I'll Come Up with An Episode Title Later with Chris Abdey

On this episode of Revelizations we will be discussing procrastination. There is a lot of value in being aware that you engage in a counter productive behavior like procrastination. There is even more value in understanding why you do it and how to shift gears out of it. To help me accomplish this I have enlisted the help of today's guest, Chris Abdey. Chris is a coach who specializes in helping people break free from procrastination's inertia to build better habits that lead to accomplishing goals that once stopped his clients in their tracks. Today he sits down with me and we discuss:

- What is procrastination

- The 5 types of procrastination

- Procrastination, escapism, and addiction

- Deferred gratification

- How to unlearn procrastinating

- Why humanity hasn't left behind bad habits like procrastination and more

 

If by chance you are using my podcast as a means to procrastinate on something else you should be doing, you have my full support! Just be ready to put to practice everything you learned after you finish listening, but I guess there is always tomorrow for that too. 

Grab your favorite snack, grab a seat, and enjoy today's episode of Revelizations with Chris Abdey. Thanks for listening everyone.

  Connect with Chris Abdey https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisabdey/?originalSubdomain=ca

 

Enjoying Revelizations and don't know what to do next? Let me offer a suggestion: Grab a device capable of playing a podcast along with some earbuds, turn on an episode of Revelizations, place them in the ears of your loved ones, and watch with joy as they thank you endlessly for introducing them to the Revelizations podcast. While you're at it feel free to leave a review on whatever platform you're listening and follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode.

 

Not enjoying Revelizations and don't know what you do next? Let me offer a suggestion, grab your loudest portable speaker capable of pairing with a device that can play a podcast, turn on an episode of Revelizations, go to a densely populated area with great acoustics, crank up the volume, and laugh maniacally as the unsuspecting population looks around in confusion to the situation they are in. While you're at it feel free to leave a review on whatever platform you're forcing everyone to listen to the Revelizations podcast and follow/subscribe so you don't miss these types of opportunities in the future.

 

Thanks to today's sponsor: Keenan's Quinoa

 

Be sure to use code “Revelizations” at any and all checkouts to receive an additional zero percent off on all purchases.

 

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
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(01:17):
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(01:42):
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It's not pronounced Key-Noah, it's Quinoa.
Hi everyone, welcome to Revelizations.

(02:08):
I'm your host, Brian James.
We are indeed back with the first interview-style podcast in a while, although it has been
fun to stretch myself with so many Revelizations episodes back to back to back, and I've heard
some positive feedback with the episodes.
Thanks, Neil.
All that being true, I'm excited to switch gears and explore a topic with a guest today.

(02:33):
If you paid very close attention to the first few episodes, specifically episode 1-5 of
this podcast, you probably picked up on a subtle, barely noticeable character defect
occasionally on display.
I am susceptible to procrastination.
It's about as hard to miss as sunlight is on a clear blue sky day.

(02:55):
Perhaps you may have even come to the understandable conclusion that the reason I haven't released
any interview episodes recently is because I've been procrastinating reaching out to
subject matter experts, to which I have a couple of reactions.
But first, thanks, it's nice to be seen and known.
Second, how dare you?

(03:17):
While not exactly patently false, procrastination hasn't been the reason for a lack of interview
episodes.
However, it is the reason for today's episode.
On this episode of Revelizations, we will be discussing procrastination.
There is a lot of value in being aware that you engage in a counterproductive behavior

(03:38):
like procrastination.
There is even more value in understanding why you do it and how to shift gears out of
it.
Taking a lesson from Ken Smith and Tessa Mudge from the Cognitive Bias episode, we
are going to practice some not quite meta-cognition, but meta-procrastination.
We are going to explore why we procrastinate, the different types of procrastination, and

(04:02):
what we can do to avoid its pitfalls.
To help me accomplish this, I have enlisted the help of today's guest, Chris Abdey.
Chris is a coach who specializes in helping people break free from procrastination's
inertia to build better habits that lead to accomplishing goals that once stopped them
in their tracks.
Today he sits down with me to help us understand the different phases of procrastination and

(04:26):
how to stop putting off for tomorrow the things that we can do today.
And if by chance you are using my podcast as a means to procrastinate on something else
you should be doing, you have my full support.
Just be ready to put to practice everything you learned after you finish listening.
But I guess there's always tomorrow for that, too.
Thanks for listening, everyone.

(04:50):
Hi, Chris.
Thanks so much for being here.
I'm so happy that you said yes to being on the podcast, and I'm excited to learn about
you and how we can better understand procrastination so that we don't have to fall victim to it
as much in the future.
Well, thanks for having me, Brian.
Excited to be here.
And I'm a little biased, but I do think that this topic doesn't get the notice that it
sometimes needs.

(05:10):
Yeah, I agree.
You don't really think about it, but I guess you kind of just accept like, oh, I'm just
going to procrastinate or like this is just something that everyone does.
But like you can really like dive into it and like notice patterns in yourself of why
I'm doing this and ways of when you notice you're kind of falling into a pattern of
procrastination to get yourself out of it.

(05:32):
They go, OK, I can actually consciously derail this current trajectory that I'm on
before we get too far into it.
Tell us about yourself and tell us about how you got interested in this specific niche.
I really focused in on procrastination because I was a master procrastinator.
It actually worked really well for me until it kind of didn't.

