cream, scrolling through Instagram. There's something I need to do. I'm not

Starting point is 00:05:11 doing it. What do I need to do? I need to get up. I need to do 50 jumping jacks. And by the time I'm doing those 50 jumping jacks, my body, my brain, my heart rate is way different than it was when I was sitting on the couch scrolling through Instagram. So the first thing that you need to do is do not negotiate with your mind. When you notice your mind start to kick in and start to tell you why you shouldn't do the thing that you need to do, you got to take action. Three, two, one, go. You got to get up and do something.

Starting point is 00:05:38 Get up, do some jumping jacks, and then start moving into the direction that you need to. So that's key number one is do not negotiate with your mind. Key number two is this, finish what you start. I can't tell you how many times I've heard from people, people who follow me, people who send me emails, people who, you know, I've been in my coaching programs. And the thing that they say is this, Rob, I'm really good at starting, but I'm terrible at finishing something. Is that you, for instance? Do you ever get that way? I'm curious. And here's the reason why I ask is because almost everybody that I know or I've ever coached or has ever sent me emails says the exact same thing. Rob, I'm really good at starting X, Y, Z. I'm terrible at finishing. That I believe for some reason,

Starting point is 00:06:23 it's just a natural human trait almost Everybody is that way? So that's a good thing because it doesn't it shows you that you're not lazy. It shows you that you're normal You're just like everybody else So how do you start to brainwash yourself into finishing the things that you start the things that need to be done? So here's the example that i'll give you when you wake up in the morning Think about the things that you do every single day, like waking up every single day. You wake up every single day. Hopefully you woke up today, right? What do you need to do? You need

Starting point is 00:06:54 to finish that sleeping. I don't mean that you need to go back to bed. I mean that you need to make the bed. The finishing of your sleeping is making the bed. What about doing laundry? I hate doing laundry. And this is something that I have to force myself to do is I have to force myself to get it done. I'm really good at starting it. I'm really bad at finishing it, right? So if I notice the resistance in my mind to finishing it, once I notice that resistance, I've got to go, I've got to do it. So if I've got my laundry that I'm doing, I've got to finish the laundry. It's the little teeny tiny things that you do that you need to force yourself to finish. Hey everybody, real quick. Working remotely doesn't mean that you need to feel disconnected from your team. With Miro, you can get your work done together and collaborate wherever you are.

Starting point is 00:07:41 More and more teams are now working from home and you can collaborate better and get more work done faster with the help of Miro. Miro is an online whiteboard that brings teams together anytime, anywhere, and their infinite canvas is perfect for brainstorming, like making mock-ups, organizing files, and managing complex projects. And they even have templates to help you and your team get started. Over 5 million people trust Miro worldwide to help their teams work more efficiently. So start collaborating with your team for free when you sign up for an account at Miro.com slash dial. That's M-I-R-O dot com slash dial for a free account with unlimited team members. That's Miro.com slash D-I-A-L.

Starting point is 00:08:24 All right, let's get back to the show right now. For example, if you eat breakfast every morning, okay, you wake up, you make yourself breakfast. You then sit down, you eat the breakfast. Let's finish the breakfast. How do you finish it? Besides finishing the bowl of cereal, whatever it is that you're eating, you wash it and you put it away, right? Finish every single aspect of what you do. Finish the bed, right? Finish sleeping. That's making the bed. Finish your meal. That's putting it away, washing it. Don't just take it and put it inside the sink. Actually go and wash the dish or put it inside of the dishwasher. Finish every single aspect of what you do. If you're about to go out and you try on like 10

Starting point is 00:09:06 different outfits, finish it. What do I mean by finish it? Not walk out the door, but usually when people try on all of their outfits, they try on outfits. This one doesn't work. They throw it in the bed. This one doesn't work. They throw it in the bed. This one doesn't work. They throw it in the bed. And then they walk out and they leave all of them on the bed. No, you need to take every single outfit, every shirt, everything that you're wearing and put it back where it was. You have to finish. And what you're doing is you're training your mind to finish every single thing that you do. And it's not going to change your life in the next week, two weeks, three weeks. But in the next six months, what you'll notice is that you've

