We all know what's like, right?
We have a ton of stuff to do, sit down to do it, and then we do everything else but the thing we meant to do.
Procrastination is real y'all. And in this episode, I'll be sharing the three reasons you procrastinate and what you can do to counter that procrastination.
And just in case you're wondering, the reasons don't include your competence, work ethic or ability to do your job. 💯
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Links:
Boost your confidence and increase your self-belief by downloading your free Confidence Journal
Get your copy of my book, The Triple C Method®️ , from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Book Depository, or your favourite independent bookstore.
Connect with me:
Hire me as your coach! Book a consultation call
Support the show
Buy me a coffee
Leave a review
Stuff to Light Up Your Life
🚀 Get my book, The Triple C Method®️
🚀 Work with me
🚀 Get Triple C 101
🚀 Do yoga with me
Connect with me:
We all know what's like, right?
We have a ton of stuff to do, sit down to do it, and then we do everything else but the thing we meant to do.
Procrastination is real y'all. And in this episode, I'll be sharing the three reasons you procrastinate and what you can do to counter that procrastination.
And just in case you're wondering, the reasons don't include your competence, work ethic or ability to do your job. 💯
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Links:
Boost your confidence and increase your self-belief by downloading your free Confidence Journal
Get your copy of my book, The Triple C Method®️ , from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Book Depository, or your favourite independent bookstore.
Connect with me:
Hire me as your coach! Book a consultation call
Support the show
Buy me a coffee
Leave a review
Stuff to Light Up Your Life
🚀 Get my book, The Triple C Method®️
🚀 Work with me
🚀 Get Triple C 101
🚀 Do yoga with me
Connect with me:
What’s up? Welcome to Episode 15 of The Triple C Project. You may remember I said last week that I was struggling with a cold. And that cold is turned into a really annoying cough that I've had all week. So if a coughing fit comes up partway through this podcast, you'll understand why I don't edit these podcasts. I quite like to think of the podcast as a conversation between me and you, the listener. And I know that we're not set obviously each other. You can't ask me questions in real time. And I can't answer in real time. But that conference, conversational vibe is just kind of my style is how I write is how I do this podcast. And that's how I want this to come across. But just because you can't ask me questions in real time, doesn't mean you can't ask me questions. I always love to hear questions that you have, whether it's about the show about what I do about things that are coming up for you, you kind of want to chat through. So as always send me an email hey@iamryanspence.com. Always love to hear from you. So don't be shy. Send me a message. What else has been going on? It's a holiday here this week in the UK. We've got two public holidays this week. The day I'm recording and also tomorrow, the next day Friday, for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. I'm not going to talk about the Jubilee on the show, I have my own thoughts about that. I'll just focus on the fact that it's two public holidays and the sun is shining, which is great. The other good thing is my kids are on school holiday. And they are at my in laws for the week, which is amazing. My wife and I both needed a break. Two boys six and four are exhausting. So having them away for a few days is is really good. The house is very quiet. And I am grateful and thankful for that. So yeah, a lot going on this week. What am I going to talk about today? Well, before I get to that, last week, I read you a one of the reviews from my book, The Triple C Method. And this week, I'm going to read you another one, or an extract from one reviews are coming in. And so I'm really, really grateful for one because it helps the algorithm and in this day of social media and internet shopping and all the rest of it. Algorithms, whether we like them or not kind of affect what people see and what they buy and what they're turned on to. So the more reviews the better for the algorithm, the more people see the book, the more the book can help people. So keep those reviews coming in, really do appreciate them. And also, it just helps me see that the book is doing what I wanted the book to do. I read the book with a purpose. And anyone who's written a book will tell you it certainly wasn't to get rich and famous by any stretch of the imagination. The book is written to help people to help people who are in the position that I was, who were feeling stuck and unfulfilled and feeling lethargic, and kind of want to get out of that and start living life in a way that is more more fulfilling for them and life that slept. And so hearing in the reviews that the book is doing that and hearing the stories that people latch on to hearing the techniques and the tools that resonate with people and that they're starting to implement in their own life really makes me feel that the work that went into putting the book together is worthwhile. So reviews are great, and they're helpful. So don't think that your