(05:54):
So a little bit of background.
I started out.
I've been coaching in this area pretty much for about 20 years.
I just never had the title.
Right. So any time I was in like customer service or project management, business
development, wherever it was, I was always coaching my co-workers and my teams through
what I call the umbrella of procrastination, which is it's kind of a chicken and egg

(06:15):
thing. Right. Because any one of these things could be procrastination or procrastination
can also cause these things.
The big five. Right.
Burnout, overwhelmed stress, addictions, distractions.
But how I play into that and how it kind of worked for me in my last two years of high
school, I was in what they call the International Baccalaureate Program.
It's sort of like taking your last two years of high school and flipping it into what

(06:42):
kind of a first year university program would look like.
You have a thesis you're supposed to write, an extended essay, they called it.
So I had to do one of those.
We had two years to do 12 art projects is one example of my art class.
I never went to a single art class.
I didn't think it was important, therefore I didn't go.
So I did all those 12 art projects in about six hours the night before Monday.

(07:08):
Right. Monday, we had our final sort of exam, which was a live art exhibition in the
town where the school was, which was covered by the local paper, by the way.
And here I am, you know, in the garage.
I'm taking caution tape, duct tape, styrofoam, toilet paper, bottles, cans, spray
paint, magic markers, doing whatever to try to pull stuff out of thin air.

(07:30):
I set it all up.
And I think my saving grace obviously was a proctor for the exam evaluating, came
from another school, didn't know me.
And what was interesting was he just came up to my display and I'm just sort of
sitting there waiting, what's going to happen.
I was actually expecting to kind of fail.
And so he just walks up and he starts explaining my art to me.
He's like, I love the way that you used unconventional, like non-conventional

(07:53):
materials, but you didn't go too far out there.
And then he said, you know, it's very reminiscent of pathetic art.
And I was like, wait, pathetic art, pathetic art, you know, me being me, I
can do something with that.
And I said, you're absolutely right.
It is pathetic art because in today's society, we're all striving for perfection.
So does that not make perfection the new mediocrity?

(08:13):
And just like that, I got the same grade as the student who, he had
all these extra art lessons.
He had support from the art teacher.
He had support from some pretty famous stained glass artists in the industry.
He got the same grade as me.
The other class I did this with was biology.
We had to do eight lab reports in two years and the lab report, you know, a lab

(08:36):
could be anywhere between three weeks and five months.
I didn't do those, not a single one.
About two weeks before we had to submit everything, biology teacher walks in,
stands at the front of the class and before anything else, she says, Mr.
Abdi, you've got two weeks until we have to submit everything and you haven't
done a single lab report.
What do you intend to do?

(08:58):
And turned back and I looked at her and I just said, pray.
And so that set off a flurry of activity.
You know, the director of the school was called in, the owner of the school
was called in, my biology teacher was there, my parents were there, the school
principal was there in their infinite wisdom since they'd never had a failure.
Right.
And if I didn't submit these reports, I would likely fail out of the program.

(09:21):
They said that, oh, okay, well, let's let you copy off of the
smartest kid in the class or the best student in the class right now.
Hopefully that'll scrape and let you scrape by.
Right.
That was the same student who I just got in the same grade for the art exhibition
as well that kind of got me leaving high school with a little bit of a God complex.
Right.

(09:41):
Because on the one hand I learned, Oh, I'm good enough that I can just pull a
rabbit out of my hat at the ninth hour and get out of whatever I need to do.
Or if it's really that important and I really don't want to do it, somebody else
going to step in and do it anyway.
Obviously that mentality is not very helpful to climbing the corporate ladder,

(10:02):
but I did manage to climb the corporate ladder and land myself in a position
where I was working with companies like universal studios and Walmart, Latin
America, and completely botched up three projects there coming out of the gate.
Like a million and a half in damages or something.
It was, yeah, got fired.

(10:22):
But that really taught me that, you know, I can't do that.
Yeah.
They kind of did you a pretty big disservice in school by just not letting you fail.
You have to learn like your consequences or lack of action are going to have a
consequence and that consequence is like, you're going to fail.
That's literally what school is.
It's supposed to be setting you up for life and doing all these things that you

(10:44):
don't want to do on other people's schedule because that's what life is
outside of this little bubble that is school.
So no one has maybe failed that program, but it seems like that program has
failed a lot of its students by having that mentality and maybe that
pride point that no one fails.
You know, I had thought about that.

(11:05):
It's not as uncommon as you think though, in schools, at least in Canada and in
some places in the United States.
I think you can kind of summarize it pretty easily and just say hard practice,
easy war, easy practice, hard war.
So you're kind of setting yourself up for a more difficult future by giving
yourself easier time of it.
Now, getting back to procrastination, let's, let's just start simple.

(11:29):
Like what is, what is procrastination?
You alluded to it a lot, but like, let's just put a simple definition of what
procrastination is out there.
Procrastination simply is the act of not doing something that you
feel like you should be doing.
When we're procrastinating, all we're doing is we're either pursuing pleasure.

(11:50):
So something we feel like is going to be better for us, more pleasurable for us in
that moment, or we're looking at to avoid some discomfort.
So we're avoiding a pain.
That's actually the most, the most common one is you're avoiding some sort of pain.
Procrastination itself is simply the act of putting something off that
you feel you should be doing.

(12:12):
And so are there, are there certain types of procrastination is all
procrastination kind of the same?
There's literally thousands of kinds of procrastination, but you normally
fall into one of five major buckets at any given time.
So, you know, you've got the perfectionist, right?
Which are people that need to have everything perfect.
I've come under this myself.

