What Is Your Self-Worth ~ End Procrastination ~ Pt 2/4 E112

Gain an understanding of how self-worth and personal value tie into procrastination. Learn some easy tools to break free from time wasters and distracters. Engage your intuition in decision-making for movement. How are you cashing in on life?

About the Spring Into Action Program: Have you ever found yourself stuck in stagnation? Repeating loops of procrastination and avoiding completing even the simplest of tasks?

Take part in this 4-week program to assist in getting out of the quicksand and springing into action. Movement creates movement. You do not have to feel motivated to begin, you only have to be willing to begin.

Break free from procrastination cycles. Build an understanding of what pulls you in and find what makes you feel stuck there. Cultivate mental and emotional awareness as you gather wellness tools to clear out old cycles.

Recalibrate and create a new way of living.

Transcript

Hi there!

I want to talk a bit about self-worth and personal value and what that has to do with procrastination.

The way that we engage with ourselves in our thoughts as well as our actions has a direct reflection on our own sense of worth and value.

If you think about procrastination,

Your own habits,

Your own history of your relationship with procrastination,

Think about what you deny yourself.

All the things that you've denied yourself due to procrastination.

Missed opportunities,

Perhaps for experiences,

Conversations,

Or connection.

Missed emotions of joy,

Happiness,

Relaxation,

And ease.

Maybe even missed expansion,

Whether it be for your career,

Your business,

A project,

Something you were working on.

And sometimes it means that we've completely missed out,

That the something that we're procrastinating on is no longer available.

We will also miss out on or deny ourselves gratification.

I know I talked about gratification as one of the reasons we procrastinate,

So therefore how are we denying ourselves that,

Right?

But in the reasons of procrastination,

The situation with gratification,

I couldn't think of the word there for a moment,

With gratification is that we will procrastinate because we want immediate gratification.

It's where we're kind of pushed that direction almost for immediacy.

Immediate gratification,

Immediate information,

Overload of information.

I don't watch TV,

But when I used to,

I remember they would,

So something would be on the television and then there would be stuff running,

Like information running across the bottom of the screen,

And then there'd be like a pop-up coming at the top of the screen and this immediacy or information overload.

But again,

It kind of keeps us going,

Going,

Going,

And we don't know where we're supposed to be looking or reading,

And it creates this idea of we want to multitask,

You know,

Do,

Read,

All this stuff,

But that's not really how our brain works.

It's not really what our system wants.

One mindful,

You know,

Our system wants us to do one thing mindfully at a time.

But we will deny ourselves,

We'll procrastinate,

Maybe even because of desire for instant gratification,

But then in the cycle of procrastination,

Maybe it's again because of this training that we're just in about immediacy of everything and information downloading,

Then we also deny ourselves gratification of completion.

Oftentimes,

And once we complete something,

It feels kind of nice,

You know,

We've got some weight lifted off our shoulders,

Something is checked off on the never-ending checklist of to-dos,

But sometimes we get in such a cycle of procrastination that even when we complete it,

We're still not having much gratification.

Maybe by that time we're exhausted from the stress cycle,

Or we have to go on to the next thing because maybe our pile got really big over time of procrastinating.

And then,

Again,

We deny ourself gratification.

So if you have something three days from now that's due,

And you wait till the last minute to do it,

In the in between of the three days,

The avoidance folder is like,

Open on the table in your mind.

Even if it's subconsciously,

You know that you're not doing something that needs to be done.

You know that you're avoiding something.

And again,

Even if it's not like a cognitive reframing or hamster wheel going on in the brain over and over,

Our body knows.

You might be holding tension,

You might notice some tension headaches,

Some shoulder tension,

Maybe your shoulders are like in or up or by your ears,

Jaw,

A lot of us will like clench our jaw when we're sleeping,

When we're driving,

When we're thinking,

When we're not thinking.

Again,

Because just stress like we some people hold it all up here,

Some people hold it kind of down here is where we get like the lower back tension,

Lower back aches,

Sometimes even,

You know,

In our legs.

