November 19, 2024 • 24 mins
Let's face it...procrastination is part of life. And for many women looking to lead themselves it can be a big (unwanted) part of life and business too.
In this week's show, I am talking about the hidden purpose of procrastination to help you understand it in a different light.
I also
- talk about 5 steps you can take to get on top of your real levels of procrastination and learn about the Procrastinator Emotional Survival Pattern®.
- explain some of the sneaky ways procrastination shows up in your business (the less obvious ways).
- clarify why (sometimes) you actually need to procrastinate.
- explain why procrastination is not just about your brain in action.
Enjoy the show! And don't forget to leave a 5 star rating and a written review over on Apple Podcasts HERE
Additional Links from this episode
Adam Grant's Book HERE.
Adam Grant's TED talk HERE.
Free Resources
Take the Emotional Survival Patterns® Quiz
Download the Inside Out® Morning ebook
Receive the Inside Out® Wisdom Series
Suzi's Current Programs
For Suzi's Programs (or to join wait lists), see HERE
Ways to connect with Suzi
Suzi's Facebook Page: Suzi's largest following is on Facebook.
Suzi's Personal Facebook: You can also follow Suzi here.
Suzi's Instagram: Suzi's super personal cosy corner is on Instagram where she keeps it intimate.
Suzi's YouTube: If you want videos to help you with your inner journey, see Suzi's youtube channel.
Suzi's Linked In: If you like the Linked In way, this is your place.
Suzi's X / Twitter: You can find Suzi here as well.
Contact Suzi and her team on the Website.
Who is Suzi Belmont?
Suzi Belmont is a multi 7 figure entrepreneur (15 years), therapist, coach, mental health and psychology expert known for ‘creating seismic shifts in women and entrepreneurs’, causing ‘quantum leaps in their abilities’ and ‘completely transforming confidence’ in her clients. Her work has been described by clients as ‘mind-blowing’, ‘like having a fairy godmother around’, ‘the most extraordinary coach’, ‘pure gold’ and ‘absolutely life changing’.
She blends her 15 years entrepreneurial experience with psychology, emotional intelligence, leadership, energetics, consciousness, early childhood development, trauma, mindset,...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, I'm Suzi Belmont, and thisweek I am talking about one of
my all time favorite sabotages,which is procrastination.
But is it really a self sabotage?
Or is something else going oninside that has a hidden purpose?
If you want to find out, thenget yourself comfy doing whatever
you do when you listen to apodcast . This is your time now.
(00:23):
Enjoy the show.
Okay, let's go.
Hi, I'm Suzi Belmont, a multi sevenfigure entrepreneur with 15 years
experience, as well as a psychologyexpert, qualified coach, and therapist.
This podcast is your secret resourceto help you grow from the inside out.
It's like personal development forentrepreneurs and leaders, all wrapped
(00:45):
up in fun, positivity, and motivation.
So, pull up your chair and getready to change your life and
your business from the inside out.
This is the Inside OutEntrepreneur Podcast.
Hello everyone and welcome back tothe show, and today I am talking about
procrastination and your businessbecause, well, let's face it, it's a
(01:07):
big one for so many entrepreneurs, meincluded I am very, very guilty of this
and I'm not gonna hide that at all.
I want to show you in the show todayhow procrastination is not the negative
thing that everyone typically says it is.
It's not actually always a bad thing.
So keep listening to find out more.
And before we start, don't forget to hitthe subscribe button on the podcast so
(01:30):
that you get notified of future showswhatever platform you're on, hit that.
You can just hit subscribe there,that's the easiest way to find out.
However, those of you who do like to havean email reminder or something like that,
go over to my website on the podcastpage, and you can sign up to be reminded
by email of when there are new shows out.
Okay, right, on with the show andback to what I wanted to talk about
(01:50):
and get straight to the point becausethat's kind of the entire point of the
show and I can't fluff around talkingabout something else at the beginning
when the very topic of today'sshow is procrastination.
And specifically, procrastination aroundbig decisions, or even small decisions you
have to make each day in your business.
So, you all know that generally speaking,procrastination is framed as a super
(02:14):
frustrating, anxiety inducing, pileof shizzle that seems to take over the
inside of your brain and your body whereyou end up putting things off and then
you end up feeling really rubbish aboutputting the things off because you didn't
really want to put them off but youdidn't really want to do them either.
And then just to add a cherryon the cake, you're often aware
that you are procrastinating.
But you don't seem to be able to stop it.
(02:35):
And yes, if you are the listener whostarts your day by, um, tidying your
desk or your office or your kitchen,then yep, I am talking to you.
You know exactly who you are.
But what exactly is going on insideof you when you procrastinate?
Is it really a negative thing?
Is your brain intending to putyou in a place of negativity?
(02:56):
Well, let's start there.
Because contrary to what mostpeople might tell you, it's not
just your mind involved here.
It's not just your brain, it's not justyour mind, they're different things, but
anyway, we'll use the same thing for now.
It's your mind and your body.
And the way I see procrastination isthat it's a normal and natural protective
mechanism, rather than a negative habit.
(03:17):
So let's try and make that alittle bit easier to understand.
Imagine it like this.
Your body and your brain, from thevery beginning, has had to deal
with a lot of decisions and events.
And some of those decisions andevents were really overwhelming
and really hard to manage.
Some of them were so hard and sooverwhelming that your brain and your body
(03:38):
learnt to avoid those kind of situations.
So, one way of looking at yourprocrastination is that it's a totally
normal response by your body and your mindthat just doesn't want to have too much
stress or too much overwhelm happening.
I mean, it makes a lot of sense, right?
We're all led to believe that ifwe procrastinate, then it must mean
that something is wrong with us, thatwe're not doing things properly, that
(03:59):
our body or our brain isn't workingwell, that we're somehow faulty
or broken or not working properly.
But I really disagree here.
I think your body and your brain areworking perfectly when they procrastinate.
When you realize that the reason that theyare doing this is just to protect you from
having more stress, trauma, overwhelm,difficulty, and overwhelm really
(04:20):
is the word I want to focus on here.