(12:33):
It has to be a hundred percent before you release it.
Then you've got the warrior.
The warrior is someone who will find any excuse to not do it.
Cause they just, they just really don't want to, for some reason.
An example might be, I need to cut my grass.
Okay.
Oh, it's the weekend.
It's eight o'clock in the morning.
What if my neighbor doesn't like the noise?
What if there's no gas in my mower?

(12:53):
Oh, well, what if it rains?
You know?
So the warrior can literally find any sort of what if scenario to talk
yourself out of, out of actually doing it.
And then you've got the dreamer.
The dreamers are actually my favorite because, uh, you know, I'm a bit of a
dreamer myself and that's the bucket I find myself most in and it's that they
have these big visions, these big dreams, and they get more joy out of actually

(13:16):
thinking about it, right?
And then when they go to actually do it, they see all the steps involved or they
see the things involved and you're like, uh, nah, let's go back and plan it.
Because that's more pleasurable than actually going through and doing it.
And then you have the crisis makers where we can all relate to that in high school
and actually weights back to that story I gave you, right?
The crisis maker wasn't, it's not urgent until it is, right?

(13:38):
So I left my art projects like literally until the last day because it just
wasn't important to me and because it was a public art exhibition happening
the next day, oh, I got to do it now.
The last one is the defier and the defier is actually just the autonomy, right?
Because we don't like being told it to do.

(14:00):
I love that form of procrastination simply because it's, it's a simple
reframe of changing have to, or need to, to I get to, you know, someone from a
place of gratitude or I choose to where you're taking back your own power.
That's great.
That's really helpful because I know that I, I fit a lot of those at different

(14:22):
times, I'll do different strategies, which is really interesting because
you're kind of looking at it like, well, these are different strategies to
procrastinate, so if like you're the perfectionist, I know even starting
a lot of projects, I won't want to do them or release them until they're flawless.
I think there's virtue in that.

(14:43):
And on the good side of it, like there's a virtue of wanting
to do the best that you can do.
But on the other side of that, on the actual procrastination side of that,
you're using that perfectionism as this way to actually procrastinate doing this
thing because you're either comparing yourself to what you should do or what
it looks like for someone else.

(15:04):
So you just don't do it because you're like, oh, it's, you know, it's not going
to be as good as, as my, as my neighbor, Frank can do it.
I'm not going to mow my lawn because Frank, he can make it look like a golf course.
I just do it and it looks like it's the teenager's first job.
And so I, you know, that's too embarrassing.
So I'm just going to let it get overgrown or something like that.
Or you just keep putting it off.
You're like, oh, I'm going to watch YouTube videos on how to mow my lawn

(15:26):
and how to get the patterns in there.
And you just, you end up not doing it and just, you give
yourself these reasons to not do it.
And so I think just knowing that is really good information of like knowing
these different strategies of how people procrastinate, but how can people who
exhibit the perfectionist, the dreamer, the worrier, the crisis maker, the defier,

(15:46):
those, those types of strategies.
I think it would be good to like, kind of like go through them and like, okay,
like if I'm using the strategy of being a perfectionist and procrastinating,
what can I do to stop that?
Like, what, what can I do to derail the thought that it has to be perfect
before I let people see it or before I even start doing it?

(16:08):
No, and I love that question too.
In terms of the perfectionist, there's the 80-20 rule.
So most of us can get to a point where we can say, okay, it's 80% done.
Once you get to that point, release it.
Because nothing's ever going to be a hundred percent.
So you, you kind of have to get used to putting it out there anyway.
80% should be good enough.

(16:30):
But again, let's touch on for what reason you're a perfectionist, right?
If it's something around validation, the 80-20 rule is only going to be a
band-aid, which is why I'm a big advocate of root cause analysis.
So whatever you're putting off and for whatever reason it is, and
whatever bucket you fall into.
Understanding what is the driver behind that is definitely important.

(16:52):
So for perfectionism, is it your self-image?
Is it validation?
Is it that you feel that if you put it out and it's not a hundred
percent, it's going to fail?
There are all those different things.
But as I mentioned before, so some of the things you can do, the 80-20
rule, you can also sit there and kind of say, okay, what's the worst possible

(17:13):
thing that could happen if I release it right now?
Like if it gets to 80% and you're like, no, I still don't want to do it.
Well, what's the worst possible thing that could happen?
How likely do I think that is to happen?
And one of the things that I like to do too, is the thought trap challenge.
And this works for any kind of procrastination or any kind of mindset, really.
Let's say you have a project at 80% and you come to me and you say, you know what?

(17:33):
I'm not going to release it.
I just think it's, I just think it's going to fail.
I'm just going to fail miserably.
And I turn around and I say to you, Brian, would you lay down $1,000 right now as a
bet that that project that you release at 80% is going to fail completely.
Would you do that?
And push back?
Yeah, no.
As soon as you attach a consequence to the thought, it's like, oh no, I'm

(17:56):
not that sure of it anymore.
The next one, the warrior is kind of like anxiety, right?
It's thinking about the future.
So I always fall back to the power of now, Eckhart Tolle, right?
Mindfulness, because if you're in the moment, there's literally no room for
the past and there's no room for the future.
So if you're just focused on exactly what you're doing, you're grounded in
the moment, you don't think about what if the neighbor doesn't like to sound.

(18:18):
Cause you're just, you're focused on, you know, feeling your feet in the
grass or smelling the grass or whatever it is you're doing at the moment.
And mindfulness is actually good for just anxiety in general.
Focusing on things you're doing.
Do the five things for mindfulness, right?
So what are five things you can feel?
What are four things you can see?
What are three things you can hear?
What are two things you can smell and what's one thing you can taste?