So where do you hold tension,

Even in that three day in between of avoidance,

Your body is knowing.

So maybe it's the holding of tension,

That's the real indicator for you or the mind is reminding you.

But whatever it is for you,

It knows,

You know,

Your body is really smart.

So it knows that you're procrastinating.

And so then again,

We deny ourselves gratification,

Which leads into the the kind of more broader concept of what that is.

And that's that self sabotaging behavior,

We can get into self sabotaging loops related to our worth,

And how we connect with our own self worth.

In these self sabotaging loops,

We might get in a way of experiencing joy,

Happiness,

Love,

Healing,

All kinds of things.

And in it,

We'll convince ourselves that we're not worthy,

Or that it's available to everyone but us,

We will get into a lack mindset versus abundance,

Or we'll even kind of keep a different rulebook for ourselves,

Treat ourselves,

You know,

With all these extra well,

You need to do all of these things before you can do that.

Or,

You know,

It's available to everyone,

But you just not you,

You're just not worthy of it.

And we can,

You know,

Really convince ourselves of these aspects related to worth and self worth,

And the limiting belief cycles that that can take us into,

If we're there,

You know,

If we're not connected to our self worth,

It elevates and increases the tendency to procrastinate,

Which then elevates and increases our judgment.

And then we want to procrastinate more,

Because now we got all these emotions going on,

And we're feeling overwhelmed,

And we're feeling stressed out.

And again,

All the things we deny ourselves in the meantime,

Be on the lookout for your self sabotaging behavior.

And oftentimes,

It's about fears is typically when we self sabotage fears that are often illusionary,

And about those limiting beliefs or the judgments that we place on ourselves,

The different rulebook we have for us instead of others,

A little about personal value.

When you're thinking about your personal value,

You can think about it almost like a currency.

And how do you spend your time?

Are you actually cashing in in the appropriate value for yourself?

How you value you tied in with self worth?

But how do you value you?

And how do you spend your time,

Those time wasters,

Those distractors,

When you're engaging in them?

What is the value of that time for you?

Some quick tools there for our time wasters.

Number one is clear them out of your space the best that you can when you're trying to focus your phone on airplane mode,

Get it out of the room,

If you can only have one tab open on your computer,

The one that you're using TV is a distractor for you try to turn the TV off.

If you like music in the background,

Try to have music without lyrics.

So whatever distractor is there for you,

Try to get out of your space,

Or try to get it out of you know,

The environment playing around you if possible.

I know that's not always possible,

For various reasons,

But try your best to do that for yourself.

That's an act of kindness towards you,

Instead of putting up obstacles to try to make the situation or circumstance harder on yourself.

Time wasters,

Distractors.

So again,

Try to remove the distractors out of the environment.

But try to set a specific time for that time of day,

But also amount of time.

Do it for like a week,

You know,

Nothing has to be forever.

Okay,

Just like do it for a little bit of time and give yourself a taste of what it feels like.

Not gonna know until you try it.

Another one is about kind of like automatic repeat things that we do.

For example,

You notice that when you get on your phone,

You pick up your phone,

You'll pick it up for something that was supposed to be like a second.

So maybe you pick it up to check something,

The weather,

Just gonna couple up something random.

But the act of picking up your phone somehow takes you into a hypnotic trance of now you're on your phone for the next 15 minutes because you got on Facebook,

And then you checked out something on Twitter.

And then you're on this over here and this over here and read this article and Oh,

Look at this article.

And where did I go?

So if you notice something like that,

Like this automatic habit,

Like I touch something and it sucks my life away kind of thing.

You can try to do a like a mind linkage kind of thing.

It's kind of almost like Pavlov's dog,

But not exactly.

But if you're familiar with Pavlov's dog,

And what Pavlov did with his dog,

He paired a bell with feeding them.

So initially,

Every time he fed them,

He would ring the bell and then give them food.

And then over time,

He did an intermittent reinforcement cycle where he would sometimes ring the bell and give them food,

Sometimes ring the bell and not give them food.