It's like your brain and your bodyare saying, nah, you've had enough
overwhelm with this situation,so we don't want you to go there.
Now, it doesn't necessarily mean yourbrain and your body is getting this right.
That's another question.
But when you approach it from theangle of this is what it's trying
to do, it's trying to help you,you start to get a little bit
of a different perspective here.
(04:41):
So if your business is causing you tofeel a lot of stress and overwhelm, it
might simply be that your nervous systemis stuck in a place where it doesn't know
what to do, so it shuts down, and it triesto protect you from having more overwhelm.
It's trying to protect you, nota negative thing, not trying to
make you bad, not trying to makeyou broken or not good enough.
One of the ways that your system, yourbody, can try and protect you from more
(05:05):
overwhelm is using procrastination.
And procrastination is not reallyconnected, therefore, to the
event outside of you, as such.
It's not really about the event.
It's an inside out response.
And this is why we all responddifferently to the same kind of stressor.
Let's say there's a stress that happens,something happens in business, and
for one entrepreneur, one of you,that's not going to do anything.
(05:27):
That's not going to causeyou to procrastinate.
But for someone else, the same thingwill cause them to majorly procrastinate.
Because it's how their nervoussystem, that entrepreneur's
nervous system, is responding.
Depending on how your inner world is setup, how it's wired, how it functions,
will dictate how well you can handleouter world stress and overwhelm and
(05:48):
how much your inner system takes youinto procrastination to deal with that.
Or rather, your inner worldwill trigger this to stop you
having more stress and overwhelm.
And when you see procrastination inthis light, you realise that your
inner world is so bloody clever.
It's protecting you all of the time.
The problem, as I just mentioned,that you then have is that this
procrastination mechanism kind ofprotects you by stopping you do what your
(06:12):
conscious mind actually wants you to do.
And it becomes a battle of yoursubconscious and your body versus your
conscious prefrontal cortex brain.
That's the thinking executive part ofthe brain at the front of your head.
And this is a bit of an unfair battlebecause the way you are built as a human
means that the body and the subconsciousmind will always beat the conscious mind.
(06:33):
It's just quicker.
It just gets there faster.
I'm not going to go all neurosciencenerd on you here, but I do want
to touch a little bit on emotions,because the very core of this
is your inner emotional world.
Your emotions are not reallya part of your conscious mind.
You won't find yourselfthinking, you know what?
You know what?
I think a logical, sensibledecision today is to procrastinate.
(06:55):
That's not really how it works.
Your emotions are part of yoursubconscious world, along with
your entire nervous system.
And it is these two things workingtogether that impact how much you can
resist or beat your procrastination.
What you definitely know is trying tobeat procrastination and trying to beat
that world with your willpower, with yourthinking brain, doesn't usually work.
And to make it even harder, theseparts of your brain and your inner
(07:17):
system, your nervous system, arefunctioning in an automatic way.
Your system is making all of thesedecisions before you're even really
aware that the decision is being made.
So, if you think of the part of yourbrain that is involved in logical
thinking and decision making, this isthe bit I just mentioned behind your
forehead, your prefrontal cortex, butthen you think about your emotional
brain, which is not all in the sameplace, most people root that in the
(07:40):
middle of your head, which isn't the case.
Entirely true, but we'll, we'lljust go for that for the sake of
explaining this really simply.
So you've then got two partsof your brain functioning, as
well as your nervous system, andthey've all got their own agendas.
They've all got thingsthat they're trying to do.
Your logical brain mightbe really happy making big
decisions to grow your business.
That's what it wants to do.
It's really good at thinking, it'sreally good at planning, it's really
(08:02):
good at saying, you know what,I'm going to get this stuff done.
Meanwhile, your emotional brainand your nervous system are saying,
Are you actually kidding me?
I'm not going to let you do that.
There's no way you're going togo and grow this business because
that is not in any way safe.
And our job is to keep you safe.
Our job is to keep you away frombeing overwhelmed and stressed.
And that stuff that you think you'regoing to do, all that big decision
(08:22):
making and all of that moving forwardin your business, uh uh, no, that
is going to make you overwhelmed andthat's going to make you stressed.
And so the emotional brain and yournervous system kind of press the button.
procrastination button and boom, allof a sudden you are tidying your office
rather than writing your TED talk oryour latest course materials or your
latest stage presentation, whateverit might be, you're procrastinating.
(08:44):
So you are not in fact broken orfaulty because you procrastinate.
It's not your fault.
It's not because you're a useless person.
It's not because you'reno good at business.
It's not because your brain doesn't work.
It's not because you've got faulty wiring.
It's just your brain and yourbody working to protect you and
keep you safe as it's meant to do.
(09:04):
This is what your brain is meant to do.
The problem with this is thatyour brain doesn't have very
much of an update feature.
Very much of an update settings feature.
It can't reboot itself to giveit really good new programming.
So although neuroplasticity, which iswhere your brain is just constantly
developing and constantly changing,allows your brain to keep developing and
(09:25):
learning new things, your core programswon't automatically update themselves.
To do that you need to reallyunderstand what is happening
in your inner emotional world.
You need to increase your emotionalintelligence and recode your
inner world from the inside out.
And this is exactly whatI teach in my programs.
So if this is something you wantto learn how to do, head on over
to my website at www.suzibelmont.
(09:47):
com and you can see the programs I'vegot there or you can join waitlists
if they're not open at the moment.
What I do in my programswill really open your eyes.
As to how you reallyfunction on the inside.
And if you don't believe me go checkout some of the testimonials on my
website and you can see a whole bunchof previous clients that I work with
or current existing clients thatI'm working with at the moment who
have transformed their business andtheir emotional life for the better.
(10:10):
But what about for you today?
Well, what I want to give youtoday is some easy steps you can
take right now to help you handleyour tendency to procrastinate.
And I do want to emphasize that so muchof procrastination is rooted in your
nervous system and your emotional world.
So for long term change,we need to do work there.
But I can't do that on a podcast.
(10:31):
I can't do that in 20 minutes.