review doesn't matter. Every single review matters. Doesn't matter if it's five star review or not just hearing how the book is being received hearing what works hearing, when you what you took away, what you would have liked to have seen is always going to be variable. So look, your your words matter. Your message matters, your insights matter. So please do share them. Anyway, back to this week's review. And I'm going to share a extract from a review from Nicole Colwell. So Nicole is a business strategist and corporate transition expert. She's also the host of the Corporate Expat podcast, which I have been fortunate to be a guest on. And Nicole is great. She's doing some great things out there in the world. She's also a speaker. I think she's also working on a book at the moment as well. So you should go go check out the podcast, the corporate expert. The name is kind of what you'd expect it to be the people who've been in the corporate world and have gone on to do other things, either outside or in conjunction with their work in the corporate world. And Nicole said this about The Triple C Method. What a great time to hit reset. Reading The Triple C Method is like spring cleaning your mind so you can recharge, reset and hit your next level of success. I mean, that's great. I couldn't really say it better myself. Recharge sprinkling your mind. If those words resonated with you, and you haven't read the book yet, head to Amazon or your favourite independent bookseller, and pick up your copy of the Triple C method, gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage, so you can live life let's well. So, today's episode today we're going to talk about procrastination. Procrastination is something that we all struggle with from time to time. It's the overthinking is the sitting down knowing we have things to do, but not being able to get ourselves up to do them. Or it's overthinking them, it's no, we have to do the thing. But it's kind of pushing it down the list or doing everything but the thing that's in front of us, I've been guilty of doing that. Even recently, I've been guilty of doing that, which I will share. But what I want to share in this episode is that with my experience, there are three reasons why we procrastinate. And once you understand what those three reasons are, and once you understand which reason applies to you at any given moment, you can then deal with it. And you can work your way through your procrastination. So hold on a second while I go and have that coughing fit I told you about. Okay, I'm back. Again, as I said, I never edit these things. You're getting the real rawness right here. Right. So procrastination. There are three reasons that you procrastinate. And here they are. Number one, you don't know why you want or need to do the thing that you're supposed to be doing. So I remember in BigLaw, I would get in in the morning, sit down at my desk and know I had a pile of stuff to do, and not really want to do any of it. And in the book, I talk about that being a sign of lethargy, but that ongoing procrastination, of knowing I have all of the things to do, but not doing them. I go and chat to somebody in their office, I go out and go for a walk had go and get a coffee or get a snack. I mean, I browse the internet, whatever it was. And looking back, that all came from a reason of not knowing why I wanted or needed to thing or whisper it. And this is a big point. If you have something that's on the list to do, why is it on your list? Is it on the list? Because you put it there? Or because somebody else put it there? I think that's the first question to ask yourself. And then once you know the answer to that question, what is the reason why this thing needs to be done? Or why you want to do that thing? And is it a reason that you care about. And if it doesn't, then that's the problem. If you're not clear on why the thing needs to be done, or why you want to do the thing, or you don't care enough about the reason why it needs to be done. That's why you kind of procrastinate. Nobody wants to do things that they don't want to do. Sometimes we have to. But if there's a bigger reason attached to that, we can see further down the line, the vision of why doing that thing is important, we can usually pull ourselves up and get the thing done, because you can see that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, that light at the end of the tunnel. But you need to know that. So you need to start asking yourself that question. I don't want to do this thing. I really don't want to do it. But what is the reason why it needs to be done? What is going to be the benefit to me of getting it done? So story for me this week, so not in big law. But in my new life. I needed to, boring in technical stuff, migrate my email platform from one to the other. It's been something that's been on my list for a couple of months. And I hadn't done it. And I haven't done it. Yes, partly because I had a lot of other stuff going on. But I haven't done it also because I knew it was going to take a fair bit of work involves some tech stuff wasn't really my zone of genius. I'm more of a big ideas, creative kind of guy and getting down into the weeds of the tech wasn't really what I wanted to do. And I also hadn't answered the question for myself as to what was going to be the