(18:40):
The only place you probably don't want to do that is the bathroom, but
everywhere else is really good.
And actually one of the things I have to kind of bring you back to the moment
really quickly is it's an interesting little exercise that can almost bring
you back within like 30 seconds to a minute, humor me a second, take your two
fingers like this and you close your eyes and you start rubbing your fingertips

(19:03):
back and forth and really feeling the ridges of the fingertips, seeing if you
can count the ridges of the fingertips and then see from there how deep they go.
See if you can actually feel how deep the ridges are.
And between 30 seconds and a minute of that, most people say that their
anxiety levels go down by quite a bit.

(19:24):
Yeah, that's a good strategy.
I had anxiety for a while and because it's like this mismanagement of
your body of fight or flight, it's putting you in fight or flight when
there's nothing to fight.
So your brain is saying hyperfixate on this and then it just starts to snowball
because like you're hyperfixating on something that isn't even there or maybe

(19:45):
something that you're feeling, but like something that you are feeling or
creating internally and then you're just making this giant snowball out of what
started as an imaginary snowflake.
And so doing that I can see can really make you say, Hey, I'm going to be very
intentional about what I'm focusing on.
And I'm going to do something that requires attention because like you're

(20:07):
saying, like if you look at your finger pads, if you even just try and do it, I
have these like, I don't have worker hands.
I have very soft hands.
I put on lotion a lot, so my hands are pretty smooth.
So, but that would benefit the exercise of what you're saying because I would
actually be struggling to try and count or like feel the ridges or anything like

(20:27):
that, that would just be like my focus.
And then you're like, oh, okay.
You kind of switch gears.
Like you're saying your procrastination is taking you to a place of anxiety
because now you should be doing this thing.
You're not doing this thing.
All these negative outcomes are coming out of it, but you have this deadline
at the end that is inevitable that is coming.

(20:50):
So you kind of are just making this problem grow and the procrastination
isn't making it any better.
So just being able to shift the gears, say, okay, get away from that, get away
from the future, what you were saying, get away from the past.
I could have done things.
I didn't do things.
The future's coming, but like, let's, what can I do right now in this moment?

(21:12):
It's a great exercise.
The brain is a problem solver.
When you start trying to fix something that already happened, you can't.
And it's like anxiety in the future.
Well, you really can't deal with that because it hasn't happened yet.
It's not in front of you.
That's what causes the overwhelm and it causes, you know, big drains on your
energy because you're constantly trying to figure out a way to do it.

(21:33):
Which incidentally is, is why some people, when they get into that too, they
work on crosswords or they work in other problems, right?
So when somebody is having an issue where they get like writer's block or where
they get, they're stumped on a project or something, one of the strategies
is often to pick up a game.
Some people use Wordle or some people use crosswords or anagram games or whatever,
because your brain is then solving something that's being productive and

(21:56):
it's allowing the pressure to come off the other problem it's trying
to resolve at the same time.
That makes sense.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
I can see like how that would be great for the warrior.
What about the dreamer?
The dreamer is interesting because it's, it's all about, a lot of
times it's about being bored and not wanting to do what, what you need to do.
You get there with the dreamer.

(22:18):
It is very important to chunk your tasks and you got to put your tasks down.
For the dreamer, it's especially important to make sure that those
steps are as few as possible.
So I have something called the power of three for dreamers.
A lot of people say, well, how can that possibly work?
Because for most plans, you should have every single step laid out, one through

(22:39):
a hundred, and I'm saying just pick the top three things you're looking for
things to get those quick wins because you want the quick wins and you don't
want to get overwhelmed because then you're going to want to go back to the
planning stage, the dreaming stage, because it's more pleasurable and
you're actually completing.
The first thing to do as a dreamer is to take that vision.
So what would be the three first steps I could take for that?

(23:01):
You write those out.
So for that first step, what are the three things that I would need to
do to do that, to do that one thing?
And you break that down and then that's what you work on.
Unlike a day-to-day basis, you don't even bring out a full plan, which
is counterintuitive because big vision, you got to have a big plan.
That actually reminds me of something that Steve jobs would do.

(23:22):
Steve jobs had the big picture, your list of a hundred things, but in
order to start solving and start making progress on this overwhelming list
of tasks that needed to be completed.
He would look at the ones that needed to be completed the most and like
get rid of all the other noise, all the other things, pulling his focus and
just focus on the things that needed to be done the most and whittling it down

(23:45):
to just a few things that require the most attention, the most immediate,
the most urgent, and then getting those done and then moving on to the other
things, I can see how like that could really work and anchor the dreamers.
So we had the perfectionist, the dreamers, the warriors, and now the crisis makers.
Like everything's, everything's going to go wrong.

(24:06):
I can't do anything.
So the crisis maker is more about if it's not urgent, it's not urgent.
It's, it's a very awkward way of labeling it.
One of the most effective strategies for this, and if you're a crisis
maker, you can kind of trick yourself by putting the deadlines sooner.
If you know you're going to procrastinate, you know that you're a crisis maker

(24:27):
and you want time to review or whatever.
Whatever task is due in two weeks, put the due date in a week.
But the reason I say that that's not an effective tool long-term, eventually
you're just going to get used to it.
And then this is not going to work anymore.
What I usually recommend for crisis makers is I recommend like a reprioritization.

