76: Ask Yourself This One Question to Stop Procrastinating

Your brain does not want to fail. It’s scary!

But this fear of failure is can cause us to take ourselves out of the game – before we even have the chance to succeed.

Today on The Bold Life podcast I’ll explain why your procrastination might be a sign of something deeper, and how to get the root of your procrastination problem.

Feeling Stuck and Why You Procrastinate

I was on a coaching call with one of my clients the other day and she was telling me about how she was procrastinating on a new course she was taking to advance her career.

She’s super smart, super educated, and super successful. But as the final exam approached, she started to feel a little scared.

We’d been working together to come up with a plan for her preparation. She was trying to

Break up the course into smaller steps
Tackle one section at a time
Stay on top of it all so she didn’t feel overwhelmed!

But even with all these strategies, she was still feeling stuck. She started to list off reasons for why she might not actually be ready to take the exam.

Why is it that we talk ourselves out of taking action towards our goals?

It turns out that this client kind of reminded me, of me.

A couple months ago I was putting together a new course about productivity and the mental habits that hold us back and make us procrastinate like

Perfectionism
Self-doubt
People pleasing

I was super excited about this course and my goal was to launch it in September.

To launch my course on time, I decided to start waking up an hour earlier in the mornings to dedicate some time just to this course. With a busy toddler running around, I was finding it difficult to find extra time in the evenings, so I thought waking up earlier in the morning was my answer.

It was a great idea! But… it wasn’t happening. My brain was giving me a ton of excuses for why I wasn’t actually getting up. Day after day, I kept telling myself “I’ll start tomorrow”.

I also started to question if the course was even a good idea at all. I had a lot of other big projects on the go and I started to worry that I was putting my time into the wrong thing (I’ll talk more about this icky feeling later).

My brain kept coming up with excuses for why I wasn’t getting up early...

My toddler was up in the night
I was tired
I had a bunch of other stuff on the go

I was getting pretty frustrated with myself because I knew this was a goal that I had set and I was letting myself down. I was blaming everything else in the world for why I wasn’t taking action.

Like I mentioned earlier, one of the things I was worried about was that my effort was being spent on the wrong thing.

But when I started to reflect, it wasn’t that I was afraid of putting effort into the wrong thing. I was afraid that I would put all of this time into creating in this course… and that no one would buy it. Afraid that all of that time would be wasted.

But that wasn’t really the root of the problem, either.

It turns out that I had another fear deep down that was holding me back and making me procrastinate.

The One Question To Ask To Figure Out Why You’re Procrastinating

I used an exercise that I always recommend to my clients…

You ask yourself this one question: “If this were true, what would it mean about me?”.

You continue to ask yourself this question until you get to the bottom of the fear.

My fear: I’ll put all this time into this project and it won’t be worth it.

If this were true, what would it mean about me?

It would mean that I wasted my time.

If this were true, what would it mean about me?

It would mean that I’m not doing the right things.

If this were true, what would it mean about me?

It would mean that I’m not smart enough to run a business.

If this were true, what would it mean about me?

It would mean that I’m not good enough.

Bingo. That’s where I got to the bottom of my fear. That was my core fear that was holding me back and fueling my procrastination.

The Three Core Fears That Hold Us Back

When you do this exercise you’ll usually end on one of three cores fears or beliefs:

I’m not good enough
I’m unlovable
I’m unworthy or I’m a burden

When you’re talking yourself out of taking action, your brain is going to give you all of these surface level excuses to justify your procrastination.

Why would you try if you might fail? Better to take yourself out of the game. Then, if you don’t succeed, it’s not because you’re not smart enough or great enough, it’s because you didn’t put in the effort or time.

You justify procrastination so your brain can avoid taking the risk. It’s easier for your brain to stay stuck where you are rather than risk bringing up those insecurities, doubts, and fears.

The problem? These fears often aren’t grounded in reality. Our brains have these fears buried deep down that hold us back and cause us to procrastinate and bail on taking action towards our goals. Recognizing that fear for what it is, is the first step in pushing past the fear and taking confident steps towards your goals.

Wanna learn more?

Check out my new free workbook “Your Daily Productivity Checklist” to learn neuroscience based strategies to set your workday up for success so you can get more done while feeling less overwhelmed.

You can find it at www.drnicolebyers.com/checklist

Show Highlights

[01:22] A client example of procrastination.

[04:55] The excuses I gave myself for not creating my course.

[07:28] One question you want to ask yourself is to break free from your internal fear factor.

[09:35] The fear of not being “good enough.”

[11:00] Recognize your fears and take steps towards removing your fears and working toward your goals.

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