Procrastination and the Elusive Search for the 'Perfect' Plan | Viewer Q&A

Hey guys it's David again and today I'm going to talk about this thing about changing plans. You may have noticed in your own life that from time to time you know we make plans and we sign off on it and we think you know that's a pretty good plan. I've spent some time thinking about it and I really think that plan is going to help me and of course we stick to that plan for maybe a day or two and then for some reason although initially that plan seemed like the best plan in the world we start to sort of question that plan. We start to kind of undermine that plan and really experience a lot of doubt around it right and that of course leads to that indecision of procrastination. So I'm going to read a question here, well part of a question because it's quite a long one and I'm going to give you five tips then at the end about how to overcome this because really if you understand why this is happening this questioning of a pretty sound plan you've developed it'll make it a lot easier right to understand why it happens and it'll stop happening when we understand it. So the question here and it's quite a long one but I'm just going to read a bit of it and actually this question was in response to another video I made but it starts off says thanks for the video I have a question though how much free how much guilt free fun time would you say one should schedule in if they're starting from rock bottom. Okay so when overcoming procrastination I talked about the importance of scheduling in that guilt free play time. Neil Fiore talks about that also and you know if you're talking if you're starting from rock bottom I tell people to schedule in a heck of a lot of guilt free play time. Okay the more severely you're entrenched in the pattern of procrastination the more seriously you have to take guilt free play time. So a lot is the answer to that question. At the moment I set just one hour a day aside to show up and do productive stuff and the rest of the time I can technically do anything I want. Now so far I'm loving this plan okay this plan sounds fantastic to me especially if we're starting from rock bottom here okay an hour a day of productive work is more moving in the right direction sounds fantastic but watch out for this indecision that's about to come in here okay it says I thought but I find that often results in me feeling guilty because I have so much hidden expectations that maybe I'll feel productive and get more things done during the fun time. Okay so now this guilt or this indecision is coming in and it's basically undermining this pretty sound plan that would have led us in the right direction had we been able to follow through and not feel in doubt about it. So the question goes on for a little bit longer and it's kind of a back and forth about what's the right approach what's the right plan how much free time should I have should I be getting more done in the free time and you're trying to find this perfect right balance okay and this is kind of part of our issue with this right it's some again the plan is perfect this plan is good enough there's no perfect plan right so if we can find why this is happening it'll make a lot of sense and I'm going to show it to you here in picture form what's actually going on so actually a little quote that helps us here and this quote is from Christina Imre and it says give space to your thoughts clear the noise in your head chit chat with your inner critic decide and move so we're talking about listening yep we in planning time when we're proactively sitting down trying to figure out what's going on yeah we listen to inner critic okay and we take on have a little chit chat with it and we make a decision and we move forward now what happens is actually often it's complex trauma or trauma from childhood that leads to this problem if we look at a picture here it'll make more sense right in terms of your productivity in life there's two things and you can see them there on that picture at the bottom there's two things that are actually trying to have a negotiation and typically well those two things are your personality which cares about your goals your dreams your aspirations your hopes preferences right all those beautiful things your creativity that's all your personality you're born with that that's an inherent part of who you are your personality deals with your nervous system right and your nervous system couldn't care less about your goals your hopes your dreams and your aspirations your nervous system has basically one function and it is to keep you alive okay it is survival it is keep you safe so it doesn't like you taking on too many big plans and it will quite naturally warn you it'll say you're doing too much and they'll send you the warning usually through your emotional system okay and when things are going well those that your personality and your nervous system are kind of striking striking a nice balance okay and you can come up with a plan pretty easily and your nervous system will look at and say okay personality will look at and say that's okay and you'll pretty much just go ahead with that a nice balance between them both the problem is the trauma in childhood that we we carry from this and by trauma we're talking about maybe someone being very very critical towards us um often over a long period of time maybe someone who undermines us maybe someone who is overly controlling of us doesn't give us any autonomy but mainly is that undermining thing we do something in psychology we call it introject we take that inside us so that later in life that person doesn't even have to be around but we carry that kind of relationship to ourselves that critical undermining of ourselves and that inner critic turns its attention to both your personality and your nervous system it judges every aspect of yourself so when you're trying to find this perfect plan for yourself you might say okay well um being creative uh might be important here inner critic will undermine that you don't have time to be creative your nervous system might be telling you you need to rest more maybe play more your inner critic will undermine your plan that has uh guilt-free play in it okay basically you can't win as long as the inner critic is in play as long as it is the one in charge of being the the judge of your plan okay any plan you could develop the perfect plan the most beautiful elaborate sophisticated plan and if that inner critic is there and we don't know how to talk to it and disarm it right it will undermine any plan we make so this is why we have