(24:48):
So if they know they have something due, what is the purpose of that task?
And what's your, what's your why behind it?
Because when the why is high, the cost is low.
And just really to gain to, okay, what about this task is important?
Why is it important?
I'm choosing to do this now because why?
And there's all sorts of lies that we'll tell ourselves.

(25:10):
Crisis makers will usually say something along the lines.
And I've done this too.
I work better under pressure.
No, because your output's not consistent.
Yeah, you've got that additional creativity.
Yes, you've got maybe some additional drive.
But your output is not never going to be consistent.
It's never a good idea to, to be a crisis maker in any, anything where

(25:31):
you need some degree of consistency.
Would it help?
I don't know if it'd be counterproductive, but to actually play out the scenarios.
Like if you're worried about your neighbor getting upset with you because
you're mowing your lawn at like the noise level, could you just be like,
well, what happens when he comes over?
He tells me he's upset at me.
I say, I got to mow my lawn.
And then that's the end of the conversation.

(25:52):
Would stuff like that be helpful?
Or does that just reinforce worrying and prolonging procrastination?
They're helpful to a point.
And that's why I say the power of three.
What's the worst possible outcome or what are three, what are three undesirable
outcomes, and then that's what I would do maximum if you really want to do the
exercise and then I say journalists out, write it out, notepad or pen and paper

(26:15):
or, or even just thinking it, but don't go over three and then just have three
possible solutions for the, for each of those.
Last we have the defier and I kind of, I kind of see a young Chris in the defier.
Someone who's like, you're, these are arbitrary timelines.
These are stupid.
I don't want to do it in your timeline.
So I'm not going to do it in your timeline.

(26:37):
So I see a little bit of, of your story in the defier.
So what can, what can we do?
How can we help young Chris push back against the strategy of defying
and using procrastination?
And again, this is the easiest one, right?
I'm not saying it's easy.
I'm saying it's kind of the easiest one to, to kind of try and work through.

(26:59):
It's about choosing to do it.
So we really don't have to do anything.
Everything in life is a choice, not going into the dogma and the meta of things,
but like coming into the world and leaving the world, those are pretty much
the only choices that you don't have, but everything, literally
everything else is a choice.
And this is so true in, in relationships too.

(27:22):
This happens with my wife pretty frequently too.
It's like, um, get up after a long day of work, sit down,
I'm going to turn on the TV.
My butt is, you know, not even had a chance to make the indentation
in the couch, right?
And just turn on the TV and she's like, you got to help me with the dishes.
I'm sorry.
I have to.
No, I choose to get up and help with the dishes because I love my wife and I know

(27:45):
that's going to make her life easier.
And I'm also choosing to do it because I don't want to be sleeping on that couch
later and I know it's not going to take me that long and I can go back and I can
watch the show I was going to watch anyway.
It's just recognizing that you do have that choice.
The defier, it seems simple, but it also, like, if you're not worried about the

(28:07):
consequences and it would seem to be difficult to motivate yourself to break
that cycle, what can you do outside of it?
Cause if you can't reframe it, if you're just so stuck on the fact that this
decision is out of my control, they're telling me I need to hit this deadline.
I think that's stupid.

(28:27):
It doesn't need to be done this week.
It could be done next week.
So I'm just not going to do it.
I'm just going to wait until next week to do it.
What do you do?
Like if you're just absolutely stubborn and you can't break free from that.
First of all, you have to really understand your motivators.
So like, what are your drivers?
Are you a carrot person or are you a stick person?
You react more for reward or do you react more for consequences?

(28:52):
Which is interesting because a lot of people don't know this about themselves.
I always thought that I'm going to be more motivated by reward than I am by a
consequence, but in reality, when I go back and I audit all my actions across a
lifetime, I am way more stick motivated than carrot.
You kind of have to understand that about yourself.

(29:13):
But if you don't, you can go one of two ways.
You can go like a small reward system.
So like, you know, you're choosing to do it because you know that at the end of
it, you're going to give yourself a small reward.
So a small kind of recognition reward that, you know, you did it and you're
going to go through it, right?
The other way is to have a consequence for it.
Reward, yes, but consequences also another valid way.

(29:37):
Like in my own accountability programs, some of them are reward based.
So if you do this, if you consistently do your laundry for the whole week, you
get a $20 gift card for whatever, and you, you spend on what you want.
Or if you don't do your laundry for a week, then you got to pay a penalty

(29:57):
fee or something to yourself.
One of the key principles of evolution is survival of the fittest.
And then I kind of extend that to character traits as well, because it's
kind of what it is, the fittest, the best character trait, the highest survival
trait is going to be the one that gets passed on because eventually it'll kind

(30:17):
of just work itself out.
And so I'm, I'm always interested with thinking about that and certain traits
and procrastination seems like one that should have basically rooted itself out
very, very early of just like, Oh man, I'm so hungry.
I need to go get something to eat.
Nah, I'll do it later.
And then like that kind of trait just ends up eliminating itself because the

(30:38):
people who aren't going and doing something well, then they just don't
survive and so they don't get to pass on their genes.
So how can something like procrastination be so, so ingrained in us still?
I love that.
I love that line of thinking.
So procrastination at its core is a defense mechanism, which is why I, from

(31:00):
the get-go, I say, you're not lazy.
You're not broken.
You're operating on, on programming that allowed you to survive.
And it's interesting that you said about how procrastination shouldn't have been
allowing us to survive and it's very interesting because while the brain is
very smart and very good at many things, it's not a great differentiator.