So if you want to go deeper, goand have a look at my website.
But for now, the following five steps arereally powerful action steps that you can
take to start getting a bit of clarity andfocus on how much you're procrastinating
and what you can do about it.
Chances are you do know quitea lot about how much you're
procrastinating, but it's what youcan do about it that really matters.
(10:52):
So step one, step one is kind of obvious.
You've got to start becomingmore aware of whether and how big
your procrastination actually is.
The first step is to get reallyclear on how much or whether you
are even procrastinating at all.
Now you might be aware that youdo it sometimes, but actually it
might not be as much as you think.
Or you may think that you aren'tdoing it much, but actually it's
(11:14):
happening almost all of the time andcompletely sabotaging your business.
Remember, this is an inner emotionaland nervous system response
to challenges in your life.
But it will show up and you will know thatit's there if you regularly find yourself
doing various things like the following.
I'm going to give youfive or six examples.
Are you constantly seekingto learn new things?
And what I mean by this is,are you procrasti learning?
(11:36):
Because it feels safer and easier.
i.e.
Less stress and overwhelm if youjust learn another new thing for
your business rather than face thething that you know you need to do?
Are you terrified of doing somethingin your business and then failing such
that it stops you and you procrastinate?
Do you try and make the futurefeel really, really certain before
(11:56):
you can commit to the next steps?
Because if you're doing this,you're procrastinating and
it removes your progress.
Do you tend to be alittle bit over positive?
What I mean here is that you over focuson the positive, but you try and avoid
unpleasant or more challenging situationsbecause you don't want to face them.
So if you just try and stay super positiveall the time, it means you kind of avoid
(12:18):
the more difficult, unpleasant things.
i.
e.
you procrastinate.
Are you putting up all sorts of barriersthat get in the way of you moving forward?
Although you might not realize thatyou're putting these barriers up
depending on how self aware you are.
But a bit of Suzi tough love here.
You are likely subconsciouslyputting barriers up to delay things
if that's what your subconsciousand your nervous system wants.
(12:40):
If they think that you're going toget overwhelmed and stressed out, then
the barriers are probably going up.
And you're going to be doing all sortsof things that won't feel like barriers,
they'll just, they'll feel random,like tidying up, or deciding that you
need to, you know, put stickers allover your notebook before you start
working, because that's really importantfor the day, and actually it isn't.
Things like that.
Do you feel a little bitdisconnected from your future self?
(13:03):
For example, you don't really want to haveto deal with any issues that your future
successful self might have to deal with.
This is another red flag aboutsomething going on in your inner world.
Or do you endlessly just tweakthings rather than moving forward?
So just constantly changing yourwebsite, constantly updating
little things that don't reallymove the needle in your business.
(13:23):
And I'm going to stop therebecause that's enough.
These are just some examplesof procrastination that
might be showing up for you.
If you want to get really clear onthis, if you're actually thinking, oh
my gosh, I'm a major procrastinator,I think, or I'm not sure, I'm not
sure how strong my procrastinationis, head on over to my website and
you can take the Emotional SurvivalPatterns quiz over there, the ESP quiz.
(13:43):
It's over at www.suzibelmont.
com and you'll know by the end of thatquiz exactly how strong procrastination is
in terms of your business and sabotagingbased on your inner emotional world.
Okay, step number two.
Assess how much you can consciouslyoverride your subconscious
mind and nervous system.
Now, step two, this is when you run alittle bit of a self diagnostic and see
(14:04):
how much you can override these systems.
But this comes with a big warning.
Because the truth is, it's really hard.
Willpower and logic rarely workto beat this inner subconscious
core programming inside of you.
So, do this by all means, but pleasedon't go and get all deflated if you
give this a go and you can't do it.
You're totally normal, if that's you.
(14:24):
If you can only willpower yourway a little bit through a
bit, that's completely normal.
But just because it's normaldoesn't mean that you should just
leave it there as a response.
If it's not working for you inyour business, if you're like, Oh
God, why do I always procrastinate?
It's driving me mental.
You can start to measure where you are.
And for some of you, a few really simplesteps make a difference at this point.
(14:46):
For example, number one, do thehardest job of your day first.
Eat that frog.
Many of you will have heard of EatThat Frog, and it's where you do
the most difficult thing first.
Number two, focus on the 20percent of work in your business
that actually moves the needle.
This is because procrastination livesin the other 80 percent of tasks that
are easier, but don't move the needle.
(15:08):
If you think this is where ittakes up residence, in the stuff
that doesn't move the needle.
Number three, work out where you arethe bottleneck in your business and
delegate or delete tasks that aren'tgoing to move you forward towards your
financial goals or your well being, yourbetter well being, well being goals.
And then number four, look at your R& R,and this is not your rest and relaxation,
(15:29):
but your results versus your routine.
How much of your work is focused onresults for your, you or your clients?
And how much is routine thatyou're just doing because you've
gone into remote control mode?
If you notice that you're doing a lotof routine things that actually are
not really getting results, reducethe routine and increase the results.
So, your step two in the steps thatI'm recommending is to get really
(15:53):
clear on how much you can actually moveforward, just using those four steps.
Do the hardest job first, focus on the 20percent that moves the needle, work out
where you're the bottleneck and stop beingthe bottleneck, and look at your R and R.
If you do this, and you stillcan't move forward, you know
that deeper work is involved.
But if you can move forward, then youget visibility on which are the stickiest
(16:15):
points of procrastination for you.
And you can start to eliminatethings or change things.
And if you can't do that, you start tosay, Well, okay, I need to do some deeper
work on this stuff so that I can reallystart to beat this procrastination.
And this is where you might end upin my world on one of my programs.
Step number three, start to listento your body rather than your mind.
Step three is to move away from yourthoughts and actions a little and start
(16:39):
observing what your body is doing.
How does your body respondwhen you procrastinate?
Now, whilst there isn't time in thispodcast to go into a full discussion
of nervous system regulation and soon, I can do that in another show.
The entrepreneurial nervous system willplay a big part in your procrastination.
So starting to become aware of whatis happening to your body when you
procrastinate will help you later on.
(17:01):
For example, when you're faced with reallydifficult tasks in your business, are you
typically falling into fight or flight?
Fight might show up by you pushing itaway and resisting doing it, or arguing
with someone about why you need to doit, or doing anything that you can think
of to fight it off, to get rid of it.
Flight might be actively runningaway from doing the work, so that
you are avoiding it completely,removing yourself, hiding from it.
(17:24):
This would reveal that your sympatheticnervous system is online, and you will
have certain physical markers of this.
As your body starts to prepare you,when your sympathetic nervous system
comes on, that's your fight or flightsystem, comes online, your body
starts to take action to prepare you.
So you might notice, if you're reallytracking your body, and, and maybe keep
some notes about this in a journal,so you can really see, You might
(17:46):
notice things like your heart rateincreasing when you think about the
difficult tasks that you're avoiding.
You might notice yourskin go a little bit pale.
You might notice a dry mouth ortense muscles, particularly around
your neck and your shoulders,like hunching up your neck.
This is something I do a lot and I haveto kind of recognize when I'm doing that.
Because it often means I've startedto go into that fight or flight state.
(18:06):
It's common.
You're not unusual if you do this.
So take a moment to pause and notice,is this how your body is responding?
Alternatively, your body maygo beyond fight or flight.
It may go past that.
It might be like, I can't fightthis and I can't run away from this.
And so it goes into a bit of shutdown.
It goes into a freeze mode.
And this is the more typicalhome of procrastination.
(18:27):
Here, you want to be lookingout for things like your body
feeling a little bit colder.
a lower heart rate or feeling alittle bit numb or spaced out, you're
kind of staring at the wall andyou realize after five minutes that
you're still staring at the wall.
You might notice that you hold yourbreath or you breathe really lightly and
you have a sense of dread or forebodingwhen you think about doing the task.
(18:48):
When you're in this freeze state, yournervous system is literally slowing
down and your inner world is settingyou up to ensure that you don't feel
the emotional stress and overwhelmby responding with procrastination.
It's like the littleprocrastination button gets pressed.
So at this stage in step three,just try to observe and become
(19:09):
aware of these bodily responses.
It's going to tell you so muchabout how you're responding
inside of you, which will helpyou unlock what's really going on.
Step four, this one is abouthaving a bit of self compassion.
So self esteem has kindof been put to one side.
A lot of people don't really approveof the self esteem thing, and it's
more about having self compassion.
(19:30):
And step four is to accept that youcan't fully eliminate procrastination.
Again, a little bit more of Suzi toughlove here, which is to really make
it clear that procrastination is anormal and fairly natural process.
Your body, your mind, your nervoussystem are actually trying to help you.
But a bit like listening to your satnav in your car talk to you in Japanese,
(19:52):
if you don't speak Japanese this is,there's a breakdown in communication
between your conscious world, your outerworld, and your inner subconscious world.
Now you don't want to get rid of allof these inner subconscious responses
because actually they do a reallyimportant job in keeping you alive.
For example, there are times when youneed to fight or you need to flight
(20:12):
when you're in a dangerous situation.
And at times, for example, if you can'tget out of a dangerous situation, you
need to be able to freeze because thatwill give you the best chance of survival.
And ultimately, what you'll endup needing to do is work with your
system once you understand it toupdate it so it starts to respond
with the right response internally.
That's how you start to manageprocrastination so that it doesn't
(20:34):
cripple you in building your business.
And that's what I do, as I'vementioned over on my programs.
But in the meantime, allowing yourself,giving yourself permission to get a
really good understanding of what ishappening will get you some of the way.
As I always say, awareness is so powerful.
One other important thing to mentionhere is that there is a fair bit of
psychological research these daysto show that procrastination is
(20:57):
good for entrepreneurs generally,and even more, that it can improve
your productivity and happiness.
And if you're interested in learningmore about that, there's a great
book by Adam Grant, I think it'sAdam Grant, which talks about the
benefits of strategic procrastination.
And he argues that procrastinationallows time for non linear ideas
to marinate, and that can lead tounexpected insights and solutions.
(21:21):
So I think there is some truth tothis that, again, there is another
reason why you don't want to entirelylose your procrastination ability.
Because, as an entrepreneur, youmay be typically used to taking
really fast action and really quickdecisions and always on the go
and always seeing opportunities.
But actually sometimes you want to beable to just pause and go wait a second.
Do I want to take allof these opportunities?
(21:43):
Maybe I need to let thismarinate a little bit.
Maybe I need to think this through.
So, don't always seeprocrastination as a bad thing.
There are at least two goodreasons that I've just gone through
on the podcast examples there.
And for those of you reallyinterested in reading more about the
benefits of procrastination, I willlink that book in the show notes.
Step number five, know that whenyou work on your inner world, your
(22:06):
outer world will start to change.
So this last step brings it all together.
By realizing that it's workingon understanding your emotions,
your emotional intelligence, yourconsciousness, and so on, that is where
you will really change your approachand your progress with procrastination.
So to recap on those steps, soyou've got them all neatly to hand
before I finish today, step numberone, really get clear on whether
(22:29):
you're You have a primary emotionalsurvival pattern of procrastination.
As well as just recording yourselfand noticing yourself, as I already
mentioned, you can pop on over to thequiz, the ESP quiz on my website, and that
will analyze your personality and yourbehavioral patterns and tell you where
on a scale procrastination comes out.
Step number two, gently run aself diagnostic and see whether
(22:49):
you can consciously override yoursubconscious mind and nervous system.
And you'll rememberthe four little points.
If you get any traction, which don'tgive yourself grief if you don't,
because it's nearly impossible tooverride your subconscious, but
if you get some traction, numberone, focus on the hard job first.
Two, focus on the 20 percentof work in your business that
actually moves the needle.
Three, Delegate or delete tasksand eliminate you as a bottleneck.
(23:11):
And four, look at your R& R.
In other words, yourresults versus your routine.
Reduce the routine andincrease the results.
Step number three, start to listento your body rather than your mind
so notice what your body is doingwhen you start to procrastinate.
And step number four, accept thatyou can't fully eliminate it.
And there's a reason why you can'tfully eliminate procrastination.
(23:32):
So don't try and just get rid ofsomething that you're supposed
to have in the first place.
And then finally last but not leaststep number five, know that when you
work on your inner world, your outerworld will also start to change.
And wherever you end up,let me know how you get on.
You can reach me on all of my socialsanytime, as you know, or you can
(23:53):
email me at support at suzibelmont.
com.
Finally, you know how much I loveconnections, so if you have enjoyed
today's show and you want me to producemore podcasts like this, then don't
forget to A, subscribe to the show,But B, don't forget to go and leave a
testimonial over on iTunes because itreally helps me having that connection
back from you and understandingwhether you're enjoying things or not.
(24:14):
All right, that's all from me today.
And next week's episodeis a really good one.
You're going to love this one.
It's all, I'm not, I'mnot going to tell you.
I'm not going to tell you.
It's just really good.
And I will see you next week.
Thank you for being with me heretoday and see you in the next episode.
Hello, I'm Suzi Belmont, and thisweek I am talking about one of
my all time favorite sabotages,which is procrastination.
But is it really a self sabotage?
Or is something else going oninside that has a hidden purpose?
If you want to find out, thenget yourself comfy doing whatever
you do when you listen to apodcast . This is your time now.
(00:23):
Enjoy the show.
Okay, let's go.
Hi, I'm Suzi Belmont, a multi sevenfigure entrepreneur with 15 years
experience, as well as a psychologyexpert, qualified coach, and therapist.
This podcast is your secret resourceto help you grow from the inside out.
It's like personal development forentrepreneurs and leaders, all wrapped
(00:45):
up in fun, positivity, and motivation.
So, pull up your chair and getready to change your life and
your business from the inside out.
This is the Inside OutEntrepreneur Podcast.
Hello everyone and welcome back tothe show, and today I am talking about
procrastination and your businessbecause, well, let's face it, it's a
(01:07):
big one for so many entrepreneurs, meincluded I am very, very guilty of this
and I'm not gonna hide that at all.
I want to show you in the show todayhow procrastination is not the negative
thing that everyone typically says it is.
It's not actually always a bad thing.
So keep listening to find out more.
And before we start, don't forget to hitthe subscribe button on the podcast so
(01:30):
that you get notified of future showswhatever platform you're on, hit that.
You can just hit subscribe there,that's the easiest way to find out.
However, those of you who do like to havean email reminder or something like that,
go over to my website on the podcastpage, and you can sign up to be reminded
by email of when there are new shows out.
Okay, right, on with the show andback to what I wanted to talk about
(01:50):
and get straight to the point becausethat's kind of the entire point of the
show and I can't fluff around talkingabout something else at the beginning
when the very topic of today'sshow is procrastination.
And specifically, procrastination aroundbig decisions, or even small decisions you
have to make each day in your business.
So, you all know that generally speaking,procrastination is framed as a super
(02:14):
frustrating, anxiety inducing, pileof shizzle that seems to take over the
inside of your brain and your body whereyou end up putting things off and then
you end up feeling really rubbish aboutputting the things off because you didn't
really want to put them off but youdidn't really want to do them either.
And then just to add a cherryon the cake, you're often aware
that you are procrastinating.
But you don't seem to be able to stop it.
(02:35):
And yes, if you are the listener whostarts your day by, um, tidying your
desk or your office or your kitchen,then yep, I am talking to you.
You know exactly who you are.
But what exactly is going on insideof you when you procrastinate?
Is it really a negative thing?
Is your brain intending to putyou in a place of negativity?
(02:56):
Well, let's start there.
Because contrary to what mostpeople might tell you, it's not
just your mind involved here.
It's not just your brain, it's not justyour mind, they're different things, but
anyway, we'll use the same thing for now.
It's your mind and your body.
And the way I see procrastination isthat it's a normal and natural protective
mechanism, rather than a negative habit.
(03:17):
So let's try and make that alittle bit easier to understand.
Imagine it like this.
Your body and your brain, from thevery beginning, has had to deal
with a lot of decisions and events.
And some of those decisions andevents were really overwhelming
and really hard to manage.
Some of them were so hard and sooverwhelming that your brain and your body
(03:38):
learnt to avoid those kind of situations.
So, one way of looking at yourprocrastination is that it's a totally
normal response by your body and your mindthat just doesn't want to have too much
stress or too much overwhelm happening.
I mean, it makes a lot of sense, right?
We're all led to believe that ifwe procrastinate, then it must mean
that something is wrong with us, thatwe're not doing things properly, that
(03:59):
our body or our brain isn't workingwell, that we're somehow faulty
or broken or not working properly.
But I really disagree here.
I think your body and your brain areworking perfectly when they procrastinate.
When you realize that the reason that theyare doing this is just to protect you from
having more stress, trauma, overwhelm,difficulty, and overwhelm really
(04:20):
is the word I want to focus on here.
It's like your brain and your bodyare saying, nah, you've had enough
overwhelm with this situation,so we don't want you to go there.
Now, it doesn't necessarily mean yourbrain and your body is getting this right.
That's another question.
But when you approach it from theangle of this is what it's trying
to do, it's trying to help you,you start to get a little bit
of a different perspective here.
(04:41):
So if your business is causing you tofeel a lot of stress and overwhelm, it
might simply be that your nervous systemis stuck in a place where it doesn't know
what to do, so it shuts down, and it triesto protect you from having more overwhelm.
It's trying to protect you, nota negative thing, not trying to
make you bad, not trying to makeyou broken or not good enough.
One of the ways that your system, yourbody, can try and protect you from more
(05:05):
overwhelm is using procrastination.
And procrastination is not reallyconnected, therefore, to the
event outside of you, as such.
It's not really about the event.
It's an inside out response.
And this is why we all responddifferently to the same kind of stressor.
Let's say there's a stress that happens,something happens in business, and
for one entrepreneur, one of you,that's not going to do anything.
(05:27):
That's not going to causeyou to procrastinate.
But for someone else, the same thingwill cause them to majorly procrastinate.
Because it's how their nervoussystem, that entrepreneur's
nervous system, is responding.
Depending on how your inner world is setup, how it's wired, how it functions,
will dictate how well you can handleouter world stress and overwhelm and
(05:48):
how much your inner system takes youinto procrastination to deal with that.
Or rather, your inner worldwill trigger this to stop you
having more stress and overwhelm.
And when you see procrastination inthis light, you realise that your
inner world is so bloody clever.
It's protecting you all of the time.
The problem, as I just mentioned,that you then have is that this
procrastination mechanism kind ofprotects you by stopping you do what your
(06:12):
conscious mind actually wants you to do.
And it becomes a battle of yoursubconscious and your body versus your
conscious prefrontal cortex brain.
That's the thinking executive part ofthe brain at the front of your head.
And this is a bit of an unfair battlebecause the way you are built as a human
means that the body and the subconsciousmind will always beat the conscious mind.
(06:33):
It's just quicker.
It just gets there faster.
I'm not going to go all neurosciencenerd on you here, but I do want
to touch a little bit on emotions,because the very core of this
is your inner emotional world.
Your emotions are not reallya part of your conscious mind.
You won't find yourselfthinking, you know what?
You know what?
I think a logical, sensibledecision today is to procrastinate.
(06:55):
That's not really how it works.
Your emotions are part of yoursubconscious world, along with
your entire nervous system.
And it is these two things workingtogether that impact how much you can
resist or beat your procrastination.
What you definitely know is trying tobeat procrastination and trying to beat
that world with your willpower, with yourthinking brain, doesn't usually work.
And to make it even harder, theseparts of your brain and your inner
(07:17):
system, your nervous system, arefunctioning in an automatic way.
Your system is making all of thesedecisions before you're even really
aware that the decision is being made.
So, if you think of the part of yourbrain that is involved in logical
thinking and decision making, this isthe bit I just mentioned behind your
forehead, your prefrontal cortex, butthen you think about your emotional
brain, which is not all in the sameplace, most people root that in the
(07:40):
middle of your head, which isn't the case.
Entirely true, but we'll, we'lljust go for that for the sake of
explaining this really simply.
So you've then got two partsof your brain functioning, as
well as your nervous system, andthey've all got their own agendas.
They've all got thingsthat they're trying to do.
Your logical brain mightbe really happy making big
decisions to grow your business.
That's what it wants to do.
It's really good at thinking, it'sreally good at planning, it's really
(08:02):
good at saying, you know what,I'm going to get this stuff done.
Meanwhile, your emotional brainand your nervous system are saying,
Are you actually kidding me?
I'm not going to let you do that.
There's no way you're going togo and grow this business because
that is not in any way safe.
And our job is to keep you safe.
Our job is to keep you away frombeing overwhelmed and stressed.
And that stuff that you think you'regoing to do, all that big decision
(08:22):
making and all of that moving forwardin your business, uh uh, no, that
is going to make you overwhelmed andthat's going to make you stressed.
And so the emotional brain and yournervous system kind of press the button.
procrastination button and boom, allof a sudden you are tidying your office
rather than writing your TED talk oryour latest course materials or your
latest stage presentation, whateverit might be, you're procrastinating.
(08:44):
So you are not in fact broken orfaulty because you procrastinate.
It's not your fault.
It's not because you're a useless person.
It's not because you'reno good at business.
It's not because your brain doesn't work.
It's not because you've got faulty wiring.
It's just your brain and yourbody working to protect you and
keep you safe as it's meant to do.
(09:04):
This is what your brain is meant to do.
The problem with this is thatyour brain doesn't have very
much of an update feature.
Very much of an update settings feature.
It can't reboot itself to giveit really good new programming.
So although neuroplasticity, which iswhere your brain is just constantly
developing and constantly changing,allows your brain to keep developing and
(09:25):
learning new things, your core programswon't automatically update themselves.
To do that you need to reallyunderstand what is happening
in your inner emotional world.
You need to increase your emotionalintelligence and recode your
inner world from the inside out.
And this is exactly whatI teach in my programs.
So if this is something you wantto learn how to do, head on over
to my website at www.suzibelmont.
(09:47):
com and you can see the programs I'vegot there or you can join waitlists
if they're not open at the moment.
What I do in my programswill really open your eyes.
As to how you reallyfunction on the inside.
And if you don't believe me go checkout some of the testimonials on my
website and you can see a whole bunchof previous clients that I work with
or current existing clients thatI'm working with at the moment who
have transformed their business andtheir emotional life for the better.
(10:10):
But what about for you today?
Well, what I want to give youtoday is some easy steps you can
take right now to help you handleyour tendency to procrastinate.
And I do want to emphasize that so muchof procrastination is rooted in your
nervous system and your emotional world.
So for long term change,we need to do work there.
But I can't do that on a podcast.
(10:31):
I can't do that in 20 minutes.
So if you want to go deeper, goand have a look at my website.
But for now, the following five steps arereally powerful action steps that you can
take to start getting a bit of clarity andfocus on how much you're procrastinating
and what you can do about it.
Chances are you do know quitea lot about how much you're
procrastinating, but it's what youcan do about it that really matters.
(10:52):
So step one, step one is kind of obvious.
You've got to start becomingmore aware of whether and how big
your procrastination actually is.
The first step is to get reallyclear on how much or whether you
are even procrastinating at all.
Now you might be aware that youdo it sometimes, but actually it
might not be as much as you think.
Or you may think that you aren'tdoing it much, but actually it's
(11:14):
happening almost all of the time andcompletely sabotaging your business.
Remember, this is an inner emotionaland nervous system response
to challenges in your life.
But it will show up and you will know thatit's there if you regularly find yourself
doing various things like the following.
I'm going to give youfive or six examples.
Are you constantly seekingto learn new things?
And what I mean by this is,are you procrasti learning?
(11:36):
Because it feels safer and easier.
i.e.
Less stress and overwhelm if youjust learn another new thing for
your business rather than face thething that you know you need to do?
Are you terrified of doing somethingin your business and then failing such
that it stops you and you procrastinate?
Do you try and make the futurefeel really, really certain before
(11:56):
you can commit to the next steps?
Because if you're doing this,you're procrastinating and
it removes your progress.
Do you tend to be alittle bit over positive?
What I mean here is that you over focuson the positive, but you try and avoid
unpleasant or more challenging situationsbecause you don't want to face them.
So if you just try and stay super positiveall the time, it means you kind of avoid
(12:18):
the more difficult, unpleasant things.
i.
e.
you procrastinate.
Are you putting up all sorts of barriersthat get in the way of you moving forward?
Although you might not realize thatyou're putting these barriers up
depending on how self aware you are.
But a bit of Suzi tough love here.
You are likely subconsciouslyputting barriers up to delay things
if that's what your subconsciousand your nervous system wants.
(12:40):
If they think that you're going toget overwhelmed and stressed out, then
the barriers are probably going up.
And you're going to be doing all sortsof things that won't feel like barriers,
they'll just, they'll feel random,like tidying up, or deciding that you
need to, you know, put stickers allover your notebook before you start
working, because that's really importantfor the day, and actually it isn't.
Things like that.
Do you feel a little bitdisconnected from your future self?
(13:03):
For example, you don't really want to haveto deal with any issues that your future
successful self might have to deal with.
This is another red flag aboutsomething going on in your inner world.
Or do you endlessly just tweakthings rather than moving forward?
So just constantly changing yourwebsite, constantly updating
little things that don't reallymove the needle in your business.
(13:23):
And I'm going to stop therebecause that's enough.
These are just some examplesof procrastination that
might be showing up for you.
If you want to get really clear onthis, if you're actually thinking, oh
my gosh, I'm a major procrastinator,I think, or I'm not sure, I'm not
sure how strong my procrastinationis, head on over to my website and
you can take the Emotional SurvivalPatterns quiz over there, the ESP quiz.
(13:43):
It's over at www.suzibelmont.
com and you'll know by the end of thatquiz exactly how strong procrastination is
in terms of your business and sabotagingbased on your inner emotional world.
Okay, step number two.
Assess how much you can consciouslyoverride your subconscious
mind and nervous system.
Now, step two, this is when you run alittle bit of a self diagnostic and see
(14:04):
how much you can override these systems.
But this comes with a big warning.
Because the truth is, it's really hard.
Willpower and logic rarely workto beat this inner subconscious
core programming inside of you.
So, do this by all means, but pleasedon't go and get all deflated if you
give this a go and you can't do it.
You're totally normal, if that's you.
(14:24):
If you can only willpower yourway a little bit through a
bit, that's completely normal.
But just because it's normaldoesn't mean that you should just
leave it there as a response.
If it's not working for you inyour business, if you're like, Oh
God, why do I always procrastinate?
It's driving me mental.
You can start to measure where you are.
And for some of you, a few really simplesteps make a difference at this point.
(14:46):
For example, number one, do thehardest job of your day first.
Eat that frog.
Many of you will have heard of EatThat Frog, and it's where you do
the most difficult thing first.
Number two, focus on the 20percent of work in your business
that actually moves the needle.
This is because procrastination livesin the other 80 percent of tasks that
are easier, but don't move the needle.
(15:08):
If you think this is where ittakes up residence, in the stuff
that doesn't move the needle.
Number three, work out where you arethe bottleneck in your business and
delegate or delete tasks that aren'tgoing to move you forward towards your
financial goals or your well being, yourbetter well being, well being goals.
And then number four, look at your R& R,and this is not your rest and relaxation,
(15:29):
but your results versus your routine.
How much of your work is focused onresults for your, you or your clients?
And how much is routine thatyou're just doing because you've
gone into remote control mode?
If you notice that you're doing a lotof routine things that actually are
not really getting results, reducethe routine and increase the results.
So, your step two in the steps thatI'm recommending is to get really
(15:53):
clear on how much you can actually moveforward, just using those four steps.
Do the hardest job first, focus on the 20percent that moves the needle, work out
where you're the bottleneck and stop beingthe bottleneck, and look at your R and R.
If you do this, and you stillcan't move forward, you know
that deeper work is involved.
But if you can move forward, then youget visibility on which are the stickiest
(16:15):
points of procrastination for you.
And you can start to eliminatethings or change things.
And if you can't do that, you start tosay, Well, okay, I need to do some deeper
work on this stuff so that I can reallystart to beat this procrastination.
And this is where you might end upin my world on one of my programs.
Step number three, start to listento your body rather than your mind.
Step three is to move away from yourthoughts and actions a little and start
(16:39):
observing what your body is doing.
How does your body respondwhen you procrastinate?
Now, whilst there isn't time in thispodcast to go into a full discussion
of nervous system regulation and soon, I can do that in another show.
The entrepreneurial nervous system willplay a big part in your procrastination.
So starting to become aware of whatis happening to your body when you
procrastinate will help you later on.
(17:01):
For example, when you're faced with reallydifficult tasks in your business, are you
typically falling into fight or flight?
Fight might show up by you pushing itaway and resisting doing it, or arguing
with someone about why you need to doit, or doing anything that you can think
of to fight it off, to get rid of it.
Flight might be actively runningaway from doing the work, so that
you are avoiding it completely,removing yourself, hiding from it.
(17:24):
This would reveal that your sympatheticnervous system is online, and you will
have certain physical markers of this.
As your body starts to prepare you,when your sympathetic nervous system
comes on, that's your fight or flightsystem, comes online, your body
starts to take action to prepare you.
So you might notice, if you're reallytracking your body, and, and maybe keep
some notes about this in a journal,so you can really see, You might
(17:46):
notice things like your heart rateincreasing when you think about the
difficult tasks that you're avoiding.
You might notice yourskin go a little bit pale.
You might notice a dry mouth ortense muscles, particularly around
your neck and your shoulders,like hunching up your neck.
This is something I do a lot and I haveto kind of recognize when I'm doing that.
Because it often means I've startedto go into that fight or flight state.
(18:06):
It's common.
You're not unusual if you do this.
So take a moment to pause and notice,is this how your body is responding?
Alternatively, your body maygo beyond fight or flight.
It may go past that.
It might be like, I can't fightthis and I can't run away from this.
And so it goes into a bit of shutdown.
It goes into a freeze mode.
And this is the more typicalhome of procrastination.
(18:27):
Here, you want to be lookingout for things like your body
feeling a little bit colder.
a lower heart rate or feeling alittle bit numb or spaced out, you're
kind of staring at the wall andyou realize after five minutes that
you're still staring at the wall.
You might notice that you hold yourbreath or you breathe really lightly and
you have a sense of dread or forebodingwhen you think about doing the task.
(18:48):
When you're in this freeze state, yournervous system is literally slowing
down and your inner world is settingyou up to ensure that you don't feel
the emotional stress and overwhelmby responding with procrastination.
It's like the littleprocrastination button gets pressed.
So at this stage in step three,just try to observe and become
(19:09):
aware of these bodily responses.
It's going to tell you so muchabout how you're responding
inside of you, which will helpyou unlock what's really going on.
Step four, this one is abouthaving a bit of self compassion.
So self esteem has kindof been put to one side.
A lot of people don't really approveof the self esteem thing, and it's
more about having self compassion.
(19:30):
And step four is to accept that youcan't fully eliminate procrastination.
Again, a little bit more of Suzi toughlove here, which is to really make
it clear that procrastination is anormal and fairly natural process.
Your body, your mind, your nervoussystem are actually trying to help you.
But a bit like listening to your satnav in your car talk to you in Japanese,
(19:52):
if you don't speak Japanese this is,there's a breakdown in communication
between your conscious world, your outerworld, and your inner subconscious world.
Now you don't want to get rid of allof these inner subconscious responses
because actually they do a reallyimportant job in keeping you alive.
For example, there are times when youneed to fight or you need to flight
(20:12):
when you're in a dangerous situation.
And at times, for example, if you can'tget out of a dangerous situation, you
need to be able to freeze because thatwill give you the best chance of survival.
And ultimately, what you'll endup needing to do is work with your
system once you understand it toupdate it so it starts to respond
with the right response internally.
That's how you start to manageprocrastination so that it doesn't
(20:34):
cripple you in building your business.
And that's what I do, as I'vementioned over on my programs.
But in the meantime, allowing yourself,giving yourself permission to get a
really good understanding of what ishappening will get you some of the way.
As I always say, awareness is so powerful.
One other important thing to mentionhere is that there is a fair bit of
psychological research these daysto show that procrastination is
(20:57):
good for entrepreneurs generally,and even more, that it can improve
your productivity and happiness.
And if you're interested in learningmore about that, there's a great
book by Adam Grant, I think it'sAdam Grant, which talks about the
benefits of strategic procrastination.
And he argues that procrastinationallows time for non linear ideas
to marinate, and that can lead tounexpected insights and solutions.
(21:21):
So I think there is some truth tothis that, again, there is another
reason why you don't want to entirelylose your procrastination ability.
Because, as an entrepreneur, youmay be typically used to taking
really fast action and really quickdecisions and always on the go
and always seeing opportunities.
But actually sometimes you want to beable to just pause and go wait a second.
Do I want to take allof these opportunities?
(21:43):
Maybe I need to let thismarinate a little bit.
Maybe I need to think this through.
So, don't always seeprocrastination as a bad thing.
There are at least two goodreasons that I've just gone through
on the podcast examples there.
And for those of you reallyinterested in reading more about the
benefits of procrastination, I willlink that book in the show notes.
Step number five, know that whenyou work on your inner world, your
(22:06):
outer world will start to change.
So this last step brings it all together.
By realizing that it's workingon understanding your emotions,
your emotional intelligence, yourconsciousness, and so on, that is where
you will really change your approachand your progress with procrastination.
So to recap on those steps, soyou've got them all neatly to hand
before I finish today, step numberone, really get clear on whether
(22:29):
you're You have a primary emotionalsurvival pattern of procrastination.
As well as just recording yourselfand noticing yourself, as I already
mentioned, you can pop on over to thequiz, the ESP quiz on my website, and that
will analyze your personality and yourbehavioral patterns and tell you where
on a scale procrastination comes out.
Step number two, gently run aself diagnostic and see whether
(22:49):
you can consciously override yoursubconscious mind and nervous system.
And you'll rememberthe four little points.
If you get any traction, which don'tgive yourself grief if you don't,
because it's nearly impossible tooverride your subconscious, but
if you get some traction, numberone, focus on the hard job first.
Two, focus on the 20 percentof work in your business that
actually moves the needle.
Three, Delegate or delete tasksand eliminate you as a bottleneck.
(23:11):
And four, look at your R& R.
In other words, yourresults versus your routine.
Reduce the routine andincrease the results.
Step number three, start to listento your body rather than your mind
so notice what your body is doingwhen you start to procrastinate.
And step number four, accept thatyou can't fully eliminate it.
And there's a reason why you can'tfully eliminate procrastination.
(23:32):
So don't try and just get rid ofsomething that you're supposed
to have in the first place.
And then finally last but not leaststep number five, know that when you
work on your inner world, your outerworld will also start to change.
And wherever you end up,let me know how you get on.
You can reach me on all of my socialsanytime, as you know, or you can
(23:53):
email me at support at suzibelmont.
com.
Finally, you know how much I loveconnections, so if you have enjoyed
today's show and you want me to producemore podcasts like this, then don't
forget to A, subscribe to the show,But B, don't forget to go and leave a
testimonial over on iTunes because itreally helps me having that connection
back from you and understandingwhether you're enjoying things or not.
(24:14):
All right, that's all from me today.
And next week's episodeis a really good one.
You're going to love this one.
It's all, I'm not, I'mnot going to tell you.
I'm not going to tell you.
It's just really good.
And I will see you next week.
Thank you for being with me heretoday and see you in the next episode.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.