Starting point is 00:09:40 developed discipline to do the little teeny tiny things. And I always say the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. So if you've developed the discipline to do the dishes, to put the laundry away, to make the bed, to finish everything that you started, you're going to have the discipline to do the bigger things in life because the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. If you're not finishing on the little things, I promise you, you're not going to be finishing on the big things. If you finish on the little things, it's going to be easier for you to finish on all of the things that you do every single thing that you do It's the discipline that you have to develop People always say but I'm not disciplined and the reason why you're not disciplined is because you haven't trained yourself to be disciplined

Starting point is 00:10:20 It's just a bunch of little teeny tiny actions and what you'll notice is that discipline is a a skill that you develop it's not something that you're just born with and so if you do all the little tiny things it'll make it easier to do the big things so that's number two so number one don't negotiate with your mind number two finish what you start and number three always do more than you said that you would do okay so don't just finish something do more than you said that you would do. Okay. So don't just finish something, do more than you anticipated, do more than that. You said, then you said that you would do. And if you've listened to my podcast or watch these YouTube videos for a while, what you know is that I I've kind of had this awakening of this about three and a half, four years ago when I was at the gym and I was

Starting point is 00:11:03 at the gym and you might've heard this story before, when I was at the gym and I was at the gym and you might have heard this story before, but I was on the treadmill warming up at an incline for 10 minutes and I got to nine minutes and 50 seconds and I thought, okay, I'm done. I can turn it off. And then lo and behold, something clicked inside of my head and I went, hold on a second. I'm about to stop right before I'm supposed to be done. So if I'm stopping just short of my goal here at the gym, I'm probably stopping short of my goal here at the gym, I'm probably stopping short of my goal in many other places in my life. And so I thought to myself, instead of stopping at nine minutes and 50 seconds, when I wanted to go to 10 minutes, I'm going to go past,

Starting point is 00:11:35 I'm going to do 10 minutes and 30 seconds. I'm going to do 11, 11 minutes. I always like to try to think of whatever it is I'm doing, try to do at least 10% more. So you're training yourself to start, you're training yourself to finish, and you're training yourself to do more than you actually planned on it. This is how you develop willpower. This is how you develop your discipline. This is how you get past procrastination. So if you say, you know what, I'm going to go run a mile and when you get to that mile, push yourself an extra 10%. Go 1.1 miles. Go a little bit more. If you're in the gym and you want to do 10 sets of 10 reps of your bench press and you get to 10, push past it. Do 11, do 12, do just a little bit more than you originally said that you were going

Starting point is 00:12:19 to do. You know, if you wanted to do 10 reps and you could do more than those 11 or those 12, do 20 reps. Just show your mind that you are not going to negotiate with it, that you're going to finish and that you're going to do more than you said you were going to do. If you were going to go in there and lift 25 pounds to do some curls, go in there and see if you can lift 30. Do whatever you can to do more on every single action that you have. Because here's the three keys. Number one, don't negotiate with your mind.

Starting point is 00:12:49 Get up and do it. Number two, finish what you start. Number three, do more than you said you were going to do. And what you'll realize is this, you will not procrastinate as much because you've developed the discipline. You develop the willpower. You develop the skill that you need to, to push yourself past the point of giving up. Because all too often, we don't start what we truly want to start. When we do start it, we don't finish it. Imagine if every action that you took that was meaningful to you in your life, not only did you start, not only did you finish, but you went over and above what you said you were going to. How you develop a great life, you go over and above in every single thing that you do.

Starting point is 00:13:25 So the three keys, number one, do not negotiate with your mind. Number two, finish what you start. And number three, always do more than you said that you would do. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share with someone that you know and love. Also, if you love it, please give us a rating and review, however you listen to us. It helps more than you could possibly imagine. So if you've ever gotten any value from anything that I've ever said, please go to iTunes or Spotify or Stitcher, however you listen to us and give us a rating and review right now. I've greatly, greatly, greatly appreciate it. And I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode,

Starting point is 00:14:02 make it your mission to make someone else's day better. Go out there and be the change that we need to see in the world. You guys are the leaders. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

The Mindset Mentor - How to Stop Procrastinating & Develop Willpower

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.