How Shame has been Driving Your Productivity

After you don't do the task. I want you to ask yourself, that's the moment I think that changes everything, personal productivity. The moment after you don't take action. And I want you to ask yourself, have you ever given any consideration to the importance of that moment? Now, if you're like I was with procrastination and many people I talk with, you have lived that moment many times in your life. You will be no stranger to that moment, the time when you said you would do the thing and you notice I didn't do it. And it's in, okay, after that moment, when that moment arises, what happens in that space? Have we looked at what happens in that space? And I think this is the secret to personal productivity. It's very counterintuitive. And I don't blame anyone for not focusing on this before because it's just so counterintuitive. People would say, how would the answer be found there? That is the problem, right? That's the whole problem. I'm not showing up and therefore there's nothing left to talk about at that point. I've already failed. Well, you see, if you really pay attention to that moment, you will find the answer to your problems with procrastination. So let's say you decide you're going to do something at 2 p.m. Maybe it's 12 o'clock, right? And okay, you've got the intention of doing it and then 2 p.m. rolls around and you don't do it. You're not there. What do we typically do in that moment after we don't show up? And this is what I've discovered and I'm calling them reflex promises. We don't show up at 2 and what happens is feelings of guilt come up, shame, anxiety, maybe comes up, but certainly guilt and shame will be there. And we will reflexively make another promise. Okay, not now, but definitely at 2.30, definitely at 3. And that is exactly the mechanism that keeps procrastination in place. This reflex promising after we don't show up. And what I'm advocating for is that you notice why you're making those reflex promises and choose not to make them. Now, I'm not talking about being productive by really focusing on what happens beforehand, getting yourself into a motivational state that you'll be able to do it, right? All these things beforehand. I'm saying none of that is really necessary. I'm saying all we got to do is become aware that we're using these reflex promises and choose not to make them anymore. Why is this a strategy that works? Because basically what it effectively boils down to is, okay, I didn't show up at 2. I'm not going to make another promise on this thing now for the rest of the day. Because the problem with making the reflex promises, okay, I didn't do it at 2.30 for sure. What that promise is doing is helping you regulate the emotion of shame. Okay, so the shame comes up, the promise is made, the reflex promise really quickly, okay, I'll do it soon. And it helps us in that moment with the shame. The shame seems to obey it a little bit, right, it goes down. But the problem is there's been no real, it's just this promise, it's just this almost wish that, okay, I'm going to do it, I'm going to try harder, I'm going to really mean it more next time at 2.30. And it doesn't actually give you any space to reflect on why exactly did I not show up at 2. I mean, at 12 I promised myself I would. Now, the reason we think we didn't show up at 2 is all the guilt. The narrative of I'm a bad person, I'm not organized enough, something's wrong with me, I'm not a serious person, I'm irresponsible. The reflex promise helps us to get rid of those feelings. But the problem with the reflex promise is it doesn't give you enough space to actually reflect on what really happened there. I mean, go with the theory here for a second that there is nothing wrong with you, right? There's actually nothing wrong with you at all. The reflex promise won't give you enough space to figure out the exact reason, the real reason that you didn't show up there. And those reasons are usually very, very human and understandable, and something that you can work with and take forward to help, you know, calibrate your behavior and make better decisions. So effectively, what this looks like, and this is a scary solution for people to consider, is that, okay, if I set a time at two o'clock and I'm not there, I won't be doing that thing. I'm not going to be making more promises now for the rest of the day. I'm going to let that outcome sit. I'm going to let myself sit in that feeling. Let those feelings come up. And I'm not going to reach for that reflex promise to get rid of those feelings. I'm going to let them come up. And I'm going to let them pass. And then what I'm going to do is the next day, you've given you after you've the way the protocol I'm proposing is that the next day, you have the right to try it again, you can make another promise the next day, but you need the remainder of that day to sit with what just happened there. Okay. Now, I give you a real world example. From my own experience, I remember, I was I think I was doing my my postgraduate studies at the time. And I remember one Saturday, I woke up. I was like, okay, today, I'm going to work on my thesis. And it was, I can't remember nine o'clock or something, right? Okay, I'm going to start at 10. Didn't start at 10. Okay, no problem. I'll start at 1030. Didn't start at 1030 No problem. I'll start at 11. This went on all day. And I remember this is not paying myself in a good light here, right? But this is the truth. This is the worst it got for me personally. So I'm going to share this. I distinctly remember at 345 am telling myself I'm definitely going to right. That entire day had been a series of promises. Not one of them that I show up for. And at that point, I started to realize, you know, that was kind of a turning point in a way, because I started to realize something fishy going on here with these promises that I'm making. So what I've identified since in the work that I do with clients is that it's the reflex promises that are the problem, because that's the defense mechanism, the coping strategy, if you want, that we draw on to deal with those feelings of guilt. The really weird thing about this is that people when we procrastinate, we think I'm untrustworthy. But the funny thing is, people with procrastination problems, they are actually probably the most honest people. They really value their word. And how do we know that? Because, well, what is the thing that they reach for when the system breaks down? They make a promise. Okay, I'm going to make another promise. I'm going to make another promise. It's because they really value their word, and they don't know how they're undermining their own word. So it's a very subtle trap that we get into. It's just how we're undermining our own word all the time, very unintentionally. We value our word. We want it to work. And it's the tool we keep reaching for. But actually, when we're reaching for that tool, it's the wrong tool. What we need instead of reaching for our word again, yet again, is a boundary. It's much more stabilizing. It's much more grounding for us. And it also will give you the space for any of these real insights that are not based in guilt and shame narratives to start emerging. The real reason I didn't do that was I was too exhausted when I committed to that start time. Or the real reason was I was taking on too much. Or I was telling myself I was going to do four hours. And really, I should have been telling myself I'm going to do 30 minutes. So those things do start to reveal themselves when you don't let the guilt narrative take hold and make you keep re-promising all the time. Now, if you implement this, it'll take you. It's a bit scary to try this approach because we really feel that we need to make that promise. I don't make the reflex promise, I feel irresponsible. But if you try this, I've never found anyone yet that has tried this for more than actually three days. But I've never actually met anyone that didn't get an aha moment at some point if they tried this for three days. And the protocol is you make a promise. If you don't show up, no more promises. Further that day, I'm going to just let that sit. I'm not going to let the guilt overwhelm me. And I'm going to see what insights emerge for tomorrow when we can see about making another attempt on this. So I hope that's a useful video and introducing here the idea of these reflex promises. And you can try this. You can start trying this right now if you want. And let me know if you find any success with it. Thanks for being with me. And I'll see you guys very shortly. Take care of yourself. Bye-bye.