ultimate benefit of me getting this done. I knew it needed to be done. But I hadn't really honed in on that question. And when I did, I sat down and got it done sat down on Monday of this week and it ended up taking me longer than I planned it but I got it done. Because I answered that question for myself. What is the ultimate benefit of me doing this? The ultimate benefit is that people can then access the information, I want them to be able to access to help them on their journey, they can get to my website, get the confidence journal, and then they can get information about other things that can help them. So seeing that bigger picture, made me realise that this needs to be done, it needs to be done now. So that procrastination, I could then kill it and get on with doing the thing. There's still some issues with it. But that's a whole other story to do with tech, but you get the drift of what I'm saying. Okay. The second reason why you procrastinate, is because you don't believe that you can do the thing. So you have this thing to do in front of you, and you're looking at it thinking, I don't think I can do that. I don't think it's possible for me to get that done. And it could be example, in BigLaw, when you'd get a deal in and there'd be some weird quirk to the deal that you had to work through. Maybe it was something that I hadn't seen before. And on the one hand, you know, that if you kind of sat down and really got into it, you could probably figure it out. But that rational thought was overshadowed by the louder voice inside of you, that was saying, This is too hard, you can't do this, you haven't seen this before, what makes you think you can get this done, you don't have the experience, you don't have the skill. It's that inner critic telling you, and chipping away at your confidence. And so when you don't have the confidence that you can do the thing, obviously, you're going to be put it off, you're not going to want to do it, because he wants to do something where they don't have the confidence to do that. I want to talk a bit more about these later, after we get to the third point. And the third point, the third reason why you procrastinate is you're scared to take action to do the thing. So this can look like marking up a document and sitting and rereading the mark-up, re-reading the document and taking hours and hours over something that should take you maybe a few minutes, maybe 30 minutes, maybe an hour, because you're scared to press send on that document. Because you're scared, will the client appreciate what I've done? Will they ask me why I missed X? Will the partner next door come storming into my room saying What the fuck? You know, that does happen? You know, we've all had situations where there's toxic partners or seniors who, who rather than come and sit down and have a conversation with you shout and scream and rant and rave about one minute thing that you've done wrong. Well, that can happen. So you can be scared to do the thing. And that's what makes you procrastinate, because as long as you don't do the thing, the fear of the fear of what may happen will never come to fruition. But at some point, you're going to have to do it. So how'd you get over that? Well, to simplify, let's let's go back to those three points. First of all, so we have you don't want know why you want or need to do the thing or you don't care. Number two is you don't believe you can do the thing. And number three is you're scared to take action to do the thing. And simplify that can you see well, what those three things really come down to. You should know this. After all, podcast is The Triple C Project. Well number one is a lack of clarity, number two is a lack of confidence. And number three is a lack of courage. Once you know which of the three C's are stopping you from moving forward, or causing you to procrastinate, then you can deal with it. So again, taking the first point, you don't know why you want need or care, clarity. Ask yourself why? And go deep with your answer to that question. Don't just go with the first answer that comes to you. But go deeper, try to find out exactly why this thing will matter. And if ultimately, you can't find the answer to that the answer to that that is your answer. But then that's a whole bigger conversation as to why you're in the job that you're in. Is there some end goal to that? Is there a reason? Is there a bigger vision as to why you're there? Or is it time to look at moving on? Is it time to look at moving sideways? There's all other kinds of conversation that you can have in that scenario, but for the purpose of this podcast, I just want you to get clear as to why you want you need or you should care about doing the thing. And if you can't find the answer to that. Then you need to move on and have a deeper conversation with yourself and or with your coach. Second point, lack of confidence. So ask yourself, what's stopping you believing that nothing is possible that you can actually do it? Is it something that you've done before? Or have you done something similar to before that similar to this before that you can draw on that experience? How did it turn out for you if you had done it before? Or if you've done something similar before, what are the things that you learn from that process that you can then implement into this