I was listening to Cal Newport yesterday, and one thing that interested me was his philosophy on procrastination. I’ve read a lot of tips and tricks to combat procrastination, but they never seem to cure the the wound permanently. These philosophie gave a much explanation on why we don’t things.
We procrastinate because our brain doesn’t think it’s important enough. We all say we want to be physically fit, but most of us seems to lose our way somewhere. When we see the cupcake, pizza, etc. Or when we said we are going to exercise today but end up watching reruns of Game of Thrones. Our brain doesn’t seem to think of becoming healthy as important. How do we move from that to signaling our brain something is important? Write out the benefits and the purpose for you to do something. Beyond just thinking about the thirty push-ups. Where this will lead me towards would be better. Read that every time when you are about to take action or feel like not doing it. Imagine how you will feel after getting that workout done. Keep on consciously trying and trying (even if you are failing) to let the brain know that this not something to be taken lightly. The brain will figure out, ‘Oh! This dude is serious about this, oh well, let’s add this to our system’.
Our brain should realise that we have reasonable plans. Even if our brain find something important, it’s unlikely that we are going to stick around to do something unreasonable. Doing two-hundred push-ups today? Dude, you are struggling to do five, might as well not do anything today. A reasonable plan would be to start small and build on day-by-day. Having a place, time and method planned out and added to your calendar. Breaking down into smallest building blocks as possible. Making a task un-icky as possible.
If we constantly build on these philosophies, we are definitely going to be on the right path and probably will dodge all the fake motivation and band-aid solutions that self-help world try to shove up our asses. Maybe then, the band-aid tricks and tips will be helpful.
P.S.- Study update: I did a little bit more than the day before. Not exactly everything I wanted to, but I’m slowly moving forward. Today’s plan is the same, to go on the path.
Photo by Ian M Jones on Unsplash
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