Webinar: Unprocrastination Mindset
Post written by Leo Babauta.
In our first Unprocrastination webinar (on Fri. July 13, 2012), I talked about learning to trust yourself when it comes to commitments you make to yourself. This is the heart of beating procrastination, which really is breaking commitments you make to yourself.
More notes from the talk are below.
Watch the video below, or download the mp4 here to watch later on your computer or iPad/iPhone.
The password for the video below is seabreeze.
Notes:
- Forming the Unprocrastination habits is excellent, but what if you don’t trust yourself to actually do any of the things you say you’re going to do?
- Many people don’t trust themselves to follow through on a commitment to themselves.
- We trust ourselves to honor commitments to others, but too often we have failed ourselves, resulting in a lack of trust.
- The lack of trust means that when we make a promise to ourselves (a commitment), we don’t always believe it, deep down.
- We think we’re not going to really do it — we’ve failed so often in the past.
- As a result, we fulfill that prophecy — when things get tough, we bail on ourselves, even though we’d never do that to others.
- How do we overcome this? By developing trust.
- Make a promise to yourself right now: you’re going to honor your promises to yourself, no matter what.
- You might not really believe it, but try — you’re going to develop that trust in yourself. Believe this.
- How can you develop trust? Honor this first promise, no matter what.
- Make some small promises: right now, promise yourself that for the next 20 seconds, you’ll close your eyes and listen to Leo – go ahead, I’ll wait – make the promise!
- Now actually do it — do everything in your power to fulfill this promise.
- When you’re done, congratulate yourself — don’t pshaw it, don’t move on without recognizing the accomplishment — it might be small, but you have to recognize it so you can start to trust yourself.
- Keep doing this, in little bits, several times today (not all day or you’ll get tired of it).
- Increase it to 30 seconds, then 45, then a minute.
- Keep making easy promises – maybe even make tally marks for them.
- After a week, you’ll see that you are trustworthy, even if it’s just for small things.
- Make ones that are a little harder, and so on.
Some things to do:
1. Make an actual promise — it makes it meaningful.
2. Make this promise important — write it down and remind yourself.
3. Do everything in your power to do it, without fail.
4. When you notice yourself making excuses, tell yourself, No excuses!
5. Ask yourself, Do I want to be someone who doesn’t fulfill promises to myself, or do I want to be a person who always does?
6. When you do it, recognize it.
This trust means you’ll actually develop the habits, and actually do the tasks you promise yourself you’ll do, instead of procrastinating.