How to (quickly) make procrastination impossible

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Have you ever had massive ambitions to make something great of yourself, but yet, every time you sit down to do the work that will move you toward your goals, you end up mindlessly scrolling or finding some random task to complete?

That used to be me as well.

But this 1 concept helped me go from being a chronic procrastinator and never achieving anything to building a 6 figure business, winning a British Weightlifting Championship and getting more done in 1 day than most people get done in a week, overnight.

So in today’s Self-Mastery Letter, I’ll show you how;

• This 1 concept makes procrastination impossible

• And give you a step-by-step plan to implementing it yourself

But it all starts with you understanding why you put off the work in the first place because if you don’t understand this, you’ll not be able to beat procrastination.

The Constant Battle 

Imagine you’re a lone soldier on the front lines of a battlefield.

Every day you wake up and troop across the land to fight the enemy, another lone solider.

You spend the entire day fighting back and forth equally, neither of you making any progress.

Come nightfall, you both agree to march back to your camp and rest for tomorrow, only to repeat the battle again until one of you gives up.

Well, this battle isn’t just some scene from your imagination - this is a battle that happens every single day.

Only it’s not between 2 lone soldiers on a battlefield.

It’s between the person you could be and your current self and it’s not happening on some land far away, it’s happening in your head right now.

Each time you sit down to do that task that you know you need to do, your old self peaks his head out of a trench and fires a shot right at you - stopping you from doing the thing you know you need to do.

You see, for you to make progress toward your goals, you have to do the work.

But that work is you gaining ground on the battlefield, putting your old self under pressure.

And so your old self fights back and creates what’s called resistance in an effort to stop you from doing the work.

This resistance is what causes you to procrastinate.

And so, if you want to beat procrastination you have to help the person you could be overcome resistance and beat your old self, you have to pummel that bitch into a pulp.

But of course, it won’t be easy.

Your old self is a strong and formidable opponent.

However, the person you could be is even more powerful, and so if you want to beat resistance and stop procrastinating, there are 2 things you need to do.

Scout Out The Enemy

You see, your old self doesn’t just post up and stay in one spot on the battlefield.

They’re creative and smart and know all your weak points and where to attack - because they’re you.

And so for you to beat them, you need to scout them out, see the angles from where they attack and identify how they create resistance in your life.

Resistance can take countless forms.

If you procrastinate, that’s resistance.

If you have self-doubt, that’s resistance.

If you think you need to spend more time learning, that’s resistance.

Anything and everything that stops you from sitting down and doing the damn work that you know you need to do is your old self fighting against the person you could be.

You see resistance is the problem.

How it manifests is the symptom.

A lot of people are able to recognise their symptoms of resistance and so they go and try all these techniques and hacks to beat it - but this is like blocking one line of attack from your old self, they’ll just sneak around another the other side and attack you from where you least expect it.

When you only fix the symptom, you don’t fix the problem.

And so if you procrastinate, that’s a symptom of resistance.

Hence, you don’t need a hack or a trick to stop procrastinating, you need to fix the problem and beat resistance.

But to do that, you need to identify the lines of attack your old self has.

The way to do this is super simple.

Take 10 minutes and write about 10 things you do instead of doing the work that you know you need to do.

Maybe you pick up your phone and scroll.

Maybe you find a random unimportant and easy task to do instead.

Maybe you watch YouTube under the mask of learning.

Write down 10 ways that resistance takes shape in your life.

Because here’s the thing, you cannot make a change if you are ignorant to what needs changed.

If you don’t know what your enemy looks like, you can’t be prepared for them to attack.

So simply by acknowledging and recognising how you experience resistance, you are now aware of what to look out for.

And it means anytime you go to do any of those 10 things, you’ll realise it’s resistance and then you can use this next step to beat it.

Break It Down

So remember how you’re fighting this battle between your old self and who you could be?

Well, your old self is a crafty little bugger.

Your old self is all alone on that battlefield and the only weapon they have is a paintball gun.