And then over time,

They would just salivate to the ringing of the bell.

I'm not going to try to get you to salivate.

I'm just giving that as an example of the linking,

Like we can link stuff to create reprogramming in our,

In our whole system.

So what you can do is say in this example,

You pick up your phone,

Suddenly,

It sucks away your life.

So you pick up your phone,

And you can start to link.

So you'd want to do this for like a week or two.

And it's because it's going to take like a cognitive practice of the linking,

Because we do this stuff so automatically.

But what you would do is anytime you notice that you're somewhere you don't want to be on your phone,

So you pick it up to check the weather,

And now suddenly you're down a portal of somewhere.

As soon as you notice,

You want to pause and then you can ask yourself a question of some sort.

So it could be something like,

Is this important to me in my life right now?

Or something like that?

Very just like concrete,

Specific,

What the heck am I doing with my time question?

Personal value?

Currency?

Am I cashing in on the value of my time?

So those are some easy techniques to kind of link in with those common things that happen for many people.

Another thing to think about with personal value and this idea of how are we spending our time?

Are we cashing it in in the way that we would like in terms of our worth and value is the worry cycles.

I know,

So common,

We worry,

Worry,

Worry,

And then procrastination.

I mean,

It adds more worry.

So self punishment cycles,

Right?

But worry cycles,

Whether it's procrastination,

Or worry about whatever other illusion,

Most worries are just illusionary.

So whatever worry thing you got going on there,

Think about personal value.

How are you cashing in on the value of life?

Because if you are up here worrying,

You have to be up here in your brain when you're worrying,

Right?

We have to combine has to be going,

You're not present in the now.

So you're missing out on your now experience,

That will never come back.

It's only here now.

See,

Like right now is gone,

Finished.

So where are you?

Where are you going?

Where's your worry taking you?

And is that how you want to be spending your your time?

Is that of personal value to you?

One last thing in terms of personal value and what we're thinking,

I will often talk with my clients about this in a lot of different ways.

But in personal value and work,

I love that people are passionate and passionate about their work.

And that,

You know,

Sometimes we care so much about it,

That we clock out of work,

If you have to clock in or whatever it is that you do,

You know,

You're out of work hours,

You're not getting paid for this time.

But we'll spend lots of time thinking about work,

Talking about work,

Worrying about work.

So we're working for free,

All the extra,

All the extra that you're doing outside of your work hours with worry,

Thinking about it,

Remembering what you have to do,

What you didn't do the meeting,

You're going to have this,

That,

The other free work.

So think about your personal value and think about how you're cashing in your time.

It's especially tricky.

I get it for sure.

If you are a business owner,

My brain always wants to be thinking about something related to business.

And so it's a real training of like,

Not now,

Like time for that later,

Not going to think about it right now.

So we might have to really pause ourselves depending on our personal situation,

Circumstance,

What your job is your career,

You know,

I know,

Sometimes it's really hard to shut off,

Trust me,

I totally get it.

But our own worth our own value,

If we are totally depleting ourselves,

And skipping away from now constantly and stressing our whole system out,

Because what's going on up here,

It impacts all of this.

And then,

You know,

Again,

Are we cashing in on life in the way that we're wanting just some things to think about.

All right.

So for today's tool,

You'll need a pen and paper or some type of writing instrument and something to write on for this next experience.

And what we're going to do here is I'm going to help you jump into a little bit more action here.

So with your pen and paper,

What you're going to begin with is I'm going to set the timer for two minutes,

You might not need the full two minutes.

If you don't,

That's okay.

If you get completed before the time is up,

I strongly encourage you please do not change anything that you have written down.

You can if you're really,

Really guided to but for the purpose of the tool,

You'll understand at the end,

Which is for the purpose of the tool.

If you have extra time beyond the two minutes,

Sit in silence and reflection.

Okay,

So to start,

I'm going to be hitting start on the timer here in just a moment.

And when I do what you're going to do is list five things that you have been procrastinating on that you have a desire to complete.

