Do the Work: Stop Procrastinating, Start Living

I procrastinated a lot and had the habit of overanalyzing everything.

There were a lot of things that sounded nice, felt nice, but had no effect.

There was a time when I was reading 2 to 3 books a month but did not really grasp the concepts from them; I was just reading them.

It was my way of not doing the work but studying the work, studying the concepts.

I did not make my sales calls because I thought it was more valuable to read books about sales and mindset.

It is valuable, but because of all the reading, I did not do the work to make progress.

My sales ability really started to grow when I started doing my reps.

I mean, I paid a couple of thousand euros by now in courses and coachings.

There is just one thing that I realized after I bought a more expensive course/coach.

I do not need a coach, or guru, I need a job.

I learned so much more from my paying jobs than a coach.

If you have a job, most often you get trainings from the company as well, you learn from their mentors.

There is always someone who does a better job than you, learn from that person and get paid instead of pay.

The 2 persons I learned the most from in sales, I never paid a penny.

Do the work and buy some courses if you have specific roadblocks or know nothing about a subject, but then first do your own research.

8 out of 10 times you don’t need a coach, you need a job.

To give you a concrete view for this article, we are gonna talk about overcoming concepts, and recognizing your inner procrastination voices.

The points we're going to cover are:

• Concept vs reality

• A Squirrel mentality

• Inner demons

Read until the end and I promise you, you won’t regret it.

Concept vs Reality

We can conceptualize everything, but in the end, you need to take action and test things for results.

If you only read this article, you grasp the concept.

If you try it, you see if it works for you.

If you read about a really good piece of meat, you only know the concept.

If you order it and eat it, the concept becomes reality.

You can theorize about everything, but if you never test it, you'll never know if it works or if something is worth it.

The concepts must add value to what you do, but first, you need to take action.

People get trapped in the cycle of over-preparation and overthinking, but in the end, what we experience is what matters.

Direct experience is more valuable than anything else.

A Squirrel Mentality

If you've ever seen a squirrel climb up a tree, you know they are very fast.

Did you know that high-performance individuals like athletes, leaders, and politicians think like a squirrel?

They are well-trained, disciplined, experienced, smart, and sometimes gifted, but the way their brains work during performance is more like a squirrel's brain instead of Einstein's brain.

Like squirrels, these people do what they are best at without questioning their abilities.

They simply trust their skills without questioning them.

They go into a trusting mindset.

Imagine a squirrel climbing up a tree.

Do you think the squirrel is thinking: Oh my, this is a tall tree, are my hands strong enough to climb this?

Now, once the squirrel reaches the top of the tree, there is a thin wire it needs to cross.

Do you think the squirrel thinks: Oh my, this is very tall, I am going to die and worst, I need to cross this wire. Who will feed my squirrel babies if something happens to me? Let me do it slowly, left foot, right foot. Maybe I should go back, I haven't made it far yet.

Sounds ridiculous?

So what does the squirrel actually do?

They just go, climb the tree, and cross the wire without hesitation, and they do it really fast.

If you want to do something and you hesitate or doubt, just take action.

Action drives out thoughts!

• What if I do it wrong?... Take action

• What if I cannot do it?... Take action

• What if people will hate me?... Take action

• I don't know how to do it... Take action

You may be wrong, but never be in doubt!

Inner Demons

Action drives out thoughts; we need to take action.

I think that's pretty clear.

There's one thing we all have: all kinds of inner demons that encourage us not to work and to stop following through.

Let's call out the 8 procrastination demons that are a part of your inner dialogue.

1. The Perfectionist: Makes excuses to not do the work and waits for the perfect conditions that never come. "I don’t know if this is right… Now is not a good time because…"

2. The Lazy Bastard: Finds tasks hard, doubts ability to do them. Doesn't bother trying and gives up before giving any chances. "That is hard, I don’t know if I can do it."

3. The Measurer (The Comparer): Thinks others can do it better, leading to feelings of inadequacy and discouragement. "I want to do it but he or she can do it better, I suck, why bother trying." Insecurity arises because others do it better, instead of believing in your own journey.

4. The Futurist: Worries about the future and finds excuses and reasons not to do things now. "Do I want that in my life? What if XYZ doesn't like that, then I will be miserable in the future."

5. The Idiot: Feels a lack of knowledge and believes more learning is needed before action can be taken. "I don't know how, I need to read more, I need to learn more, now I don’t know how to do XYZ so I can’t do it."

6. The Dumb Listener: Changes plans based on others' opinions, often leading to bouncing around without accomplishing anything. "You do the thing, someone else says to you that it is not good, and you switch your plan because that should be better." This is a lot like the shiny object syndrome.

7. The Hopper: Similar to The Dumb Listener, constantly switches and never sees if something works because you don’t do it long enough.

8. The Excuse Maker: Creates excuses to avoid tasks. This is not beneficial. What if... people constantly fabricate excuses to avoid doing things? You never actually do it. Making a list of tasks is not the same as completing them. Buying sports clothing is not the same as working out.

Do you recognize some of these pitfalls in your own life? I know I do!

What's next?

Now we know that we need a job to learn things by doing and grow.

Sometimes we need to think like a squirrel and maintain a trusting mindset in what we do.

We can recognize our inner demons, understanding which voices in our head are holding us back.

How do we deal with that?

Through a stimulus response.

Behavior manifests as a result of the interplay between stimulus and response.

Specifically, a subject is presented with a stimulus, and then responds to that stimulus, producing "behavior".

In other words, behavior cannot exist without a stimulus of some sort, at least from this perspective.

So when you recognize particular voices in your head, do a push-up.

This reminds you of the squirrel mentality.

The push-up is your stimulus; the response you create is taking action, which immediately gets you out of your head and waves away the demons.

Create your own stimulus, find out what works for you.

Now that you have accessed all this knowledge, you can grow and take more action.

Keep on winning against the voice in your head.

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