How To Stop Procrastinating in 5 Minutes

[At the risk of losing customers for The Stuckbuster Sessions, I present to you guest blogger Mike Reeves-McMillan and his amazing quick fix for procrastinators. See how much I care about you? ~LaVonne]

I read a good book recently about the presentation style of Steve Jobs, the Apple CEO. Apart from the actual presentation stuff, I was interested in his definition of success. He stated in as many words that the $100 million he was worth by the time he was 25 “didn’t matter”. What matters to him is that he has got the chance to do something he loves, something he believes in, and something he believes has a positive impact on the world.

More and more of us are coming round to that definition of success. If you’re one of them – and I hope you are – you may have faced some of the issues I’ve faced, and continue to face sometimes: thoughts and emotions that interfere with effective action, lack of clarity about your direction, inner resistance, interference from old habits and ways of thinking, lack of confidence, and procrastination.

As a hypnotherapist, of course, I have tools and techniques to deal with these, and one of my favourites is the approach that I call Energy to Act Now. It’s an anti-procrastination method, and it’s based on a Neuro-Linguistic Programming technique called anchoring.

What we’re going to do is associate energy and enthusiasm with a touch of the finger and thumb on one hand, and lack of energy and procrastination with the corresponding touch on the other hand. Then we’ll bring them together and replace the negative with the positive. Ready?

Start with the positive. Think of a memory, as clearly and strongly as possible, where you were filled with energy, enthusiasm and flow. Summon it up with all of your senses and make it as intense as you possibly can. Take as long as you need to make it really vivid and clear.

Now take one of your hands – the hand you do most things with is a good choice – and press your thumb firmly to one of the fingers, and associate that finger press with the feeling of energy and enthusiasm.

And when it’s good and clear, let go the finger press, and think of your phone number to clear your mental state.

Now we’re going to switch over and think about the experience of procrastination. There’s a resistance there, something that you don’t want to face and don’t want to do. And instead of the energy flowing, it’s circling round and pushing back against you, interfering with itself so that you don’t do that thing, even though it may be something really valuable and worthwhile that serves your goals. So summon up that negative feeling and experience, and link it to a corresponding finger-press on your other hand.

When you’re finished, think about your street number to clear your mental state.

And now what we’ll do is first re-summon that feeling of resistance using the finger press, but this time just observing it, not pumping any energy into it but letting it just be there. Watching it like you’d watch a car going past on the road, not in the car but watching the car, like it’s nothing really to do with you.

And now switch hands and summon up that feeling of energy and enthusiasm, and let it fill you and flow strongly.

And back to the negative, letting it go past. And switch back and forth, over and over, faster and faster, so that the inflow of energy is coming quicker and quicker over the other feeling. And finish with a good long dose of the positive energy.

Now create an imaginary future memory of being in a situation where, in the past, you’ve tended to procrastinate. And bring that flowing energy into it, and watch yourself as you just deal with it and complete it and move on to the next thing.

And when you’re really in that situation, you can access your anchor for positive energy and enthusiasm that you’ve created, and enjoy the flow as it carries you through and out the other side.

Success!

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