(31:22):
So procrastination in the past, wherein you're thinking like, I'm hungry.
I'm going to go get this food.
Oh no, no, I'm not.
I'm just going to lay here and die.
That would never happen because you've got that motivator of hunger, of being
hungry, where the procrastination really comes from and where it really comes
from is it's almost always fear-based.

(31:45):
And why does that matter?
That matters because fear allows us to survive.
Now, again, I told you the brain it's very smart, but it's also kind of dumb
because in a sense it's the most powerful processing tool on the planet still, but
it can't tell the difference between running through the jungle away from a
saber-toothed tiger as being dangerous to sitting in for a math test as being

(32:07):
dangerous, the physiological response and the response is still the same danger.
And it's why we're hardwired to always focus on the negative too, because when
we were running naked and afraid through the jungle 10,000 years ago, whatever
was negative killed us.
George runs through the jungle, George sees snake, snake bite George, George
die, okay, no more snakes.

(32:28):
But again, the brain doesn't know the difference between, oh, deadly snake or
my neighbor might not like me.
It's still the same response.
So it's still like the same fear.
It's still the same day.
It's the danger to self.
So it's, it's a defense mechanism, misplaced one, maybe misguided, but it's
not, it's not that it's broken right.

(32:50):
And so that kind of makes me think about like delayed gratification and
procrastination, and it almost seems like the more clever procrastinator could use
some sort of delayed gratification as like a reason for not doing something now.
Cause like, if I do it later, it'll be more beneficial to me, but how can we

(33:11):
incorporate delayed gratification and use it as a tool to kind of stave off
procrastinating, like those types of habits?
You hit the nail right on the head.
It is, it is very difficult to use delayed gratification as a tool against
procrastination.

(33:32):
I was talking to some geneticists and some other fitness experts and, you
know, pharmaceutical type people.
And when they were doing their research, they specifically use Jenny Craig.
They said, when you think about your future self and, you know, nobody cares
about heart disease in 10 years, they want to know what's going to help them now.

(33:54):
And that's actually one of the big things about procrastination is that the
further out the payoff is, the more likely you are to procrastinate it.
So again, delayed gratification in terms of procrastination is tied more into
that reward system I was sort of mentioning before.
So you can couple it, you can sort of stack it.

(34:18):
I'm not saying this is the only way, but this is the, this is one, this is the way
that I've had success in doing that with stacking it.
And by stacking it, I mean, like you have your reward.
So let's say you have an issue doing your laundry.
I do my laundry at the same time every day, so I can get it done.
I know it's done.
And if I do that at the end of the week, I'll give myself $5 for a coffee or whatever.

(34:40):
Now, in order to stack that a little bit, you can say, okay, let's go one step further.
If I can do that for the week, I get $5.
I can take that or I can bank it.
And if I bank it, then the next week I do it, I'll get $10.
And then you bank it.
But then where it gets interesting and where I've really seen the most

(35:02):
results is that third and fourth week.
Because what you do is you say, okay, if I do it for three weeks straight, what
I'll get instead of $10, I'll get $20.
So see how that works.
You, so the original reward was five.
But, and then the next week's reward is still also kind of only five.
But that third week, if you say you're going to double it, and then you double

(35:22):
it for the fourth week, then you're going to, at the end of the month, if you do it
for the whole month, then you're going to reward yourself that 40 bucks.
That's a really good strategy.
I think weight loss is like another good one of like delayed gratification of,
it's going to take you a really long time before you can see any, any benefit

(35:44):
because any sort of change, like you're going to notice immediately that you're
not eating that chocolate cake, but you not eating that chocolate cake after a
month, you're going to shed a few pounds.
Like, let's just say that's the only intervention you did was not do that.
So how do you keep convincing yourself?
Like, what can you stack to do that?
If it's not, let's say you don't have the financial leeway to, to be giving

(36:08):
yourself that, that kind of reward.
You can't do a financial reward.
What would be another aspect that you can stack to keep on getting the
benefits of the delayed gratification?
For weight loss is a little bit different.
One of the key things for weight loss is again, going into your core reason,
like really digging into your reason.
What's the reason for the weight loss?

(36:31):
And this is where I try to help people separate motivation from inspiration.
Motivation is always going to fail you at some point because motivation
is almost always fear-based.
Most people, when they want to lose weight, it's for things like,
Oh, I want to look good.
Well, why do you want to look good?
I want my, just an example, I want my beach body.

(36:53):
Why do you want your beach body?
I want to look good.
Why do you want to look good?
I want people to notice me.
Why do you want people to notice you?
Uh, I want people to notice me so I can find a mate.
Okay.
Why do you want to find a mate?
I don't want to die alone.
It's these really base primal sort of fears.
So what I try to do is I try to get them to flip that around.
What would be the upside to you losing weight?

(37:13):
Look better in your clothes or whatever, right?
Or, you know, you'd be able to walk up and down the stairs without.
Being out of breath.
Getting out of breath.
But the thing is, is that is more difficult to do because people
don't like to look at that.
So it's definitely going back to attempting to stack in positive

(37:34):
benefits, but the earliest possible benefits period, right?
So the earliest benefits are compliments of how they feel.
And this is one of the reasons why, and I'm not, I'm not a fitness coach,
by the way, but I've worked with a lot of them and I'm really interested in
where this has gone in the last, in the last decade is it's really transitioned

(37:56):
more from cardio to more like weightlifting and the weightlifting.
And I'm not talking about crazy weights because women are always like, not
always, I don't want to get buff.
I don't want to get all muscly.
I don't, I don't want to do that.
That's not the point.
The point is that when you do resistance, so you can do
resistance with low, low weights.
You can do, uh, you know, one pound, three pound weights.