new thing that you're going to do? Look for that evidence to support the fact that you can do the thing, or you can figure out how to do the thing. And that's how you deal with that second point of lack of confidence to help you move forward and stop procrastinating in that scenario. And the third and final point, you're scared to take action to do the thing. Lack of courage. So what are you scared of? Our brains, when we're going to do something new will immediately jump to the worst case scenario, the absolute worst thing that can happen? So let's start there. What is the worst thing that could happen? If you take action? When you think about that, really ask yourself, what that looks like? Feel what that would feel like to you? What will be the potential consequences ramifications for that? But I'm not letting you off the hook there. I then want you to ask yourself, what is the best thing that could happen? If you did this thing? What is the absolute ultimate best outcome of taking action? And again, feel into that really visualise that. Look at the two extremes. The reality is you're probably going to land somewhere in the middle. And even if the very worst thing could happen, how bad is that really going to be? You're still going to move yourself forward, because one, you'll have taken action to do the thing. And two, you'll have data that you can then learn from going forward. So not doing the thing doesn't really help you. But doing the thing and taking action does. So when you stop procrastinating when you're sat in that zone of procrastination, I'd like you to come back to this episode and come back to these three reasons. And ask yourself, Am I procrastinating because I lacked clarity. Am I procrastinating because I lacked confidence? Or am I procrastinating because I lack courage. Once you identify which of those it is, then you can start to work through the process of dealing with that so you can come out the other side. In some scenarios, all three may apply. And that's fine, just work through all three. But don't sit there thinking that you're procrastinating because you don't have the ability, you're incompetent, you don't have the worth work ethic, you're just not good at your job. Does that's not true, you wouldn't be in a position that you're in if you hadn't done the work to get there. So there's a reason why you're there. So don't sell yourself short. Don't beat yourself up. Procrastination is just our minds way of keeping us safe of stopping us from going forward into something that is potentially detrimental to us. Whatever level of detriment that may be. So what we're trying to do here is actually understand that, and then really just break it down to get to the essence of what's stopping us. So, as I said, the three reasons that you procrastinate, lack of clarity, lack of confidence, lack of courage. Going back to this episode, whenever you're in procrastination, and work through the questions that I've shared with you, and let me know how it goes. I'd love to hear what moves you're making, how you're moving forward, working through this process, and beating down and fighting through your procrastination. And if you need support with this, if you need some help to kind of help you move towards that and create that bigger vision for yourself. And stop procrastinating, stop holding yourself back from moving forward towards creating the life that you want a life that's lit. That's what I help you do. As a coach. That's what I do in my one to one programme. I help you gain clarity, boost confidence and build courage, as well as a whole host of other things that I look at your performance as productivity and influence in energy. So if you're interested in having conversation, go ahead and book a call with me and let's get on the phone. Let's have a consultation, a strategy session to see where you are, where you want to be and how we can bridge the gap to get you there head to iamryanspence.com, click the work with me button. And that'll give you all the information on how to book a call, and what it looks like to work with me as your coach. That's it for me this week. If this topic resonated with you, drop me a message let me know I'm at hey@ryanspence.com. And I'd love to hear about it. And if you know any friends who also struggle with procrastination, I mean, I knew a lot in my time in BigLaw. share this episode with them. You know, I think that the more that we share resources and tips and tools that we acquire for ourselves, with the people around us, the people that we care about, the more that people can start to see things differently and start to create and live the life that they want. So that's it for me this week. Head to iamryanspence.com. And get my free confidence journal particularly if lack of confidence is the point that you identify as helping you or keeping you in that zone of procrastination. The confidence journal helped me, it's helped my clients, it's seven journal prompts to help you level up, get you into that mindset of believing that you can achieve the things you want to achieve. Believing that as long as you know the what you can figure out the how along the way. So again, iamryanspence.com. Download the free confidence journal, and I will see you next week. Until then stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit!