109: My Real Life Superpower and How It Keeps Me Motivated

Want to hear my superpower? Planning. I know it doesn’t sound glamorous like being able to walk through walls, or fly, but I know this superpower is the one thing that has made me most successful in my career.

I’ve spent years developing a system for planning for giant, monster, overwhelming tasks, so I can stop procrastinating, and take consistent action towards my goals (even on those days when my motivation is low and I just don’t want to get started).

Today I’m sharing my secret sauce with you. I’ll let you in on how I use this super power in my business, and the step by step system I use to plan my way out of procrastination, and how you can use it too. Okay let’s dive in.

How I Got My Planning Superpower (No magic spider required)

I’ve always said if I had a magical superpower it would be teleportation because traveling for me is the worst. I love visiting friends and family and exploring new places but it’s the getting there that’s the problem…endless lines in airports, travel delays, and the instant motion sickness I feel as soon as I get on a moving vehicle are part of the problem.

But the more I’ve worked on my own personal development and business the last few years the more I’ve come to recognize my real life super power is a specific type of planning.

I’m not great at planning events like parties. I’m more of the ‘everyone show up at my house and we’ll order pizza’ type of party planner.

But I’m really good at planning for deadlines, especially when those are deadlines I have to control myself. I think this superpower is the key factor in my success so far in my career. It helps me stay on track, keep motivated, and stop procrastinating on those days when I’m tempted to say “I’ll do that tomorrow”

Unlike superpowers in the movies, my planning powers didn’t come to me instantly. There was no a-ha moment where I magically figured it all out and woke up being excellent at taking action and getting things done. This superpower is really a skill. A skill that I’ve honed through a lot of practice. Let me give you a quick backstory for context

Back when I was in graduate school a huge part of my PhD. was to complete a major research project called a dissertation. It involves a ton of steps:

coming up with an idea,
making a proposal,
getting ethics approval from the university,
collecting data,
analyzing data, and
writing up a giant report only to go through the worst exam of my life at the end (you can check out episode 15 for the whole story of that exam, including how I had to staple my pants together).

The hardest part of this whole project is staying on track. It’s so easy to lose momentum and procrastinate. Because I had years to complete this project.

It takes at least 4-5 years to complete graduate school. And it’s not just this project. You’re also taking classes, doing practicum and internship training in hospitals and other health care settings.

There was a lot on my plate. And I gotta tell you I was tempted a million times to say “I’ll start this tomorrow” and put that project off. I saw a lot of my colleagues struggle with procrastination on their dissertation research (taking 10+ years to complete their projects).

And you don’t have to have gone to grad school to know where I’m coming from.

You’ve probably been in a situation like this before - maybe at work or in your home life where you had a deadline that was way far off in the future.

Maybe not 5 years in the future like me, but a project where the deadline isn’t urgent. A big report for a client but it’s not due for a month, so every day you get up and you know you probably should get started on that report, but there are a million other tasks on that to-do list that feel more urgent right?

So you put it off until tomorrow, and the next day, and procrastination sets in, and all of a sudden that report is due tomorrow and you’re in panic mode!

Why did I procrastinate so long?
Ugh I can’t believe I did this again,
I wish I could be more motivated and just get things done.

And you’re into that spiral of self-doubt, perfectionism, and beating yourself up because it doesn't’ feel like you’re working hard enough, which you know just zaps our motivation even more.

Why Is It So Easy To Procrastinate?

Why do we do this? Why do we procrastinate when we know it would be more effective to start that task now when we have lots of time?

Two of the primary reasons your brain makes you procrastinate are

no urgency or pressure, or
the task feels like a giant overwhelming monster.

Let me break each of those down.

Way back in episode 62 I shared about a famous psychology study by researchers Yerkes and Dodson. What they found was that when it comes to stress, we need a bit of pressure to get us off the couch and to take action.

Remember back in college when you waited until the last minute to finish that project? Yeah me too.

Although I consider this type of planning my superpower, I’ve definitely done my fair share of procrastinating. Especially when something isn’t urgent.

And in our busy world there are always a million things that feel more urgent right?

That client report isn’t due until next week,
but today you have 20 phone calls and 50 emails staring at you that your brain feels are much more urgent and need to be tackled…

But too much stress (like a giant overwhelming monster project you’re avoiding), makes us slip back into procrastination and avoidance mode.

Maybe that client report is going to take you hours,
or it’s something new you’re not as comfortable tackling.

When projects or tasks feel too big, or overwhelming it puts your brain in defense mode.

Your brain doesn't want to get started because it’s coming up with all these stories about how hard that task is going to be.

Ugh it’s going to take me ages,
I’ll never get it done,
I don't know how to do that part anyway,
I’m not smart enough, or quick enough, or talented enough, or whatever enough to do it… so let’s just procrastinate and deal with it later. Sound familiar?

My Step-by-Step Planning Process So I Take Consistent Action

I said planning for big projects with vague or no deadlines is my superpower. And I use this superpower to help motivate me to take action, especially when my brain wants to slip back into default mode of procrastination or doing all the other tasks on my to-do list (the busy work) and avoiding that one thing that will really help me make progress.

I’ve been honing this skill for a while, since before my graduate school days. It helped me be the first in my class to graduate (because I stayed on track with my dissertation goals) and I truly believe it’s one of the skills that helps me be most successful in my life today.

I’m going to walk you through how I put this superpower into action when I was planning a recent project, and how you can develop this superpower of planning and taking action in your own life.

I encourage you to jump on over to my youtube channel after you read through this section to watch the accompanying video. I’m going to share my screen and show you exactly how I do this planning on the video version. Click here to see the behind the scenes

Here’s the situation that required my super planning skills.

Recently I planned a major overhaul of my education and coaching business.
I had this great idea for a bunch of new resources for our community, and I wanted to create a system to help folks like you find the resources that you need on my website.
The first step in this overhaul was to get some feedback from our audience on where exactly folks are getting stuck when it comes to time, getting things done, and staying on track with your goals.
I surveyed our community a few times (ps thanks so much for the feedback if you responded) and found there are 3 places folks tend to get hung up when it comes to your time and energy.

Spot 1: Before you even start. Stuck procrastinating, avoiding, and doing anything else rather than starting that task.

Spot 2: Endless distractions. You get started, but something always seems to come up that pulls your focus or requires your urgent attention. And

Spot 3: Follow through. You get started, make a plan, use all the right strategies to set up your day for success… but your to-do list is so overwhelming it’s impossible to follow through, or you struggle to say no to extra work, leading to overwhelm and exhaustion.

By the time this episode goes live I might even have some of these new resources up on my website, so if you struggle with one of these areas make sure you hop on over to drnicolebyers.com

Back to my planning superpower.

Step 1 = The first step in getting this all planned out was to get an overview of where I needed to go. I did this on paper first because I’m old school and I still learn best with paper and pencil, but I transferred it to a google doc after because printing is not on my list of superpowers, and I even have trouble reading my own writing sometimes.

What I did was create a flow chart, and a big picture snapshot of what I wanted to do. What my goals were for this project, and the steps I envisioned to get there. It wasn’t super detailed at this point (that comes later), but I find having this big picture in mind helps me with planning, goal setting, and time management.

So I have this big picture overview, all the main tasks I need to complete, the big steps I need to make this happen.

Step 2 = set a hard final deadline.

I always work backwards when setting my deadlines. I do this first on paper again (because I like the visual of having a calendar in front of me), and I decided when I wanted all of this completed. My goal was the first week in September. Next I work backwards and set hard deadlines for each of the steps leading up to that date.

In this case I had 5 big subcategories of tasks I needed to do to reach my ultimate goal of having new resources for each of the stuck points I mentioned earlier. So I worked backward and assigned deadlines in my calendar for each of these subcategories over the next few months (when I did this September was about 6 months away).

Here’s why deadlines are important - they keep you accountable. It’s easy to put off this type of project when there’s no hard and fast deadline right?

And by working backwards like this with a calendar in front of me it forces me to be accountable and realistic with my time. Do I actually have enough space over the next 6 months to get this done?

When I can see it all on my calendar I get clarity of if it’s even possible. Once it’s on my paper calendar, I transfer it all to my google calendar.

Then I use a program called Asana to keep me on track. Asana is a project management program. I used to do this all just in a google sheet or excel document and that worked too, but Asana gives me reminders which I love. Remember to check out the youtube video that goes with this episode where I’ll show you how asana works in my scheduling.

Step 4 = Break down each of these categories into teeny-tiny steps.

Because those subtasks are still way too big. Things like “record new two partr training” that actually feels pretty overwhelming.

But if I break it down like brainstorm ideas, draft workbook, draft lesson 1 slides, draft lesson 2 slides, finalize workbook copy, record lesson 1, edit lesson 1 etc it feels a lot more manageable.

And this is another time where it forces me to take a realistic look at my schedule. It’s easy to under plan time for big tasks, because we forget all the little tasks that are involved. Breaking it down like this makes me take a realistic look at whether I actually have the time and energy for all the steps involved.

Then I set deadlines for each of these mini tasks, and block time in my schedule for each.

Here are the key highlights of my method to avoid procrastinating on monster tasks

Step 1: write down a broad overview of the main steps required and your end goal - to give your brain a 360 degree view of what you’re up against

Step 2: set a hard end deadline - to force your brain to stay on track and be accountable

Step 3: break each step down into as many little tasks as you can think of, then schedule time to do each task - this fights procrastination when you can get each little task down to something you can do in less than an hour, it feels less overwhelming and more manageable for your brain.

Don’t forget to jump over to my youtube channel next where I’ll be sharing my screen and walking you through how I implement this in real time with this project. You'll see my high-level overview, how I plan my deadlines, and how I use Asana and my google calendar to keep everything on track.

Remember, your brain’s default mode when a task feels like a monster of work is to go into procrastination mode. The planning strategies you learned today take some work on the front end, but over the long run this method will save you time, energy, and help you actually stay on track with your goals.

Show Highlights

[01:46] My superpower is planning, specifically in relation to deadlines.

[03:06] This superpower is really a skill. One I’ve honed over years.

[05:29] Why do we procrastinate when we know it’d be more effective to start now?

[08:25] Listen as I walk through how I put my planning system in action.

[10:23] The first step is writing everything out and building out your big picture goal.

[13:00] How I break everything down and put it in my project management system.

[14:00] A quick recap of each step in the planning process.

Subscribe Today!

Apple Podcast

Spotify

Android