(38:19):
It doesn't matter, but you're going to be increasing, you know, the different
levels in the body of, of dopamine and testosterone and all those other
great hormones, and those are just naturally going to make you feel better.
And that's from the evolutionary scale.
Because again, survive, you said it yourself, survival of the fittest.
So if you start feeling stronger, you're just naturally going to feel better.

(38:40):
And you're naturally going to want to continue because your
survivability has just gone up.
So it's a very base thing.
So now a lot of people, you know, in terms of weight loss, it's not cardio.
It's weightlifting.
So how can you get to that point though?
Because it takes a very long time for your body to start
showing any sort of results.

(39:01):
Neurologically, it's a lot faster.
One week you can lift five pounds and the next you can week 10, but you
won't see any real change in your body.
So what can you do to help people stay motivated?
Just, just in that regard.
Just in that regard.
Um, and it's, I, I often don't like, don't like doing this, but it's as a crutch,

(39:22):
you can, and that's the comparison, right?
So it's not that you're comparing yourself to somebody else as a whole, but
you look at, say, somebody who did the same thing that you want to do, like
they lost a hundred pounds in a year or something, so you just look at them and
then you have their story on like a vision board or you have their YouTube

(39:43):
story or whatever, and you watch that every day, right?
And the, and you just remind yourself every day why you're doing it.
Really keen back into what the end outcome is going to be for you.
And what is that going to do for you?
This is a big part where accountability partners can be a big thing like body
doubling, because it is super hard for us to sometimes be accountable to ourselves.

(40:07):
But normally when we have somebody else we're accountable to, then
we can actually keep doing it.
And this is why I think that many of those kind of gym groups fail in the
new year, like new year's resolutions, because big group of friends get together
and say, oh yeah, I'm going to work out.
Yeah, me too.
Oh yeah, me too.
But, you know, everyone's got different schedules.

(40:28):
Everybody was really just high on euphoria and maybe a little drunk
and just sounded like a good idea.
So they didn't really have a reason to do it.
So that accountability is that, oh, it's not that, you know, did you do it?
It's that you told someone else you were going to do it.
And so now you can want to keep that promise to that other person, just
making the promise to yourself and making the promise to someone else.

(40:51):
And just having that other person really, really helps a lot, especially
in the beginning, it's why in addictions you have sponsors.
And I really believe that the weight loss industry or the fitness industry
in general would be probably good because we are slipping into more of

(41:12):
an addiction problem than a fitness problem, if we're being honest, you
know, addictive foods or addictive behaviors or whatever.
So I think that we should have sponsors in fitness too, like
accountability partners, just as, just as a default almost.
Yeah.
That makes a lot of sense to bring other people into it.
And like, that's a way that you can keep and maintain that future version

(41:33):
of yourself that you're trying to get, but you're not going to get there now.
Like right now it's just like a bunch of hard work and, you know, denying
yourself of comforts that you, you really enjoyed.
So getting closer to wrapping up, how do you unlearn procrastination?
It's not that you unlearn procrastination.

(41:53):
Procrastination is, it's embedded into everybody because it is,
it is a defense mechanism, right?
So it's not that you unlearn it, but what you really do is you,
you get to the core reasons.
So what is the purpose, right?
So what is your why?
Because again, when the why is high, the cost is low.
And then it's really about finding the resistance and either figuring out a

(42:18):
way to make it less or figuring out a way to, to get around it, right?
Because I'll give you a real example and just how insidious this can be.
And this is why I also say you need compassion with yourself and to,
um, to know yourself too.
And I'll give a real example of my own.
I don't go to the gym, but I do lift some weights out in the garage.

(42:41):
And during the colder months, you know, get up at 5 a.m., go out, do some weights,
come back in, have the after workout shake, whatever, get out with my day.
Summer comes around and it's warm and we get like two months of good weather in
Canada.
So it's like, yeah, I really want to spend more time doing that.
And really it was a weak excuse because I was getting up at 5 a.m.

(43:01):
Really I wanted more time outside and I was getting up at 5 a.m.
anyway, but my daughter was out of school and I used the excuse that I would spend
more time with her too.
And I'm like, really?
I'm getting up at five anyway.
Like, is she getting up at five?
No, but anyway, I did it and I told myself, I get back to it when she got
back in school.
So she gets back in school.
And so September, October, I'm okay.

(43:23):
Beginning of November, I start to drag my feet a bit.
You know, the alarm goes off.
I'm thinking, I don't want to do it.
Middle of November comes around and it's just like, I'm just, the alarm's going off.
I'm just sitting a snooze.
I'm like, no, I'm not doing it.
I'm not going out there.
I'm not doing it.
It's okay.
Wait, stop.
What's going on?
And so I had to break it down, right?
Figure out where the resistance is getting up at 5 a.m.

(43:44):
No, good with that.
Doing the exercises.
No, good with that.
Going out to the garage.
Ah, there's that little tinge of resistance.
What, what is that?
Okay.
So what about that?
Am I resisting?
Like what, what don't I want?
And then my garage is, it's not heated, but it's insulated, right?
But it still gets pretty cold out there.
So it's like, I don't like being cold.