Remember,

Desire doesn't mean you have to feel all warm and cozy about it.

Okay?

Just five things you're wanting to get out of the procrastination loop.

So this is step one,

I'll explain the other steps when we get through it.

And once we get to them,

Okay,

I'm going to set the timer for two minutes,

You don't worry about time,

I'll tell you when it's done.

And in that time,

Go ahead and list five things that you've been procrastinating on that you'd like to get done.

Halfway through.

So one more minute here.

You're going to want to start to wrap up your writing if you're not finished yet.

About 10 more seconds.

Wonderful.

Okay,

So all of you should have five things written down now of things you've been procrastinating on that you would like to try to move into action.

Step two.

What you're going to do now is either in your head or out loud,

You can do it out loud too,

You're going to step by step,

Read them one by one.

So you're gonna read or say in your mind,

The first thing you have,

I'm going to hold the space for 10 seconds,

I'll tell you when to move to number two and do the same thing.

But what you're going to do is so you'll read or say in your mind,

Number one,

In that 10 second pause,

Just notice after you say it out loud or in your mind what you feel.

So just like notice what you feel after you say it or think it,

Okay?

And then you're going to do that for all five.

So you're going to say it,

Think it,

Pause 10 seconds,

Connect with how you're feeling.

Number two,

Say it,

Think it,

Pause 10 seconds,

Etc.

So go ahead and start with number one.

And go ahead and read or think about number two.

And go ahead and think or say number three.

And go ahead with number four.

And number five.

Wonderful.

Now I'm going to tell you step three.

As soon as I say the instructions for this,

Please go ahead and complete the action with no hesitation.

Step number three,

Circle one of your choices.

Whatever choice you circle,

Your intuition,

Your full self was participating in that experience.

That was what guided me to instruct you to circle right away.

Sitting with the feeling in the 10 seconds allowed your soul,

Allowed your intuition,

Allowed your full being to participate in your choice selection.

So with that in mind,

It seems like that would be the right way to start.

Now what do you do?

You have something circled.

What you do through this week is that 15 minutes.

So each day set a timer for 15 minutes.

You might want to,

If possible,

Even select the same time each day to create a bit more of a habit to get the task done.

It does not need to be the same time every day though,

As I know that is often extremely challenging for people.

But 15 minutes a day.

Set the timer.

Work on the task.

You might notice that you have some resistance initially.

It's all about dedication to change.

You don't have to be all feeling warm and cozy about it,

Okay?

You might also notice that you want to spend more than 15 minutes once you're in doing the activity.

That's okay too.

Although I do encourage you maybe for the first day or two to stick with just the 15 minutes.

That way you don't stress yourself out or get yourself overwhelmed or back into a procrastination avoidance cycle.

Slow and steady lets the body participate in a different way.

And then if you end up getting that done and you know there's still more time in the week before we meet again,

Go ahead and choose another thing on that list and do the same.

15 minutes a day.

I encourage you not to add anything additional to the list when you cross something off.

I'll talk more about list writing probably next week,

But for now just keep it where it's at.

Allow yourself to experience,

Get out of the denial of what you might feel,

Accomplish,

Open up in life once we get out of this cycle.

So those are some things to consider today.

Self-worth,

Personal value,

What are your time wasters and your distractors,

And how you cash it in on life.

Consider the under one minute tool.

Keep that going.

Under one minute,

Telling you it will clear out a lot of life if you start living that way.

A lot of space will open up,

A lot less on your to-do list because your pile doesn't get added up so quickly.

Little,

Little tiny things,

They add up.

Tiny things add up.

So keep the under one minute tool going.

Whatever it is you circled on there,

Your whole body was experiencing and a part of that choice selection.

So that is probably the right way to start.

As always,

Thank you everyone.

I am so happy to be offering these wellness tools for you and I look forward to continuing to expand this with you.

Enjoy springing into action.

See you soon,

My friends.

Reviews

Nicole: Thank you for this actionable, specific, and useful art of thoughts. Time management meets project management meets self management. Well done. Neil ☯️