Jeff Howell: The Power of Procrastination!

Hey, everybody, this is Jeff Howell coming at you with another mindset Monday. And today I want to talk about the power of procrastination. And we’ve talked a little bit about procrastination before, but I want to talk about it today more in terms of how it relates to our accountability groups and how it relates to our quarterly planning in general. And so we are three weeks, about 3 to 4 weeks into the quarter. I realize that this is the last week of July, last week or the last week of the first month of Q three, in other words. So we are almost one third of the way through. Q three. So if you’ve set big goals for yourself, in my experience in going through the phases of of setting quarterly goals and taking action towards meeting those goals and realizing the benefits of those of those goals, reaching those goals that right now is the time when procrastination is probably going to be the most prevalent. So what does that mean for us? Well, and how do we get power of it so well, procrastination really comes up when after you’ve set these hopefully big goals for yourself, you come up against the reality of what it’s going to take to actually realize those goals. And so that can be overwhelming. And so the power that I’m going to relay to you is that once you get into that phase, the power of the procrastination is really in realizing that that’s what’s happening, is that you’re in the procrastination and that you can turn that procrastination into action.

Because once you really start taking action, that’s when you’re going to see the benefit. And so hopefully you have set your goals out, like in the beginning of the planning phase and then you set out some of the actions that you would have to take to get there and this could be skills that you need to build, resources that you need to gain different creative thinking or solutions that you need to realize so that you can push yourself and your business closer and closer towards the goals that you set out for yourself over the 90 days. So what I always do when I’m in this phase and realize that, wow, I’m overwhelmed, how am I ever going to get to this destination that I’ve set for myself over the next 90 days? But in looking at the different steps and actions, maybe you broke them down in great detail. Maybe you broke them down in only a little bit of detail. But now if you’re in a phase of procrastination and you’re putting things off or you’re overwhelmed in general, the trick would be to go back and look at those action steps that you set out for yourself. And if those seem too big, I mean, ideally you would just start taking action on those things. But if you didn’t set out enough detail and those things are even overwhelming, then break those things down even further. Whatever those specific action items would be, if you can break them down into even more and more bite sized pieces, then that’s going to give you the ability to take some action.

So that’s the key really and the power of procrastination is in realizing that it’s time to start taking some action, even if it’s only a little bit if you can only break it down into the smallest bite sized piece or step that you can take towards your goal and you take one of those actions every day this week, you’ll find that after you do that for a few days, you will start to gain some momentum, you’ll start to gain some greater confidence. You’ll make your way through this mental sort of state that you’re in, and you’ll find it to be easier and easier to start taking more and more action and get closer and closer to the goals that you’ve set out for yourself. So that’s how I can see the power of procrastination really coming into play at this point in our journey through the Q three accountability and goal setting groups. So I hope that you guys are doing well so far and you’ve gelled as a group and that you are going to hold each other accountable for these next few weeks is I think this is where the real overwhelm can be going straight from the goal setting and straight into the space or the time phase when the real action needs to start taking place. And if you don’t make it through this phase, you’re not going to make it through the rest of the quarter to get to where you want to be in reaching your goals.

So I would highly recommend that if you are in your accountability groups and you have the ability to kind of touch base on where you’re at as far as taking action, how many actions are you taking a day, you know, how are you breaking those actions down? Do you find that you guys are needing to break them down into bite more and more bite sized pieces of those people in the accountability groups who are taking action? How are they succeeding in taking this action? How are they motivating themselves to take that action? And how is that working out for them? Those would be the types of discussions that I would want to be having so that everybody can get the benefit of moving through this phase and starting to get on the path of some real momentum behind the actions that they’re taking on the on the path to realize these goals. So that’s my mindset Monday for today is don’t be afraid of procrastination and fact. Turn that into a superpower, Turn procrastination into a superpower so that you can get through this quicker and reach the goals that you’ve set out for yourself. I hope you enjoyed this video. Let me know in the comments how it’s working out for you, how you guys are interacting, and don’t be afraid to reach out. If there’s anything that we can do for you to help you along the path. I hope you enjoyed it and we’ll see you on the next one. Take care. Peace.

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