(44:06):
I know this.
I know this.
I don't like being cold.
I know this.
Okay.
But it took me needing to go, fiddle down like that.
Okay.
So what do I do about that?
So I put in that little space heater and I changed my routine a bit to get up at five,
go turn on the space heater, go back and make my shake, then go out and do the
exercise and then come back.
And by doing that, I eliminated the procrastination, but, and here's the big

(44:29):
but, it flowed over into all the other parts of my life where I was procrastinating
based on that reason.
So like building a snowman with my daughter, going out to see the Christmas
lights in the winter, doing the hot chocolate run, each of those things are
just like, I don't really want to do them.
Why?
Cause I don't want to be cold.
As long as I was able to be reasonably assured that I would not be cold, the

(44:52):
procrastination for all of those disappeared as well.
So the benefit to figuring out what is the reason behind your procrastination
is so crucial and important is because once you resolve it in one thing, you'll
resolve the procrastination in every other area where the procrastination was

(45:14):
also based around that one thing.
So it's like a domino effect.
Yeah.
And that's kind of why I wanted to like get into this and talk about
procrastination because like, this is kind of a callback to what you were saying
when you were given the excuse of the guy saying, I don't want to mow the lawn
for this reason, this reason, this reason, or I don't want to go out and work out
for, for this reason and kind of finding that root cause.

(45:36):
So you're not unlearning it, but you're learning how to preempt it.
You say, I have these behaviors, I have these proclivities.
What can I do?
Cause I know I am very susceptible to this behavior.
I like being comfortable now rather than being uncomfortable in the future and
having to do this task I don't want to do.
And it's on the horizon.
So what can I do to preempt it?

(45:57):
The lawnmower is full of gas.
I talked with my neighbor and we're on good terms.
I'm not going to create a scenario to where he's going to get upset
at me for mowing my lawn.
I went and I got up a little bit early to put the space heater on.
So I know like it's going to be warm.
So I don't have to worry about that.
So just recognizing these moments in your life to where you want to accomplish a

(46:21):
goal, but you are the hurdle that you have to get over.
So what can I do to minimize that, to make that hurdle easier?
And so, yeah, that just, that makes so much sense.
And I think that's some really great advice before we end this.
What did I miss?
I'm sure I missed something.
What's another important, is there anything that we need

(46:41):
to discuss about procrastination?
What's an important piece of knowledge for us to know?
I think because we kind of glazed over it, I do want to drive, drive home
the point just one more time that you're not broken and you're not lazy.
You're just operating on programming that you probably got somewhere
between the years of zero and 12.
And you know, if that programming is no longer serving you, then, you

(47:04):
know, you just changed the programming.
It's not, it's not a critical fault.
That's great.
This is human behavior.
You're, you're not different from anyone else.
This is that everyone has to struggle with this and we all struggle
with it to a certain extent.
And this is another thing that, that another reason I'm so passionate
about it is because I know it affects lives.
So a not so happy situation that happened actually was about a year

(47:28):
and four months ago now, I guess, my, my mom passed, procrastination
brought me in my last conversation with her pretty much.
We knew she was dying.
They told us, I mean, they told us she could go at any time, but I was
procrastinating because I wasn't comfortable in that situation with
being at the nursing home and dealing with that for various reasons.

(47:50):
And so I could fill my calendar with work.
I was rearranging things.
I was always busy and I did that for about two weeks.
And this was after we had that meeting with them and they said
she could go at any time.
So I finally cleared off, cleared everything for the Monday.
And I said, I'm going to go, I'm going to do it.
And actually she passed away depending on how you look at it.

(48:12):
Very, very late Sunday night or very, very early Monday morning before
I would have gone to see her.
So it's not, it's another reason that, that, you know, I'm kind of passionate
about it because I know that in those cases, especially going and doing it
and, and, and, you know, facing it is definitely a lot less painful than

(48:33):
trying to work through the regret after.
Yeah.
Procrastination is a thief.
It's kind of robbing you of the future.
If you want to know if you're doing something that you should be doing or not
do, and this is based around your core values, so it's, it's valid for
every single situation, if you say, I'm too busy for that, I want you to just

(48:53):
switch that up a bit and say, I'm not making that a priority right now.
And see how that feels versus I'm too busy because I'm too busy for that
is almost like white noise and I'm not making that a priority right now will
land a lot differently if you should be making that a priority for yourself.
Yeah.
Reframing like how powerful it's a really good tool.

(49:15):
So I really appreciate you sharing your expertise with us.
If people want to learn more about you, where can they find you?
Where can they do that?
Oh yeah.
The best place is LinkedIn.
I'm the only Chris Abdey on LinkedIn.
So I'm easy enough to find them.
Thanks so much, Chris.
I appreciate your time.
This was a lot of fun.
Thanks so much for having Brian.

(49:48):
It sounds a little egotistical, but I am an amazing cook.
I know this because I used to constantly get volunteered to cook
for my friend group.
It wouldn't even be a conversation.
Sometimes they would just come over unannounced with food they
purchased and have me prepare it for them.
I did my best to discourage them from coming over with being unpleasant

(50:09):
and making aggressively rude yo mama jokes, but I guess they found
my abrasive personality charming.
I didn't know what to do.
Then walking through the health food aisle and my local grocery store,
I found a most unappealing looking grain.
I figured I'd give it a shot and thankfully so.
After just one serving of Keenan's Quinoa, no one has asked me

(50:32):
to cook for them again.
I even heard them as they were walking out after dinner, asking each other
if I garnished the food with dirt.
Nope.
That's just the ancient charm of the ancient grain known as quinoa.
Thanks Keenan's Quinoa.
Keenan's Quinoa.
It's not pronounced Key-Noah.
It's quinoa.