And because they’re weak and know you could beat them, they’ve made all these fancy tools to make it look as if there’s 100 of them with machine guns scattered all across the land.

It means when you pop your head out to see where they are, it looks intimidating as fuck.

It looks impossible to beat them and as if it’s going to be a massive challenge.

Now with that in mind, think about the tasks you actually have to do to scale your business and achieve your goals

Each time you sit down to work on them, it feels hard and challenging and every bone in your body doesn’t want to do it.

But when you think about it, the work you have to do isn’t that hard.

You’re not out on a battlefield waging war against your old self, you’re sitting at a desk, thinking and typing…

It’s not actually that hard…

But yet, we think the work is this impossible, insurmountable task simply because our old self creates resistance and tricks our mind into thinking it is hard.

And that’s why this 3rd step is so damn powerful.

Since you’re now able to recognise resistance and your procrastination, when you go to do any of those 10 things you identified, you can recognise that you’re facing resistance and then you do this…

You break the task that you have to do down into the actual, literal thing that you have to do.

So if you have to record a YouTube video, you’re just talking to a camera.

If you have to send cold emails, you’re just finding emails and hitting a few keys on your keyboard.

You break down the task, realising it’s not that hard and the only reason you think it’s hard is because your mind tricks you into thinking it is.

And because you’ve now recognised resistance and realised “Hey this is just my old self trying to stop me from improving” you can realise the work isn’t hard, stop procrastinating and do it.

But remember your old self is crafty.

That paintball gun that they have?

It doesn’t fire paintballs - because otherwise you’d be covered in paint right now.

Instead, it fires something much, much worse.

And unless you follow step 4, none of this is going to work over the long term and so step 4 is how you beat resistance and procrastination forever and it involves you making a deal.

Make The Deal 

The ammunition of your old self ammunition isn’t paint, it’s disrespect.

Now let me explain…

Your old self will fire rounds at you to make you do things that disrespect yourself.

Because when you disrespect something you don’t value it

So if you disrespect yourself, you don’t have yourself.

If you don’t value yourself, you don’t care about the potential impact that your actions could have.

And so you’re going to mindlessly scroll Tiktok, procrastinate, and spend all day eating oreos and pizza.

When you do things that are bad for you, you disrespect yourself even more and it creates this downward spiral of you not doing the damn work and giving into resistance every single time.

Remember, your old self knows you and your weak points, it knows that you love to lie in bed and stuff your face with cake instead of working on your offer.

And so it will tempt you with your vices in an effort to get you to disrespect yourself and let it win.

But the solution is for you to make a deal - not with your old self because we don’t barter with terrorists.

Instead, you need to make a deal with the person you could be right now.

You see in every moment you have a choice.

You either give into your old self and let them gain some ground or you lean into the person you could be and give them some ground.

The problem is that you always think you can lean into the person you could be later.

You procrastinate and you think, “Yeah, my future self, me tomorrow, will do the right thing, beat resistance and do the work”

But what you don’t realise is that there is no future you.

There is only you right now.

The version of you that you imagine you’ll be tomorrow doesn’t exist, because you’ll wake up and you’ll still be you.

And so the deal you have to make is that you will do what the person you could be, would do, right now.

You don’t put it off for future you to do, because all that does is let your old self win and hit you with one of those paintballs of disrespect, making you even less likely to do the thing.

Realise that when it comes to taking action, beating resistance and overcoming procrastination, there is no tomorrow.

There is only now and you need to make a deal with yourself to act how you know you should, to be the person that you could be.

And instead of you tomorrow waking up and cursing yourself for not doing the work, you will wake up tomorrow proud and fulfilled and with self-respect.

That self-respect means you value your actions and in turn, you value the impact they could have and you’re much more likely to do the right thing, creating an upward, positive cycle that destroys resistance and procrastination.

- Ross

PS: One of the most powerful things you can do to put the final nail in the coffin of your procrastination is to shift your identity into being someone who doesn’t procrastinate.

This is something I go into depth on in the MasteryOS curriculum.

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