this thing where we make a plan and a day or two in oh we're talking we're questioning we're doubting it make another plan a couple of days in we're undermining that one again it's the inner critic and this is coming from the past okay typically for most of us it's coming from the past so what we have to do clearly is we need to well here's the five tips i'm going to give based on what i've said so far okay i'm going to really kind of try and simplify it for everybody here and the five tips i would say is first of all you don't want to find yourself attacking your nervous system okay really you and your nervous system that part that wants to keep you safe are actually on the same team okay there's nothing wrong with your nervous system your nervous system has an important job to do so rather than questioning ourselves realize okay the need for relaxation and to step away from work and to stop and rest is a very very legitimate need and it needs to be kept in balance with my ambition my healthy ambition my creative drive so don't fight with your nervous system at all in fact see it as your best friend here in this scenario second thing i would say second tip here for this is don't blame yourself well when guilt and anxiety show up okay because this guilt and anxiety is all coming from the past and it's perpetuated by that inner critic that we have with us so if you think you're the only one that has this sort of inner critic that makes you feel guilty and anxious i can promise you that that could that is the furthest thing the truth possible right i don't really know anybody that doesn't have it to a certain degree okay there's degrees with it but it's so so common so the most important thing is when you just begin to notice it more and notice the effects that this inner critic this guilt and anxiety is having on you okay just know to become an observer become a watcher of it and notice rather than even fighting against it now we do want to regain some control here from this and we'll talk about that in a moment which is number three we want to start to question that inner critic we don't want to start questioning your create your personality or your nervous system which should be working uh sympathical with each other what we want to start questioning is this inner critic this voice that undermines this voice that puts everything in doubt and it makes us so indecisive so we use things like cbt we use things like inquiry or journaling we're really trying to question these old narratives old narratives like uh you have to work harder you're not working hard enough you're not good enough it'll never work it's hopeless all that stuff right especially it's not good enough that's the big one that we get by true interjection so find the tools okay and that's what i'm all about is you're showing people how to use the tools to just quiet that inner critic and you'll find that the uh and you're obviously prioritizing a nice balance between the creative impulse of your personality and your nervous systems need to keep you safe needs to be a nice kind of reconciliation between those two parts but we need to start using those tools journaling is the probably the simplest way i could put that you'll find out a lot of them when you're just getting in touch with your self-doubt and all those those different things journaling is a great way to get them down on paper and out of here okay talking with somebody is not a great way to do that whether that be a professional or a good friend or a family member so number four here what i would say is don't push yourself but seek gradual progress and so in that that question that that person said it was you know they had a plan and it was a plan that was going to lead to gradual progress now it may not have been dramatic progress but it was definitely progress and that is all we're looking for here we're not looking for a dramatic change necessarily we're looking for moving gradually in the right direction small steps baby step in this okay so that's number four and the last thing here the fifth tip is typically go with overestimating relaxation time okay so oftentimes people are so surprised to find out that the solution for procrastination is compassion okay and compassion means god like be kind to yourself give yourself plenty of relaxation time more than probably you're in a critic feels comfortable with okay you overestimate the amount of time you're going to be spent in relaxation away from goal-related projects entirely with a very clear boundary around that and to be kind of strict on the compassion that you're giving to yourself right if that makes sense it's kind of an oxymoron but it's it has to be like that that is the discipline for the time being it's discipline discipline kindness for yourself so the takeaway from today's video guys is you will notice that this little voice comes in and undermine okay the the great plan that you may have had for yourself and just realize as long as your personality feels okay about it you feel excited about the thing initially and then you're you're thinking to yourself yeah my nervous system is happy with that it doesn't feel threatened it doesn't feel overwhelmed it's not too much too soon you can sign off on that plan then during the week maybe you make that plan for yourself on sunday or something and then halfway through the week you're noticing this doubt about your plan just realize that that doubt that little voice of doubt is almost certainly this inner critic okay that judges everything it judges your personality and your nervous system okay it judges across the board so you can't win with that so this is why the tools are so important it's the quest to help that nerve that that inner critic just drift away it can it can be silent now okay and as soon as that's silent this whole drama goes away and it's very very liberating and you'll notice that i haven't said anything in this video about pushing yourself or trying harder or trying more it's not about that because procrastination is not about a lack of character or a lack of work ethic in fact oftentimes it's quite the opposite of that some of the most ambitious people i know suffer from procrastination chronically so so it's not about that but in any case guys i hope that video was helpful and you can visit my site there's there's more resources there there's a book and a course as well if you'd like to learn more about this and as always you can just contact me on my website if you want to know more about this but i'll leave it there for now and thanks again for joining me and i'll see you in the next video bye for now